I broke three of my strict rules of the road yesterday.
Rule #1: never, ever, ride Henk after even one drink.
Rule #2: never, ever, ride down a deserted gravel road behind an eccentic old miner in pursuit of a gold mining story.
Rule #3: never, ever, share a cabin with a complete stranger.
Around 4pm I was finishing up my laundry in Gail and John's laundromat when Gail brought out the wine and said it was cocktail hour. I happily joined them while the dryer went one more cycle. I'm just riding back into Dawson, about 3km, on a wide dirt road, I thought, and one glass of wine will probably make me a better driver. It's that second glass I need to refuse.
Everyone went back to work after a rainstorm blew through and I went to fold my laundry. An old man in the laundromat got to chatting: "Happiness is when all your socks match at the end of laundry day," he said. I laughed and agreed. It's the little things. "I'm doing greys today," he said. "They used to be whites, but now they're all grey." His laundry was one messy pile of grey socks and rags. "You travelling alone?" he asked. "I've got claim #1 out there. Got a cabin with a double bed in it if you want to get out of the rain." Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine over in the campground. "I'm a harmless old man. I'm 67. I'm stayin in my trailer. You can have the cabin. The offer's there if you want it. It's the old dredge master's cabin. Over a hundred years old. You should see this thing anyway. Come on. Hop in my truck, I'll show you around." Um, no thanks. How does one go about getting a gold claim around here? "You just get a map of the claims and check where there's no claim and go walk the property and stick a stake in on one side, then stick a stake in the other side, then go to the claims office and pay them 20 bucks and it's yours." Really? "Yeah, come on, I'll show you around." Hmm. I'm thinking I can take this limping 67-year-old if I got into trouble. Ok, I'll follow you. Is it far? "No. Just out by the airport. But I gotta stop at the dump first. I'll introduce you to Frank." Hmm. Now there's two of them...
I'm either naive or stupid. At least that's what a guy from Hawaii said when I got back to the hostel. But I had a good story. This guy, "Pappy Wells" has been mining gold up here in these hills for years. He comes up from Key Largo every June and camps out in his trailer on his gold claim. I followed him down a brutal gravel road for 15 minutes to his dredge master's cabin. He enthusiastically showed me around. The cabin was an authentic mess. Rusty old mining equipment still hung on the far wall. I took note of a particularly sharp looking pick in case I needed a weapon.
Genuinely happy to have company, he made some cowboy coffee in his trailer that looked as though a bomb had gone off inside, and told me his story. "You see 'Top Gun?'" he asked. "Well, you're lookin' at Tom Cruise." I howled. Tom Cruise with eye bags down to his jawline, a gimpy hip and a pot belly. "Used to fly fighter jets for the U.S. Air Force. Then flew for American Airlines for 32 years. I'm a multi-millionaire. I invest in mutuals. Just do this gold thing for a hobby. I come up here for two months and nobody tells me shit. Here, lemme get a picture of you so I can send it to my wife and tell her look what I picked up at the laundromat. Heh heh." He proceeded to tell me the history of the gold rush and the geology and geography of the area. Or at least his version. His claim is on Hunker Creek, where, he says, there's a ton of gold being pulled out right now. People are still getting rich here, but a lot more quietly than during the big gold rush.
When he was finished showing me his property and his dredge and sluice box and the panning technique, he wanted to show me around other claims. "Get in my truck, I'll show you some gold mines around here that are worth fortunes." I got in.
Dawn advised me before leaving Christina Lake that if I ever got that shiver up the spine gut feeling that things were not right, just bail. One thing about travelling alone is that your intuition is sharper than ever. I kept checking in. Here I am down a gravel mining road with a crazy guy I just met and I'm about to get in his truck. No shivers or uneasy gut. Just the perfect, natural ease that comes with sharing with another human being.
He took me to a huge gravel field where there was active mining going on. I saw an old dredge left to rust and rot in the river from the late 1890's and he told me how it worked. The dredge would dig down forty feet into the riverbed and haul up sand and gravel, then move it into a tumbler where the heavy stuff would fall to the bottom. Eventually, through a series of sifting processes, only the gold would remain.
We got lost in the labyrinth of gravel mountains and he pushed his old chevy up some steep rocky cliffs trying to find the way out. The gravel was slippery and the truck's tires spun on the edge of the steep makeshift roads. "This is so strange. I don't know which way we came in. Isn't this scary?" he asked. I refused to get scared even though we were climbing gravel hills well beyond the capacity of his chevy truck and each one turned into a dead end. He finally drove up to his acquaintance's place, a guy with heavy machinery and an enormous shed for equipment, mining several claims in the area, and apparently worth a fortune. We got out and asked for directions.
Safely back on the road, he asked me what I do. When I told him I write, he said "Well, this is a good story! Maybe you'll write about this."
We returned to his cabin and he invited me for dinner. He was going to cook up a fish. I begged off and rode back down the gravel road on Henk, laughing all the way.
When I got back to my rain-drenched tent at the hostel, Shai, the self-described spoiled Best Western guy from Israel, who'd rented a private cabin for a few days, invited me to sleep in his bunkbed. I didn't hesitate for a second.
We talked in the warm, dry, candle-lit cabin until one in the morning. He's doing his masters in Middle Eastern studies and his thesis is on Israeli-US relations and it's effect on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yeah. He hopes to one day work for the UN or the British or US government in the peace process. Having the inside perspective of serving in the Israeli Army and growing up with "lies" as he put it, gave him the desire to find solutions. "If I thought there would be no end to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, I wouldn't be getting into this." He's young, ambitious, hopeful, bright, has a wonderful indistinguishable Australian/South African/English accent, and he wears eyeshades to bed.
I'm at a "crossroads" as my wise sister, Lara, calls it. As far away physically as I'm going to get from my life in Toronto with as many options in front of me as I can imagine. I sometimes feel that just living this adventure is my obligation, my purpose. Whenever I get back on Henk after a few days of rest the feeling returns. What's around the next corner? I'm a three year old learning the world all over again. You can call me naive or stupid and I'll probably just giggle a silly giggle that only someone with a three-year-old's sense of wonder comfortably intact could giggle.
Rule #1: never, ever, ride Henk after even one drink.
Rule #2: never, ever, ride down a deserted gravel road behind an eccentic old miner in pursuit of a gold mining story.
Rule #3: never, ever, share a cabin with a complete stranger.
Around 4pm I was finishing up my laundry in Gail and John's laundromat when Gail brought out the wine and said it was cocktail hour. I happily joined them while the dryer went one more cycle. I'm just riding back into Dawson, about 3km, on a wide dirt road, I thought, and one glass of wine will probably make me a better driver. It's that second glass I need to refuse.
Everyone went back to work after a rainstorm blew through and I went to fold my laundry. An old man in the laundromat got to chatting: "Happiness is when all your socks match at the end of laundry day," he said. I laughed and agreed. It's the little things. "I'm doing greys today," he said. "They used to be whites, but now they're all grey." His laundry was one messy pile of grey socks and rags. "You travelling alone?" he asked. "I've got claim #1 out there. Got a cabin with a double bed in it if you want to get out of the rain." Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine over in the campground. "I'm a harmless old man. I'm 67. I'm stayin in my trailer. You can have the cabin. The offer's there if you want it. It's the old dredge master's cabin. Over a hundred years old. You should see this thing anyway. Come on. Hop in my truck, I'll show you around." Um, no thanks. How does one go about getting a gold claim around here? "You just get a map of the claims and check where there's no claim and go walk the property and stick a stake in on one side, then stick a stake in the other side, then go to the claims office and pay them 20 bucks and it's yours." Really? "Yeah, come on, I'll show you around." Hmm. I'm thinking I can take this limping 67-year-old if I got into trouble. Ok, I'll follow you. Is it far? "No. Just out by the airport. But I gotta stop at the dump first. I'll introduce you to Frank." Hmm. Now there's two of them...
I'm either naive or stupid. At least that's what a guy from Hawaii said when I got back to the hostel. But I had a good story. This guy, "Pappy Wells" has been mining gold up here in these hills for years. He comes up from Key Largo every June and camps out in his trailer on his gold claim. I followed him down a brutal gravel road for 15 minutes to his dredge master's cabin. He enthusiastically showed me around. The cabin was an authentic mess. Rusty old mining equipment still hung on the far wall. I took note of a particularly sharp looking pick in case I needed a weapon.
Genuinely happy to have company, he made some cowboy coffee in his trailer that looked as though a bomb had gone off inside, and told me his story. "You see 'Top Gun?'" he asked. "Well, you're lookin' at Tom Cruise." I howled. Tom Cruise with eye bags down to his jawline, a gimpy hip and a pot belly. "Used to fly fighter jets for the U.S. Air Force. Then flew for American Airlines for 32 years. I'm a multi-millionaire. I invest in mutuals. Just do this gold thing for a hobby. I come up here for two months and nobody tells me shit. Here, lemme get a picture of you so I can send it to my wife and tell her look what I picked up at the laundromat. Heh heh." He proceeded to tell me the history of the gold rush and the geology and geography of the area. Or at least his version. His claim is on Hunker Creek, where, he says, there's a ton of gold being pulled out right now. People are still getting rich here, but a lot more quietly than during the big gold rush.
When he was finished showing me his property and his dredge and sluice box and the panning technique, he wanted to show me around other claims. "Get in my truck, I'll show you some gold mines around here that are worth fortunes." I got in.
Dawn advised me before leaving Christina Lake that if I ever got that shiver up the spine gut feeling that things were not right, just bail. One thing about travelling alone is that your intuition is sharper than ever. I kept checking in. Here I am down a gravel mining road with a crazy guy I just met and I'm about to get in his truck. No shivers or uneasy gut. Just the perfect, natural ease that comes with sharing with another human being.
He took me to a huge gravel field where there was active mining going on. I saw an old dredge left to rust and rot in the river from the late 1890's and he told me how it worked. The dredge would dig down forty feet into the riverbed and haul up sand and gravel, then move it into a tumbler where the heavy stuff would fall to the bottom. Eventually, through a series of sifting processes, only the gold would remain.
We got lost in the labyrinth of gravel mountains and he pushed his old chevy up some steep rocky cliffs trying to find the way out. The gravel was slippery and the truck's tires spun on the edge of the steep makeshift roads. "This is so strange. I don't know which way we came in. Isn't this scary?" he asked. I refused to get scared even though we were climbing gravel hills well beyond the capacity of his chevy truck and each one turned into a dead end. He finally drove up to his acquaintance's place, a guy with heavy machinery and an enormous shed for equipment, mining several claims in the area, and apparently worth a fortune. We got out and asked for directions.
Safely back on the road, he asked me what I do. When I told him I write, he said "Well, this is a good story! Maybe you'll write about this."
We returned to his cabin and he invited me for dinner. He was going to cook up a fish. I begged off and rode back down the gravel road on Henk, laughing all the way.
When I got back to my rain-drenched tent at the hostel, Shai, the self-described spoiled Best Western guy from Israel, who'd rented a private cabin for a few days, invited me to sleep in his bunkbed. I didn't hesitate for a second.
We talked in the warm, dry, candle-lit cabin until one in the morning. He's doing his masters in Middle Eastern studies and his thesis is on Israeli-US relations and it's effect on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yeah. He hopes to one day work for the UN or the British or US government in the peace process. Having the inside perspective of serving in the Israeli Army and growing up with "lies" as he put it, gave him the desire to find solutions. "If I thought there would be no end to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, I wouldn't be getting into this." He's young, ambitious, hopeful, bright, has a wonderful indistinguishable Australian/South African/English accent, and he wears eyeshades to bed.
I'm at a "crossroads" as my wise sister, Lara, calls it. As far away physically as I'm going to get from my life in Toronto with as many options in front of me as I can imagine. I sometimes feel that just living this adventure is my obligation, my purpose. Whenever I get back on Henk after a few days of rest the feeling returns. What's around the next corner? I'm a three year old learning the world all over again. You can call me naive or stupid and I'll probably just giggle a silly giggle that only someone with a three-year-old's sense of wonder comfortably intact could giggle.
posted by Moira Nordholt | 1:54 PM
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