Questing for Gold and Furs in Alaska

Abstract

edited by SVERRE ARESTAD 3 Questing for Gold and Furs in Alaska The complement two sets of each experiences other. Both recorded narratives here in concern a sense complement each other. Both narratives concern young men who, around the turn of the century, cast their lot with fur trappers, traders, and gold seekers looking for quick if not easy wealth in the Klondike gold fields, and in the fur trade in the even more forbidding wastes of the frozen Arctic coast of northern Canada. I Our gold prospector, "Yakima Pete" Norby, left Yakima, Washington, shortly after the news of the gold strike in the Klondike had spread throughout the world. From Seattle he shipped north by boat to the infant but roaring and rowdy town of Skagway, at the end of the Lynn Canal in southeastern Alaska. From there he trekked on horseback, on foot, and by boat over White Pass, through a chain of many lakes which empty into the Yukon River, and to Dawson down the Yukon. After four years and ten months "in and around Dawson," Yakima Pete returned to the Pacific Northwest, never to visit Alaska again. My only meeting with Peter Norby took place in his home at Port Townsend, Washington, in the fall of 1944. He and 54 QUESTING IN ALASKA his wife, the former Anna Bendixen of Port Townsend, were congenial, hospitable people. Norby, who was then seventy, seemed much younger, with a good deal of physical energy, a lingering spirit of adventure, and a head full of plans. One of them was to write a book about his prospecting days in Alaska that would bring in "a lot of money," a plan about which his wife expressed some skepticism. Six months later, I received a twenty-four-page manuscript from Norby, a part of which is reproduced here. So far as I know, that is all he ever wrote. His account of gold prospecting, reflecting his buoyant optimism , self-reliance, and good humor, is distinguished by his refusal to dwell upon the sordid aspects of life in the mining camps. According to the Port Townsend Leader of February 11, 1954, Peter Norby was "one of this area's best known pioneer residents . . . widely known for his fraternal, sports and civic activities over a long period of years." He was, for example , an "ardent skier and salmon fisherman," an original member of the volunteer fire department, a member of the Pioneers of Alaska, and an active participant in the Jefferson County Historical Society. Norby was born in Trysil, Norway, August 28, 1874. When he was ten he "began work as a cattle herdsman. At the age of 12 in 1886, he came to the United States and settled at Bloomington [Blooming] Prairie, Minn, where he worked on a farm. He came to Port Townsend in 1889 and worked for the Sawbridge Hardware Co., later going to Yakima to work for the same company." Norby 's account, completed at Port Townsend in 1945, is entitled "A Few Reminiscences about My Trip from Yakima, Washington, to the Klondyke in 1897." In the version to follow , alterations from his manuscript consist of condensation, some rearrangement of material, the rewriting of a few sentences for clarity, and standardizing of spellings for consistency . The flavor of the original has been retained. s. a. 55 FROM YAKIMA TO THE KLONDIKE IN 1897 by Peter ("Yakima Pete") Norby The story that I am about to tell is all true, and although some of the anecdotes may seem a bit exaggerated, they are not. When I mention Fred, Tony, Dick, John, Roxy, and Riley, I mean Fred Jungst, Tony Krober, Dick McDaniel, and John Miller, while Roxy and Riley were the two horses that Fred Jungst and I rode to Seattle from Yakima, and which we took to Skagway by boat and used to pack our outfits in to Lake Rennett. Lieutenant Wyckoff, a retired navy man, asked me at the dinner table in Mrs. Stone's boarding house on North Railroad Avenue in Yakima in the first part of August, 1897, if I would go to the Klondike if they would stake me. For the information of people who did...