On the marge of Lake Laberge

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

WHITEHORSE, YK — We’re back in the Yukon’s capital tonight, so that Mum can catch her plane tomorrow afternoon. She’s been great company this week, gamely taking on all our activities and pitching in to help wherever she could. Our only hope is that we haven’t worn her out! She says not!

Even though we were retracing our steps along the Klondike Highway back from Pelly Crossing to Whitehorse, we saw a number of new things; one reason was because we had passed them by on the way up with intention of catching them on the way back. The other was that, when we headed north, we were fogged in for quite a distance, and simply could not see the landscape, but today it was perfectly clear.

Our first stop today was at the Montague House, one of the roadhouses that travelers stayed at in the early 1900s when they were traveling in the Klondike. Old photographs at the remains of the roadhouse showed horse-drawn sleighs carrying up to a dozen passengers, bundled up to their ears in thick fur coats and wrapped with blankets — and the sleighs were open to the air! Imagine the wind chill in minus 40 weather clipping along the frigid track!

We had to stop at Braeburn Lodge again to see if a cinnamon bun tasted any different southbound, compared to northbound. It took several nibbles to determine this subtle difference. We added a light lunch to clear our palates so we could perform further taste tests afterward. The bun passed, but we brought the remaining half with us for follow-up later.

It was lovely seeing the beautiful Yukon landscape going the other way; we passed through a couple of areas that had been devastated by forest fires, and observed clumps of purple-pink fireweed growing on the forest floor between stark, bare trunks of burned pines.

When we saw the sign for Lake Laberge, we turned to see up close the lake that Robert Service had immortalized in The Cremation of Sam McGee. It’s 40 miles long and a beautiful pale green, with multi-coloured mountains on the far side. The Yukon government has a campground that operates on the honour system: campers are expected to put their cash payment in an envelope in a special deposit box indicating which site they have chosen.

On the way back out to the highway, we stopped at Mom’s Bakery, a home business that was mentioned in the guidebook. There was Tracie Harris, alias Mom, pulling some weeds by the gate, and she cheerfully invited us in. She had a lovely flower and vegetable garden with tables and umbrellas set out for visitors, each decorated with a pot bursting with pansies. Poppies, lilies and even fragrant lilac bushes, still in bloom, grew in profusion next to her tomato, lettuce and carrot plants. Inside the house was her little bakery shop with pies, enormous cookies, cinnamon buns and Nanaimo bars set out for sale. We chatted with Tracie for a few minutes and then Val asked her about the unusual ring she was wearing — a huge lumpy blob of gold nuggets studded with diamonds. She told us she had mined the nuggets herself!

She had been doing some research for Noranda and kept running across the name of one prospector whose claim was right around the countryside she knew like the back of her hand. It pinpointed a creek in a place where no creek existed, so she decided to check it out. As she climbed the hill, she could hear water running but still saw no creek. Finally she pulled back some of the moss on the ground and discovered an old wooden sluice with water running down it. The riffles, or cross pieces in the sluice, showed quite a bit of wear, and when she reached down to touch one, it was completely rotted. So, she took out the riffles and laid them out on a tarp to dry out, and when they were completely dry, she took them home and burned them in her fireplace. There in the ashes were tiny nuggets of gold!

Since that discovery, Tracie has been digging for gold, and finding it with regularity. Her face wrinkled into a huge grin as she related this amazing story! She has hired people to work the claim so she can stay home playing with dough, as she puts it, while they make dough for her among the pines and black flies.

As she told her story, I glanced over her shoulder into the rest of the house behind her, with its wood stove and pine-paneled walls. “Hello,” said a friendly voice — and I looked around some more, to discover a huge, colourful parrot sitting atop a large perch inside the doorway! When we left, Tracie told Joey the parrot to say “bye-bye”. It was a memorable visit, and we have some yummy souvenirs as well.