Journey Page 3

  Lord Luton could not command his ghillie to accompany him to Canada—the days of peonage were over—but he could make the trip so enticing that the Irishman had to accept. When Fogarty crossed the Irish Sea and presented himself in London, he listened only a few moments to the proposal before he said enthusiastically: ‘I’ll go,’ and asked forthwith for permission to return to Belfast for his kit. Luton took out his wallet and said: ‘Not necessary. Take this, but buy only the necessities this afternoon. The rest we’ll get in Edmonton.’ Fogarty demurred: ‘It’s not only me kit. It’s me wife. Jenny would be …’

  Lord Luton stiffened and a foreboding scowl darkened his face: ‘Buy it here, not in Ireland. Each moment of summer is precious,’ and Fogarty, accepting the proffered money, nodded.

  Next day, when the Luton party entrained for Liverpool, Fogarty was aboard, because English gentlemen and Irishmen could act almost precipitately when they had to. Since both Luton and Carpenter wanted to reach the gold fields promptly, they booked passage on the first ship bound for Canada.

  They embarked on 25 July 1897, and were agreeably surprised to find themselves on one of the most elegant ships to ply the North Atlantic: the Parisian, pride of Canada’s Allan Royal Mail Line. Long and sleek, she boasted four towering masts from which hung a forest of yardarms and a blizzard of white sails. But the power of this vessel was indicated by two big, blunt smokestacks amidships, for the Parisian was powered by both sail and steam, which made her a mistress of the seas, The gentlemen’s cabins were spacious and comfortable and the saloon well appointed with oak and ash floors, its walls and slender pillars decorated in leather. Chairs of walnut burnished to a soft glow offered a welcome seat after a bracing walk on the promenade deck.

  The captain, at whose table they were seated that evening, commended them on their discernment in choosing his ship. The Parisian, he explained, had been cleverly designed with saloon amidships which dampened the pitch of the steamer in high seas and made dining on board as tranquil as on shore. The captain continued his proud description with details of the innovative bilge keels that kept her steady in the water and explanations of how he used both her steam and sail power to best advantage, but Luton, tiring of his boasts, distracted him with a question: ‘Why the name Parisian if she’s a Canadian ship?’ and the captain replied: ‘It’s a mark of the respect, sir, that we Canadians hold for France.’ Luton bristled at this reminder of what his family considered Canada’s blemished past under French rule, and quickly changed the subject: ‘How long d’you think before we see Montreal? The twelve days we were promised?’ and the captain said: ‘Aye, twelve days, if the weather doesn’t blow.’

  During their calm crossing one of the basic rules of the trip evolved, and in a somewhat unpleasant way. Trevor Blythe, whose family kept a staff of seven, began summoning Fogarty, who slept on a lower deck, and giving him orders as if the Irishman were his assigned manservant. This had to be done conspicuously, because the four gentlemen in Luton’s party occupied first-class quarters, while Fogarty shared a cramped cabin with two other men in steerage. So when Blythe felt he needed Fogarty’s services he had to take obvious steps to summon him.

  Fogarty did not complain; he knew he was a kind of servant, but Lord Luton was distressed by Blythe’s action, and after this infraction of the tacit rules of such an expedition occurred for the third time, Luton and Carpenter asked the two younger men to join them in a secluded corner of the ship’s luxurious saloon.

  ‘This isn’t pleasant and it isn’t crucial, so let’s not make an affair of it,’ Luton said after a deferential cough. ‘But I think we must understand certain rules. Nothing in writing, no saluting or the raising of voices.’ He coughed again and was obviously uneasy: ‘Harry and I’ve been through this often, and I’m sure you young fellows will catch on immediately.’

  When Henslow and Blythe looked at each other in bewilderment, Luton snapped: ‘Dammit, you make it difficult to say, but Fogarty is the expedition’s servant, not at the beck and call of individuals.’

  Now Blythe realized that he was the subject of the meeting, and before either Luton or Carpenter could speak further, he apologized profusely: ‘I say, I am most fearfully sorry. It was thoughtlessness, Evelyn, sheer thoughtlessness.’

  Luton, relieved to see that the young man was taking the admonition properly, sighed, thrust out his hand and clasped Trevor’s: ‘Thanks. I knew you’d understand. Harry, lay out the rules.’

  ‘Quite simple. It’s as Evelyn said. Fogarty is at the service of the party as a whole, never of an individual. I think an example will clarify it nicely. When we’re in camp and require wood for the stove, it will be Fogarty’s job to see that we get the wood, but each of us in proper turn will help him do it. And should he suggest that Evelyn chop down that tree over there, I would expect Evelyn to hop to it smartly and chop the thing down.’

  ‘Highly sensible,’ said Blythe without a sign of rancor.

  ‘Now, if young Philip here needs his socks washed because he’s worn them too long on the trail, he need not call for Fogarty. He jolly well washes them himself.’

  ‘Understood?’ Luton asked, and when the young men nodded, he added: ‘Good. But Fogarty has agreed to cut our hair during our long trip, and for that, each of us must pay him in cash. Understood?’

  Not once on their long journey together would anyone call the Irishman anything but Fogarty, which was understandable, since none knew his first name or showed any interest in learning it, but that night in his notes Lord Luton did praise the ghillie:

  There are few people in this world more pleasant to deal with than a well-trained Irishman who knows his place, and our ghillie Fogarty is one of the best. I spotted him young and have had him work with our finest hands. In due course, fifteen, sixteen years, he’ll be my gamekeeper, and I doubt I’ll ever have a better.

  Harry and I have had to lay down the rules to our two young men. How could they know the niceties if we didn’t tell them? And I am proud to say they snapped to and saluted like proper soldiers. That’s the way to launch an expedition properly, and tonight I appreciate more than ever the stalwart abilities of Carpenter. I’d not like to go ahead without him.

  The latter part of the twelve-day crossing to Montreal established patterns which would prevail during the months ahead. Philip spent long hours in the ship’s library, which overlooked the saloon, reading and then almost memorizing parts of Whymper’s account of his journeys in Alaska, and whenever the Yukon River was mentioned he took special notice. In time he knew that waterway as intimately as one could from maps and a book, but his uncle almost ridiculed this effort: ‘The part of the Yukon you’re reading about is entirely in American territory, and we’re not going that way.’ Nevertheless, the young man continued his preoccupation with the river.

  After some days of browsing the ship’s limited collection of books, Trevor Blythe concentrated his attention on one of the small volumes he had borrowed from his mother, Palgrave’s well-regarded Golden Treasury, the 1861 anthology of what was considered at that time the essence of English lyrical poetry. Trevor had, of course, made himself familiar with most of the poems, but since he aspired to adding perhaps a lyric or two of his own to the grand assembly, he wished to know the works intimately. On this excursion, through prolonged study of the more gracious poems, he hoped to learn the secrets of effective prosody.

  During his two years at Oxford, Blythe had attracted favorable attention for his youthful poems and some university critics had gone so far as to say that he had the authentic English voice. He did not think so; his reverence for the songs of Sidney, Herrick and Waller was so profound that he doubted he could ever add to their flawless statements, but he did want to understand the sorcery whereby they had achieved their miracles. So as the ship sliced through the North Atlantic swells he would sometimes cry with the joy of late discovery: ‘Philip! Did you ever catch the felicity, there’s no other word for it, of Waller’s cry? I must’ve read it a doze
n times but never before …’ And as the ship plowed westward he would read those lines which had for centuries tugged at the hearts of young men:

  Go, lovely Rose!

  Tell her, that wastes her time and me,

  That now she knows,

  When I resemble her to thee,

  How sweet and fair she seems to be.

  Lord Luton and Harry Carpenter were engaged in more practical matters; endlessly they reviewed the technical aspects of the trip, and each agreed that to purchase even a handkerchief prior to reaching Edmonton would be unwise, for as Luton said: ‘Stands to reason, don’t it, that those chaps on the frontier will be better informed about arctic conditions than anyone in places like Montreal or Winnipeg.’ They gave much attention to modes of locomotion, and here Luton was determined: ‘I’d say, get to the Athabasca River as soon as possible, no matter the overland portage, and buy a boat there, or even build one, and start floating downstream. Cross the Great Slave and …’

  Always Harry broke in at this point: ‘Let’s look at this again, Evelyn. Can we, in common sense, hope to get across the Rocky Mountains, wherever we encounter them, this autumn? I mean, before the rivers freeze?’ While Luton restudied this, Carpenter would add: ‘I’m eager too, you know.’

  But when pressed, Harry would state firmly: ‘Evelyn, it’s nearly August. From what I’ve been reading—Whymper says the same—these rivers start to freeze in late September, maybe earlier in the far north.’

  ‘Then you see no chance for this year?’

  Carpenter was the kind of steady, careful man who disliked arbitrary statements; too often he had seen men of great resolve contest the odds and make their own rules, so he avoided giving a direct negative: ‘As we go down the Mackenzie we might hear of some river we don’t know about coming in from the west, hooking up with the Yukon. If we could find that river, we’d be drifting down the Yukon right into Dawson.’

  ‘You’ve ruled out overland?’

  Now Harry had to be firm: ‘Evelyn, old friend, I’ve been looking at the maps. It’s a far distance from Edmonton to Dawson overland. More than a thousand miles, I calculate. Could you and I haul our tons of gear on sleds for that distance in the time available this year?’ Lowering his voice, to indicate the gravity of the decisions he must share, he whispered: ‘I doubt it.’

  Drawing upon his experiences with rough travel in Asia and Africa, he knew it would be advantageous if members of the party memorized the terrain between Edmonton and the gold fields, and to that end he conducted study lessons on a table in a corner of the ship’s card room. Here he spread the team’s various maps, and after he had summoned Fogarty from below, the five men pored over sketchy and often inaccurate maps depicting the recollections of former travelers. As Harry compared the maps he noticed one compelling fact: regardless of which route the gold-seekers elected, it would be impossible for them to leave Edmonton and reach the Klondike without at some point climbing and crossing the Rockies. Whatever map he focused upon, it contained that ominous black line coming down from the northwest and running diagonally to the southeast. Even on flat paper, those mountains were a brooding, repellent barrier.

  Once when he drew Blythe’s attention to the forbidding line, he noticed that the young poet studied with unusual interest the way it twisted about as if protecting the gold fields from intruders, and later Harry saw the young fellow scratching in his notebook. Always interested in what men younger than himself were engaged in, he asked politely: ‘I say, Trevor, could I have a peek?’ and almost shyly the young man shoved the little book forward with the brief comment: ‘Toying with words. Idea for a poem, maybe,’ and Harry read:

  In gathering darkness we pursue

  A Grail of Gold protected by jealous elves

  Who keep it rimmed by jagged mountains …

  ‘Fine conceit you have there, Trevor,’ Harry said approvingly. ‘A proper poet could make something of it … polishing … simplifying … don’t you know?’ After he had returned the book he said to the others: ‘I hope the rest of us realize the aptness of what Trevor’s written. He’s got it just about right, you know. We find no gold till we penetrate those mountains.

  ‘As I consult my maps, and they have a few good ones on this ship, I grow most dubious about these two reports we saw in London.’ He laid before them his copy of the glowing statement by Ludwig Halverson regarding the ease with which one could travel overland from Edmonton to Dawson City and the later one by Etienne Desbordays describing the floating comfort of a trip down the Mackenzie River. ‘This one’—and he indicated the overland trail—‘seems absolutely impossible, regardless of what Halverson says he did. And this one’—pushing aside the Desbordays with contempt—‘has not a word of information that I would consider solid.’

  ‘Where’s that leave us, Harry?’ Luton asked, and Carpenter said: ‘In a fix. But not one we can’t work our way out of. After all, we know that people are getting to the gold fields. The outflow of gold proves that, and so shall we.’

  In cautious, statesmanlike terms Lord Luton stated what their strategy must be: ‘Immediately upon docking in Canada we shall rush by train across the continent to Edmonton, and there make the most penetrating inquiries as to the truth of the two routes. Only when we have more detailed and reliable facts in hand shall we decide our next step, but I assure you of this. We shall get to the gold fields.’ And the other three supported this resolve, with Philip adding: ‘If Yankees can get there in their fashion, we can certainly do the same in ours.’

  * * *

  None of the team had ever been in Canada, nor had they read much about it. Lord Luton said he knew all that was needed: ‘When the Americans broke away back there, Canadians had sense enough to stand firm.’ By that he meant that they had remained in the Empire, and he could not for the life of him understand why the Americans had not.

  ‘England has everything a man wants—good government, a king we love or a queen we love even more. Wealth … order … membership in the best group of nations in the world. It will take the Yankees generations to catch up with what they already had, but tossed away.’

  He was therefore disposed to like Canada, and when the Parisian started picking its way through the clusters of big islands guarding the entrance to the St. Lawrence River, and then entered the spacious river itself, he said approvingly: ‘What a splendid way to enter a country!’ He felt even more encouraged when the ship passed by the tall cliffs at Quebec City which were surmounted by the gracious Château Frontenac, a new hotel whose reputation had already reached the ears of London society.

  ‘Marvelous beginning,’ he said, but when they docked at Montreal his ardor diminished, for he saw that he was now in the middle of a society that was completely French, and this he did not approve: ‘I could’ve got to real France by crossing the Channel and saved a bundle. I was on a ship of the right name for that.’ His day in the city was not a happy one, for he felt as if he had been cut off from England and thrust into an alien setting he had not anticipated: ‘Might as well be Albania.’

  Trevor Blythe, listening with amusement to Luton’s barrage of acerbic comment, thought: He’s a young man with an old man’s ideas, but since he himself was a guest on the trip, he deemed it best not to speak.

  The Englishmen received their first indications of the gold mania that had hit Canada when they hurried to the railway booking office to pick up their tickets: ‘Oh, Your Lordship! You were so wise to cable ahead for reservations. If you hadn’t, I don’t know what we could have done. Hundreds every day clamoring to go west. You’d have found every seat sold till well into next week.’

  ‘Even first class?’

  ‘Especially first class. Gold-seekers are happy to pay a premium. They’re convinced that in six weeks they’ll be millionaires.’

  Safely aboard the handsome new Canadian train that had recently begun to run uninterruptedly from the Atlantic seacoast to the Pacific, the four Englishmen again received the kind of joyous
surprise that made travel a pleasure, for a train of eleven cars, five of them luxurious, was waiting to speed travelers along the first short leg of the journey—Montreal to Ottawa—in maximum comfort. The four Englishmen, of course, were traveling first class, Luton and Carpenter in one delightful bedroom saloon, Trevor and Philip in another, while Fogarty had fairly comfortable sitting space in one of the less expensive cars.

  The saloons were handsomely appointed in heavy dark-red upholstery and spacious let-down beds, but it was the long dining car that gained accolades. The compact galley, big enough for two cooks, was forward to protect the car from intrusions by riders in the lesser seats, but the remainder of the car clear to the rear door consisted of tables handsomely draped in thick linen containing along the edges revealed to the public the carefully embroidered initials C.P.R. Tables on one side of the carpeted aisle seated two, the chairs facing, but somewhat larger tables on the other side were for four, and when Henslow first entered the car his immediate impression was of endless white decorated with sparkling glassware and gleaming silver. ‘A car for gentlemen,’ Luton said as he surveyed the place and waited for the head attendant to show him to a table for four.

  It was a gala meal intended to display the riches of Canada: seafood from the east coast, rich beef from the prairies, fruits and vegetables from Ontario and desserts from French patisseries in Montreal, all served by two professionally gracious white headwaiters assisted by blacks trained to show professional smiles.