Vancouver- Ch.# XXV- Christmas Eve in Vancouver and Dawson

            Vancouver – City of adventurers

                            Ch. # XXV

        Christmas Eve in Vancouver and Dawson

 

       Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday, in that year 1898. Christchurch Cathedral was dressed in magnificent garlands of green, with red ribbons, and colorful baubles of decorations strung across them. The aura was festive. The church was aglow with rows of scented candles. The air smelled like cinnamon and pine. The polished pews glistened in the darkened light.

          The jubilant community filed into the services, in the early evening, eager to share the ceremony with friends and family. “Midnight Mass” was a concept yet unknown to the many who had to work the next day.

 

           The Sadler family arrived, towing Ian Mac Adams with them. They were smiling and happy to be together on this blessed day. Try as he might, brother Jim stayed behind. Church services were just something he wouldn’t do.

 

           The good Reverend called the community together and began his sermon. He talked of the magic of Christmas and what the wonders that the Christ child had brought to the world. In the choir loft of the Church, the choir softly sang “O Come all ye faithful.”

            The richly-clad celebrants, in the pews, enjoyed the religious theater and were happy with who they were and the good fortune that had smiled on them.

 

            Jim whispered quietly to Laura, “ Is it turkey you have waiting for us after services?” 

            “Shush,” was all he got out of Laura. “Behave yourself or you can go drink beer with Jim at Staunton’s”

              It was a spectacle of wealth, family and happiness in the rich environs of Vancouver, on Christmas Eve.

 

                After services the family made its way home. Laura did indeed have a Turkey prepared for them, with all of the fixings. Just before they sat down, a knock on the door caught their attention. Outside on the porch, stood brother James Mac Adams. 

 

                “Welcome, welcome Jim” exclaimed Laura, as she ushered him.in “ I am so glad that you could Join us. Now, our Christmas celebration will be complete.”

                The family sat around the table, laden with wonderful scents and sights. Laura said “Please join hands and let us give Thanks to the lord for being together on this blessed occasion.”

 

                  Then with much merriment, the family dug into the feast and exchanged funny stories about Christmases past, in Bristol and other places where their families had lived. It was both a solemn and happy occasion that they all much enjoyed. The Yule clog was burning brightly in the fireplace. They were warm and happy and animated in their celebration.

 

        

               About 1,500 miles to the North, in the frozen Yukon area of British Columbia, things were a little different. Temperatures in the valleys and towns, like Dawson and Whitehorse, weren’t too awful. Things did get icy in the mountains around them at night. But, during the day, temps could climb into the 40’s (F). Up in the mountains, you just didn’t want to be there.

 

             All of the creeks surrounding the area were festooned with groups of miners seeking the fabled gold dust. Usually, a wooden sluice box was built to wash sand gravel and dirt with water, looking, always looking for that gleam in the morning sun, a sliver of gold.

 

              Digging into the hillside wasn’t enough. About six feet down, a layer of perma-frost covered the subsoil. It was necessary to build a small fire to melt the permafrost, in order to reach bed rock and a possible vein of golden ore beneath. With all of the wood needed for fires, sluice boxes and warmth at night, the area had been denuded of trees for twenty mile around. It was just a frozen white expanse of snow, serving as a backdrop to all of the frenzied activity.

 

             The occasional whoop, of a miner and his pals, would draw the curious.  A golden vein had been discovered. Long rifles and pistols aided the Mounties in preventing any illegal acquisitions. All of the miners had purchased licenses for their claims, with the B.C authorities in Dawson. What they found belong to them.

 

             Christmas Eve fell on a  Sunday that year in 1898, though many of the inhabitants of the area were probably unaware of it. Out in the rough and tumble wilds, days, dates and calendars tended to become unnecessary. You worked, you ate, slept and drank whiskey in Dawson.

             A virtual human tidal wave of 100,000 prospectors had descended on the Yukon region  in two short years. Dawson had been a small village, of a few cabins and a settlement of  first nations tribe called Han.

              Now, it was a booming village of 15,000 souls, with many more thousands coming and going daily. Several large Saloons and dancing halls were sited along Front Street. The Monte Carlo, The Dominion and The Phoenix were open twenty-four hours a day.  Female dancing troupes, sharp- eyed gamblers and ladies of the evening all mingled in an uproarious amalgam of miners and charlatans. Some of  the miners had found pay dirt. The rest were those who were trying to take it from them. Whiskey, beer and drunken laughter wafted over the crowds. Riotous iiving characterized many of the nights on the town, as lucky miners squandered their dust, on all of the attractions offered. Scales stood on the bar or check-out counters of tent stores. Bills were paid in gold dust. After a night of whooping it up, the maintenance men in the saloons, often swept up enough spilled gold dust to pay for their food. They became known as “golden sweepers.”

 

                The most valuable commodity in Town was food. No supply chain could keep up with the ravenous demand for food, by hungry miners. Local game and fish stocks had been depleted after the first year by miners. You couldn’t find an animal to hunt for thirty miles around. The river was fished out too. Those canny and industrious merchants, who found a way to get regular supplies carried in to Dawson,  made a fortune. They were among the ones who really found their fortunes in the gold rush, just like those industrious merchants in the 1849 gold rush in California and the Fraser River gold rush of 1859.

                 Starvation had become so common in the Yukon in 1898, that the Canadian Government now required all incoming miners at the border  to purchase and carry in a year’s supply of provisions. The towering stack of goods could run to 2,000 pounds. The logistics of getting that much food stuffs and supplies  over the White or Chilkoot pass, and then floated down the Yukon River to Dawson, defeated many.

 

                The whole adventure had become almost Darwinian. The strong prospered and survived. The weaker members gave up and struggled back to the coast, and on towards home.

 

             Fortunately, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had garrisoned a squadron of Mounties  in Dawson, to keep order. A few of the lads still ended up shot or hung, but there was relative order for the most part.

            Over the White pass and across Canadian border, towards Skagway, things were different. Rascals had taken control. Corruption, murder and skull-duggery were the order of the day. In fairness, most of those same rascals ended up shot, hung or run off after a brief supremacy. There is an innate fairness, amongst frontier societies. If there was no law, to establish order, they made one up.

 

           The Klondike Gold Rush was an epic event in local history. Hundreds would write of their colorful experiences in the coming years. Jack London would script “White Fang” and “The Call of the Wild.”

           Hugh Antoine D’arcy would write of miners who had made money, lost it and now scrounged for beer in local taverns in his memorable “Face on the Bar room floor.”

 

          One of the more fascinating authors was Canadian author Robert W. Service. In two rhythmic poems of the frozen Yukon, “The shooting of Dan McGraw” and “The Creation of Sam McGee,” Service captured the loneliness, the isolation and feelings of loss, felt by many miners, so very far rom home. The works were meant to be read around a camp fire, surrounded by rough and tumble  miners, nursing flagons of whiskey. The rhythmic cadence, of the chant-like narration,  is spell binding. The intensified drum-beat, of the telling, kept  their rapt attention, as Service wrote about friendship and loneliness and despair. They were emotions that they all had experienced in their various struggles. Service captured the essence of these men, like no other.

 

            Comparing the two Christmas experiences, in Vancouver and Dawson, evokes a line from British Author, Charles Dickens work, “A Tale of Two Cities.” “It was the best of times and the worst of times,”  here in Western Canada, in the turbulent frontier era  of 1898.

 

           In two short years the gold would run out. Another strike, far away in Western Alaska, near Nome, would empty the area of prospectors, who made their way there in droves. History repeats itself.

 

                                                      -30-

                                              ( 1,497words)

                                          Joseph Xavier Martin