A Little Klondike Tail

Love in the land of the midnight sun.

There is very little explicit sex in this tale - merely allusion. The rest I leave to your imaginations, which I am sure are better than mine. So, that being said, if you're adventurous enough to take a trip through one of the 19^th centuries defining moments, please read on. And please leave a comment if you like.

*****

In late August 1897, it had only been just over a month since two steamers had reached Seattle and San Francisco each bearing the legendary, hugely exaggerated by the newspapers, 'A Ton of Gold.' Newspapers embellished and repeated the news all across the continent and indeed around the world. And the 'Rush' was on. Desperate hordes, ravaged by the severe depression that gripped the continent, with no idea of what they were getting themselves into, sought passage to the mythical gold fields, were one supposedly could pick up gold by the bucketful from one of the bountiful streams. They sought to get there by many different routes with many different degrees of hazard.

Of the estimated 100,000 or so, who set out for the Klondike, only 3 out of 10 would ever reach it and the rest would perish or turn back.

But of the ones who did reach their dream destination about 1 in 10 were females. And this yarn is about one of those adventurous young women finding gold in the Klondike.

*****

The harbour dock in Vancouver was crowded and bustling with gold-fever struck adventurers. Sam and his three fellow prospectors were busily unloading their supplies from a wagon, prior to reloading it on the little rust bucket tramp steamer that would take them to Dyea, where they could travel on to the Chilkoot pass into Canada, when a 100 lb. keg packed with a large sack of flour got loose and rolled down the dock. Just before it smacked into a gaggle of ladies which probably would have knocked them around like so many billiard balls, Sam managed to get ahead of it and slow it down. But in the process of doing that he lost his footing and in turn bowled over one of the women landing on top of her.

Pandemonium ruled. Sam hastily jumped back to his feet and perhaps a bit more roughly than he might have, yanked the woman back to her feet and ended up holding her in a tight embrace to steady her. He looked into her very pretty face, a look that she returned. A spark seemed to flow between them, and struck dumb with surprise neither of them made any effort to separate.

"Unhand her, you brute." A huge fat woman, who probably weighed in quite a few ounces over 300 lbs., bellowed and whacked Sam over the head with a rolling pin that she was inexplicably carrying. The momentary spell was broken and Sam released his ungentlemanly hold on the young woman but not before having noticed how nice she had felt in his arms. Sam turned around and glared at the fat woman, ready to disarm her if she took another swing at his sore head.

"Morton - where is my husband hiding? Ah, I see you - don't try and sneak away, Morton. Come over here and give this Lout a thrashing!"

"Yes Bertha Dear," said a skinny little sapling of a man who was half a head shorter and probably one third the weight of his wife. And a full foot shorter and half the size and weight of Sam. He screwed up his courage and demanded of Sam, "Please Sir, if you would be so kind - please apologize to Miss Crystal." He said very quietly in a resigned defeated tone, thinking that today might be the day he meets his maker, and at the same time thinking that might not be such a bad thing rather than having to face the wrath of Bertha for another day.

Sam almost laughed out loud as an image of Morton bedding his wife Bertha popped into his head. If - carried away in the throes of passion - she happened to roll over on top of him, she would squash him like a bug. But, he had to admit, the little fellow had a point.

Sam turned to the cute little thing he had recently been lying on top of, and extended a hand for her to shake. "Miss Crystal, I presume, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sam..."

"Yes, yes, yes," interrupted Bertha, "We don't need this formal hooey - we haven't got all day - our steamer is starting to board. Just apologize - get on with it man! Before I have Morton, here, carry out that thrashing."

"Miss Crystal, let me offer my humblest apologies for having knocked you down. I trust you were not harmed by my clumsiness."

Much to his delight she took his hand and they both felt that spark again, "apology accepted, Sam. But its Mrs. - my husband has already left on a different ship. He's going the cheaper route, it's all we could afford, up the Chilkoot pass over the mountains. We'll meet up in Dawson."

Perhaps it was because Sam still held her hand and she didn't feel compelled to withdraw hers from his strong embrace, but she felt the need to explain more to him. Perhaps it was just she wanted to keep on talking to this big strong man. She continued, "It's because Mr. Slink, the owner of the new entertainment establishment, The Last Chance Saloon, will only pay passage for the dancing girls - no Husbands except for Bertha's.

"That's me chimed in the diminutive, beanpole, Morten, and I'm going to work as her assistant cook and a barkeeper. And as for that tightwad, Slink, the only reason he's paying for a fast steamer ride all the way to Dawson is he needs a good cook and girls to dance in the new Saloon he's building; no girls, no miners; no miners, no gold!"

"Right, that's that then. Morton quit jawing and see to our luggage." Bellowed Bertha, "Hurry up Girls - it's a long voyage to Dawson! The Captain is most anxious to get underway and get to Alaska and then up and down the river into Canada before it has frozen up for the winter. Hurry along girls, fame and fortune awaits you!"

Before he reluctantly released her hand, Sam gave her a long appreciative look from top to bottom. He reckoned she was about his same age in her early twenties and tall like him but in a much more compact womanly shape at about five foot eight. He thought she could be a Valkyrie from one of those Nordic legends with her, long blonde haired, deep blue eyed, steady gaze and definitely all womanly shape with her wide hips, nice rounded bottom and very busty top.

Then sadly the moment was over and he released her to a young woman she called Rose who was making the usual female clucking noises about her misfortune while she petted her. And another female of indeterminate age identified as Grandma Ling was examining her dress and making clucking noises about, seagull donations and fish slime that are going to stain if they aren't taken care of right away. Crystal rejoined her group of ladies being shepherded aboard by the formidable and still armed with a rolling pin, cook and chaperone, Bertha - not that any of these young women would heed any chaperoning.

Sam didn't see it, but before Crystal followed her friends, to a woefully inadequate cabin for such a large group of women, she turned and admired again the six foot two Sam. He towered over most men of that age and his heavily muscled large frame lent a commanding presence to go along with his long blond haired, blue eyed gaze. She thought he looked like some Viking god from her Nordic ancestors' legends come back to earth, even though 'Sam' was more likely to be a given name for an Anglo Saxon Christian. Whatever, she wistfully hoped she would meet him again.

*****

Sam and the other three men trudged through the lightly falling snow that was adding to the solid base, that a surprising early October three day blizzard had blessed them with, here halfway up the mountain. It made hauling the sled that was weighed down with a ton of supplies including over a thousand pounds of grub, enough to feed one man for one year, easier. It was the minimum amount required by the Mounties, of the God Fearing, country called Canada, to be allowed entry into the Yukon Territory in the years of the gold rush.

The red serge, British army uniform surplus, clad Mounties religiously enforced 'Canadian law and order' at the top of the Chilkoot pass, on the unruly and sometimes rebellion inclined American, anarchist prospectors with the passive yet persuasive presence of a newly invented loaded and manned Maxim machine gun. The steely eyed, square jawed, Mounties also confiscated any open holstered and publicly flaunted side arms favored by some later-day, wanna-be cowboy, gunslingers.

All of this time the local Tlingit natives were laughing their asses off at the silly, green horn, city slickers most of whom they figured would soon come to ruin in the brutally harsh Yukon, and they were right. But meanwhile, the happy natives were becoming filthy rich by packing the miners stuff up the notoriously horrific Chilkoot pass at a mere dollar a pound and from one hundred to as much as two hundred pounds per trip.

They also had an extra lucrative side hustle going on in a ramshackle shack whereby any prospector who felt the need to relieve his stress and had the spare cash, for fifty bucks, could indulge in a newly invented ritual called the squaw dance and he could poke a hontas until his delight was satisfied. These natives were the real winners of the gold rush and perfected, almost by accident, the art of mining the miners.

Since they couldn't afford the exorbitant native packing fee, and certainly not the other services offered by them, each of Sam's party had to climb the Chilkoot pass a staggering twenty times with a hundred pounds on their backs each time.

*****

Once at the top they assembled their sled. The heavy sled was packed with the typical supplies of: coffee, bacon, sugar, coffee, tea, beans, flour, spices and condiments, a small keg or two of over proof rum or whiskey. And the usual: bedding, tent, lamp, pot, and a kettle - Oh and of course, an axe, a mining pan, a shovel, and a pick for mining - and 40 pounds of nails to build a boat and a necessary shelter from the deadly 40 below winds, shack. Let's not forget a good rifle and ammunition. All told it was quite a load and the miners had made this trip four times, - once for each man's supplies. They were thanking their God that this was the last of the arduous trips from the top of the Chilkoot pass to Lake Bennet.

But this was just the first and shortest leg of their journey to the gold fields. Although they thought this, relatively short, 33 mile trek was hard enough, they still had another 531 mile voyage, after they spent the first winter crafting a boat, to reach Dawson city close to the gold streams.

*****

When the erstwhile miners still suffering from gold-fever finally reached Dawson City, after the ice had finally burst on the lakes and river, they had their fantasy bubble rudely burst when they were greeted with the news that most of the promising gold creeks had already been staked - anything that was left was considered to be 'unlikely prospects.' One decided to quit right then and there and try to get passage downriver on one of the few leaky, way past their prime, steamers brave, or perhaps just foolish, enough to venture up the interminable river - which is almost as long as the Mississippi - and take a relatively leisurely, if you had enough money left to afford the watery gruel they called food on board, boat ride back to civilization. Well, to at least the mudflats of coastal Alaska, and there get passage back down south. The other three pooled their resources and bought an existing half-claim from a, sometime-miner, lately professional gambler who was known as, Brooklyn-Bridge Slim which creature they met running the gambling in the Last Chance Saloon.

*****

Image their shocked surprise! It was almost a total bust. After labouring through what was left of the summer and all of their second winter in the Yukon, painstakingly using, repeated fires to thaw through fifteen feet of permafrost to reach bedrock they only had enough gold, after paying outrageous prices for a few meager supplies to stave off starvation, to fill a tin mug. Split three ways it would maybe pay their fares on a riverboat downriver, in next spring's warm mid-May, or maybe June's weather, that would finally break the river ice, and then on to San Francisco. That was it for two more of the miners as they swore to pack it in.

But the final miner, Sam, was made of sterner stuff. He was an experienced outdoorsman having spent some time in the high snow blasted Rocky Mountains and for that reason better equipped physically and mentally for the hardships he was faced with. He was determined that he'd make his mark in the boom town of Dawson City that had ballooned from 500 souls to over 17,000, greater than Vancouver's, since the rush began.

They were pulling their trusty but nearly empty sled, which they had towed behind their boat through the dangerous eddies and rapids of the Canadian portion of the mighty Yukon River all the way from Lake Bennett, over the remaining patchy snow and ice. They hoped to sell it and their now unwanted camping and mining gear for a few bucks in Dawson.

That was when they came upon Gertie.

*****

Gertie

The new born Moose calf was struggling to stay on her wobbly legs while her mother and a massive Grizzly bear were fighting over her. The bear won.

Well, except for the fact that three rifles fired in short succession settled the battle in Gertie's favour.

Sadly, Gertie's mother didn't make it.

Knowing that this windfall would sell for quite a nice chunk of gold in the near starving town of Dawson, the intrepid miners, turned hunters, soon gralloched and also removed unwanted trophy heads from the two losers and loaded the valuable meat onto the sled. With a combined load of over a ton it was, as they say in Canada, 'tough sledding,' but they managed to haul their prize over the early spring ice and snow into Dawson and right to the saloon-eatery known as 'The Last Chance Saloon' that they knew would buy it from them.

Gertie, named by Sam after his kid sister, Gertrude, who had died years earlier from consumption, had followed her mother's scent behind them. None of them had the heart to put the newly born and orphaned, in the same day, calf down.

The shifty looking Saloon owner, Slink, gave them several ounces of gold for the meat and gear and their claim - no doubt he would have Bertha serve the meat up in a month's worth of stews and make a handsome profit on the deal for the whole outfit. That was the most gold the defeated miners were to get in the Yukon. Bonus, the hotelier even traded them a case of watered down whiskey for the sled. But first the dishonest fellow removed four bottles of the dozen that originally came in the case, but they no longer cared.

They went into the fine establishment to enjoy their new found wealth. And Gertie, who had bonded to them, just naturally followed along.

"Miners we serve whiskey to, minors we don't!" announced, Slink, the slick hotelier-barkeep, when they sat down at a table in the nearly empty saloon. "And ya can't drink your own whiskey in here -ya gotta buy whiskey from me." And with that he plonked a bottle down on the table that looked suspiciously like it was most likely one that he had just pilfered from their case.

"Ok...well if you won't serve whiskey to Gertie, then fetch her a half a bucket of beer," demanded Sam.

With an incredulous raised eyebrow look on his face the barkeep accepted a newly acquired and as quickly gone gold nugget which he quickly weighed on his bar mounted weight scale, as payment and retreated behind the bar muttering something about crazy miners the whole time. He told his sidekick to put down the mop which he had been laconically and ineffectively pushing around the still filthy floor, to fetch a half bucket of beer for the moose.

The sidekick, when he arrived at their table, imperiously introduced himself as, Winston, Winston, the Third, of the Boston Winston's which didn't mean anything to any of the miners and thus they didn't give a hoot about his lofty airs. Their disdain for his pretensions were not to Winnie's liking. But he was used to being looked down on and ignored. But he was toting a half filled bucket of beer. "Just so's y'all knows - I ain't cleanin' up after no pet moose - any accidents are y'alls problem!" he said as he plunked the bucket of beer on the floor behind Gertie which startled her enough that she raised her little stubby tail and let loose a stream on Winnie's pant leg.

She turned around after he left, shaking his sodden pant leg, and sniffed at the beer, a bit uncertainly. Then sniffed again and tried dipping her tongue in it. Then she started, slowly at first, then more confidently lapping it up.

One of the early to rise Hurdy-Gurdy girls came over and said, "That isn't hardly right! Who belongs to that moose?"

"I do! Names...Crystal? Is that really you?"

"Well, Crystal is my name. I thought your name was, Sam. And, Sam, I thought you were a gentleman. Your Momma would be heartily ashamed of you treating your pet that way! Give me five dollars and I'll go and fetch a pail of milk from this John I know who's got a couple of milk cows - or maybe they're goats. I couldn't hardly tell because he wasn't exactly talking straight before he passed out while dancing with me."

Sam gave her a long appreciative look from top to bottom. He couldn't hardly credit it that he had managed to meet up with her again in this continually shifting and seething sea of humanity on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

"Crystal, I can't believe my luck- what are the odds of us meeting. How nice to see you. I've thought of you often over the past lonely months, I wondered if we'd ever see each other again. And how about your husband?"

"Sadly, he didn't make it. This nice young Mountie came and told me they'd pulled his body out of the river below the rapids. They knew where to look for me from a letter he had on him when he drowned. But that was a year ago - I'm mostly over it now."

"I'm sorry...I don't know what to say..."

"I know, you're the shy type. We can talk some more when I get back, but right now, you've got a hungry baby to feed. If you're done gawking give me five bucks - gold will do. And I'll fetch some milk."

Sam did.

She went and returned after a while with the pail of milk.

Gertie slurped that up with gusto - Right after she finished off her beer.

Even though she was just a new-born, Gertie stood three feet tall on her spindly legs and weighed almost 40 pounds. When she raised her stubby little tail straight up, after filling her belly with beer -as all beer drinkers know, you only actually rent it - Sam knew what was about to happen and, heeding Winnie's warning clamped the, not yet house broken, baby moose's tail down on her rump, picked Gertie up and hustled her outside to let her take care of the urgent business in the mucky street.

That taken care of, Gertie followed him back inside. On their way back to their table some newly arrived, in the slowly filling up with an afternoon crowd, yahoo, drunkenly slurred out, "What in tarnation is that? Dinner on the hoof?"

"That, my Yankee friend, is the Dawson City Champion beer drinker. She can drink you under the table!" quipped Sam, trying to blow the drunk off.

"Say what? No way! I got ten dollars says I kin drink more than your baby moose! And still get up and dance a jig, or maybe more, with one of the hoes!"

"You're on," said Sam, slamming a small nugget of gold down on the table.

"Barkeep - set us up!"

The barkeeper's assistant, Winnie, brought over two half buckets of beer and two glasses. Embarrassed, he snuck one glass back into his apron pocket. "Just so's ya'll knows, I ain't cleaning up after your drunkin friend, if'n he cain't hold his beer!"

"Who you saying can't hold their beer?" slurred the drunk just before he threw up beer, bean and bear stew all over Winnie's other pant leg.