Muskrat Dam

Muskrat Dam

There is a nurse at Muskrat Dam

One at Gods Lake, and Telegraph Creek

Moccasins leave spruce 1st nation prints
of Oji Cree,
original people,
people of the woods

When the Muskrat Dam elders went on a goose hunt

at Agusk Lake one year
there were no geese

Mining “exploration” had driven them away

This year moose are down 70%

salvage logging left little for them

No cover from cold
or wolves
Not much use then
for 13 steps for tanning moose hide

Telegraph Creek was a stop on the way to the Yukon

One has to ask at Dease Lake if the road is
passable
It never is for trailers
too much gradient
and loose gravel
clinging to the switchbacks
Half of Telegraph is a ghost town

and the lodge is for sale

The water at Dease drains via the Stikine
to the Pacific

Or via the Liard and Mackenzie
to the Arctic

Even water is poised on the edge deciding
which way to go

In the old days people were heading to Cassiar for gold
Then it was asbestos

But they shut down the mine in 1992

And razed the town to the ground

Not even a ghost town left