The Klondike express (page 2)
The abrasions are a scant price to pay for gaining the summit.
Above the treeline, the view is staggering and immense. The
Alaska Highway snakes away to the north. Whitehorse lies 20
kilometres to the southeast, and we see the forbidding ridge of
sawtooth mountains, beyond which is Alaska. It looks like an
impossible passage.
WHEN I WAS GROWING UP in Calgary, my father frequently
played the recorded poems of Robert Service, read out in the
stentorian tones of J. Frank Willis, a voice that will forever
occupy a basement corner of my memory. And so it seems
only fitting, as we drive the empty highway from Whitehorse to
Skagway to catch the train at its historical departure point, that
we listen to "The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and "The Cremation
of Sam McGee.” The only recording I could find was in the rather
histrionic Scottish brogue of Service himself, his voice wheezing
out, "The Northern Lights have seen queer sights / but the
queerest they ever did see / Was that night on the marge of Lake
Lebarge / I cremated Sam McGee.” I ask Jess and Grace what
they think of Service's idiosyncratic reading.
"Cool,” says Jessica.
"Creepy,” says Grace.
Almost as fascinating as the poetry is Service's biography. He
was in love with the Yukon, though he moved around a fair bit,
all over America, then served in the First World War as an
ambulance driver and afterward, lived for a time in Paris before
returning to Dawson City. But one thing he loved about the
North was the sense of the unexpected.
There are, of course, things you expect to see - bush and
bears and wild rivers and pristine lakes - and then there are
things that shock you. Like a desert. Not far from the point where
the Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia borders touch, we
come upon the Carcross Desert. A sign on the side of the road
declares it "Canada's Smallest Desert.” We step out of the car
and onto the set of The English Patient. An ancient lake bed, part
of which still snakes out onto the shore of Lake Bennett, the
Carcross Desert is a series of a dozen or so sparsely treed hills covered in a perfect, fine-grain sand, that flash up the side of the
mountain bowl. We doff our shoes, and the girls scamper to the
top of the farthest hill, jumping and gambolling about as if we'd
taken them to Arabia, not Alaska. It isn't Lake Lebarge, but it
seems considerably more alien.
We continue on to Skagway and awake the next morning and
find the Chocolate Claim, a lovely coffee shop with a frontier
mentality, the mindset that says, "In a landscape this harsh, your
problem's got to be pretty serious for me to worry about it.”
When it comes time to pay, I find myself cashless and pull out
my ATM card.
"Our machine is down,” says the clerk. "Cash only.”
"I'm afraid I don't have any cash. Is there a bank with an ATM
anywhere around here so that I can go get some cash?”
"There's only one bank in town, and it has the only ATM in
town.” She pauses. "It's down too.”
"So I can't use cards, and there's nowhere to get cash.” I raise
my eyebrows. "Any suggestions?”
Her gaze is a shield the sharpest spear of sarcasm won't
penetrate. "Nope.”
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