Talking at the Woodpile (14 page)

“The very spot,” Wilfred said, yawning.

“I had a curious dream about Mr. Service last night, Wilfred,” he said. “He was sitting on his porch in his suit and tie, spats on and all that, and he said, ‘This was the only home I was ever truly happy in.'”

“Interesting,” said Wilfred.

“I think I can understand what he meant,” Jacob said.

Joyce had woken up and was listening in on the conversation. She had the heavy covers over her head—the wood stove had gone out in the night—and she pulled them down to show her tousled blonde curls.

“Bring me a cup of that, please, Jacob dear,” she said, yawning.

Jacob crossed the room and gave her a cup. She took a sip. “Ah, just how I like it,” she said. Joyce and Jacob seemed to be very affectionate, like my parents, and I was sorry they didn't have children.

“Wilfred, I just remembered—we brought your diploma with us.” Waving a hand, she instructed Jacob, “Get it out of the suitcase, darling.”

Jacob dug through the clothing and pulled out a framed sheepskin certificate. In Latin written in scrawling calligraphy, Harvard had bestowed upon Wilfred David Durant an
Artium Magister,
a Master of Arts degree, in 1912.

When I saw it that afternoon, I couldn't take my eyes off it. “Wow, Uncle Wilfred, you really went to Harvard. Wait until the kids at school hear about this.”

Wilfred held it at arm's length and studied it for a moment. “Funny, I thought this was so important at one time, but my life went in a completely different direction. I'm not sorry. You have only one life to live and you have to make your own choices and be true to yourself.” He then hung it on the wall. “Wait until Taffy sees this. I don't think he ever believed I had it.”

Two days later my mom and dad, Wilfred, Joyce, Jacob and I had a weepy farewell. Even Taffy, who'd only met our visitors briefly at the Flora Dora Café, came out and got teary-eyed.

“You must come and live with us in the Hamptons,” Joyce said. “You'll love it there. But I can see why you live here. You have so many friends, and this is your home. It's a lovely country. I hope we have made some amends for the family trouble.”

Taffy thought the invitation included him and said with a sigh, “I'll try to make it, but on my pension, I'll probably only get as far as Winnipeg.”

My mother gave Joyce a long hug and told her, “Don't ever think of the family trouble again. That is all done with. We appreciate everything you and Jacob have done for us.”

We all waved until the Lincoln was out of sight. I went home and sat in my room and cried a little as I listened to the radio. My mother called me for dinner. I hoped my eyes weren't red, but both my parents glanced at my face, and by the slight pause of scrutiny, I knew they'd noticed. They said nothing.

I grieved when Wilfred passed on in 1977. Windy Sale attended the graveside service, and because he was becoming forgetful and forgot he was at a funeral, he went into a long explanation of the mammoth discovery on Bonanza Creek some forty-five years earlier. Sitting in his wheelchair, he ended his narrative with, “Damn civil servants. They should have minded their own damn business!” The service went on longer than expected, but it was interesting, and no one seemed to mind. I loved it, because it was just more fodder for my writing and convinced me all the more of the uniqueness of this land and its people.

I wrote a two-column description of the event, and it made the front page of the
Whitehorse Star
under the banner “Harvard Sourdough Who Discovered Mammoth Dies.”

Dot and Nat continued to live in Dawson. In 1973 they bought Cooper's Grocery and Hardware Store, and together with Iggy and his wife Petulia, built it into a commercial success. The upstairs was a large sprawling apartment where they all lived happily with the half-dozen grandchildren who came along.

Taffy never got over his distrust of Victor or Neil, and his anxiety probably led him to an early grave. He left a long detailed will that didn't make sense, because he hardly had anything; his bank account sat at zero. He willed Neil his family Bible and Victor his well-worn hymn book.

“What I want to sing this stuff for, Tobias?” Victor asked, turning the book over in his hand.

“Taffy is sending a message from the beyond that he wants you to go to church and sing and listen to the sermon,” I said.

“Yes, I know he think I need it, but why listen to crazy old man?”

Nat and Iggy told me the story of Piedoe. After all those years, Nat still hung his head and choked up when talking about their dog.

After his dust-up with Nat and Piedoe, Howard Bungle had gone to work for the British Yukon Navigation Company as a dockworker, unloading freight and delivering it to the miners on the creeks. He'd been laid off when the SS
Klondike
made the last commercial riverboat journey in 1955. He needn't have worried, because he and many others went to work improving the last section of the Klondike Highway into Dawson City. The boats, no longer needed, were mothballed in Whitehorse until a fire destroyed all but one of them. Truckers became the new riverboat captains.

Victor and Mimosa's son Adam studied engineering and managed the Bear Creek machine shop where the dredges were repaired. He dismantled and moved a cabin from Hunker Creek to Bear Creek and lived there with his young family until the price of gold forced the closure of the entire gold dredging operation in 1966. With the money he'd saved, Adam bought the Flora Dora Café when Pat Henderson retired. With the help of his parents, he ran it for many years.

In 1970 Parks Canada funded a multi-million dollar plan to restore Dawson City to its former glory. Offices were set up in Saint Mary's, the old hospital, new staff moved in and workers raised and stabilized buildings. The post office and the beached SS
Keno
riverboat had construction funds poured into them.

An era had passed, the present was fleeting and the future held hope for Dawson City. I felt like I was in the right place at the right time and all I had to do was pay attention and record it all. It was something I was happy to do. The old-timers would be around for decades to come, but life in the Klondike was never going to be the same. It was the start of a time of change.

I was nineteen years old in 1968 when a migration of new people arrived in the Klondike. How they learned about Dawson City, I don't know. Perhaps the spirit of the Yukon and the call of the wild beckoned them.

My mother warned me, “Tobias Gandhi Godwit, I don't want you associating with the likes of those hippies. They're scruffy and without morals. If I see you with them, your father will hear about it.”

My father could care less. After many years of working for the
Whitehorse Star,
he and the editor passed the reporting job on to me. I loved it and saw stories everywhere.

A caravan of assorted vehicles and makeshift campers constructed precariously on top of ancient truck frames arrived in town. I wrote a feature story about these cabins on wheels and took pictures, and the
Star
ran everything on page two of a Friday paper. Part of the story was about an ancient, rusting, one-ton Dodge truck that drove through town with a stovepipe streaming smoke. The driver curtly answered my question about the stove's safety. “How the heck else am I going to keep the family and dogs in the back warm?” Then the door of the camper opened, and a big mountain momma with a bandana flashed a gap-toothed smile and threw water from a wash basin onto the ground.

“Isn't she beautiful?” he said.

I politely agreed, “It's a fine-looking camper.”

“I meant my wife,” he said.

“Her too,” I quickly replied.

I learned their names were Marty and Judy, and they had six children, all under the age of ten and all named alphabetically starting with Attila and ending with Flipper. Yes, named after the dolphin.

“Dolphins are almost human,” Judy informed me. “They evolved from the lost citizens of Atlantis, and Attila was a saint of sorts who only destroyed what was necessary. You know, when they wouldn't surrender to him.”

“We wanted kids to match the whole twenty-six letters,” Marty said, “but I don't think the old girl can do it.”

“That would be hard on any woman,” I said.

“I'm talking about the room in the camper,” Marty said.

They made their own goat's cheese and kept the goat inside the camper for its comfort.

“A happy goat produces more milk. We treat it like one of the children,” Marty said earnestly.

Who was I to argue? They seemed to have plenty of dairy products.

Marty looked like a young Jethro Tull with his wiry blond hair and blue eyes. Judy was dark with brown hair, and kept the shelves of the camper packed with books.

“She's seeking enlightenment,” Marty said, pointing to the books with a nod of his head. “Judy wants the truth, reality or whatever you call it.”

I read a few of the spines: Lobsang Rampa, Kahlil Gibran and Adelle Davis. Judy was searching high and low.

When the camper's door opened, Galahad the goat would jump out wearing a red bandana and trailing clumps of hay.

One afternoon I took Sunny Moon Delight herbal tea with them, and between the bleats and the noisy kids we had a pleasant conversation about reality. The cheese and multi-grain bread was tasty, but somehow it's disconcerting when the supplier sits looking you in the face. Goats are ugly. Something about their eyes bothers me; they're too far back on the side of their heads.

Days later the smell of goat still clung to my clothes. Holding my jacket over the washing machine, my mother wrinkled her nose and asked, “Tobias, where have you been, in a barn?”

“No, Mom, I was in a camper,” I said.

“Are you hanging out with those hippies again?” she asked.

“Just doing my job, Ma,” I said.

“Wait until I tell your father,” she said, slamming the washer lid down.

The new Klondike citizens reminded us of the gold-rush era; they brought a lifestyle that made the people of Dawson City uneasy. I, on the other hand, was pleased to meet them and made a point of introducing myself to as many as possible. Soon I became an unofficial Klondike historian and guide. These people were colourful, and in no time I was filling notebooks with the stories of their lives and their daily antics.

The Dawson folk prodded me for information. One day, when I stepped into the Dawson City General Store, a crowd deep in discussion turned and surrounded me.

“We hear there's a commune of them camping up on Hunker Creek, and they have a herd of forty goats and are selling goat cheese for a living,” said Walter Rather, the owner of the store, as he wiped his hands on his striped apron.

“Nothing of the sort is happening,” I assured them.

“And we hear they are all going skinny-dipping together at the Bear Creek swimming hole,” Walter said.

I knew that much was true, because I had been invited to dip with them but declined. My mother would have killed me.

“I don't know what to say, Walter. I guess it takes all kinds,” I said. “Why don't you go out and take a look for yourself instead of listening to everyone else's opinion? That would be the fair thing to do. And while you're at it, you could go skinny-dipping with them.”

The thought of seeing old, wrinkled Walter cannonballing into the tailing pond was a frightening thing.

Walter didn't like that last comment. He shot me a look and muttered under his breath, “I knew it. Damn hippies.”

I figured that by the end of the day Walter's rumour mill would be spinning at full speed.

That evening Diamond Tooth Gertie's Gambling and Dance Hall opened for the season. It didn't help public opinion when a horseback rider in buckskins and a Kit Carson goatee rode through the hall, scattering dancing girls and roulette wheels.

The RCMP arrived with sirens and lights blazing, and Kit galloped off, leading a merry chase into the never-setting midnight sun.

The next day, picking up a quart of milk, I bumped into Walter. He gave me a look and shook his head as he slipped past in the aisle. “Tobias,” he said accusingly.

“What do you mean, ‘Tobias'?” I asked angrily. “It's not my fault!”

“You hang out with them,” Walter said, shaking his finger angrily as he continued down the aisle, sweeping a broom in front of him.

What an ass
, I thought.

“Look, Walter, like I said before, find out the facts for yourself before you start making judgments about people.”

About the same time as this migration, Parks Canada transferred in all kinds of staff people and made their offices in the old hospital building on Front Street. Jobs and money were pumped into the town. Parks laid claim to a vast amount of property and was soon collecting countless artifacts and repairing and stabilizing buildings and the SS
Keno.

Summer deepened, and the universe continued to unfold with the arrival of the Halloo family. These people were to influence my life in many ways for years to come. Before I met them, I'd heard of a bunch of ill-mannered no-goods living at Rock Creek. People were calling them the Rock Creek boys.

On a pleasant sunny afternoon, I walked into Cooper's Grocery and Hardware Store and straight into a storm. Richard, the ancient owner, stood behind the counter holding off three of the biggest men I had ever seen. They were like a herd of elephants milling around a watering hole. Two of them looked identical, and these twins bookended the third man. They glared at me, then snapped their attention back to Richard.

“What the hell do you mean, we can't have any more credit?” the largest one was saying. He leaned over the counter pointing a finger in Richard's face. The other two stood to one side with their meaty arms folded across their chests.

Mrs. Byrd, the pastor's wife, clutched her coat collar and took my arrival as her opportunity to scurry out the door. She rolled her eyes as she passed me.