Jason's Gold

Skagway has many new buildings just six days after Jason left it. He buys a steak in a café, but the dog will not eat any. He overhears stampeders discussing the crime prevalent in the town, mostly due to “Soapy” Smith’s arrival (the outlaw whom Jason met on the Yakima as “Captain” Smith). Jason witnesses Kid Barker using fake law enforcement officers to arrest a man who insists that Skagway’s telegraph office is a front to make money. On the beach, defeated gold rushers sell their gear; with his $60, Jason buys supplies, rations, and winter clothes including mukluks (boots). He also gets dog panniers (side-wearing packsacks) and gently tries them on the husky loaded with about 40 pounds. The strong dog is not bothered in the least.

Jason is overcome with nausea. He realizes just before losing consciousness that his “steak” was rotten horsemeat. For days, Jason is in a fog of sickness, seeing visions from the past including his father and a black and white puppy, and images of those caring for him now including a man, a girl with dark hair, and the husky. When he finally wakes, the girl sits at his side.

The girl is 14-year-old Jamie Dunavant. She and her father, Homer, a poet, sold their farm in Saskatchewan, Canada, and are traveling with minimal supplies and their own canoe to Dawson City. They will hunt game through winter and are relying on their Canadian citizenship to bypass the 700-pound-per-person rule enforced by the Canadian Mounties (police mounted on horseback, whom Jamie also calls Yellow Legs due to their yellow-striped uniform pants). Jamie’s confidence, appearance, and spirit charm Jason. Jamie tells Jason that he called out for King in his sleep; he recalls a puppy, King, he once had. Jason tells Jamie that the husky is his dog, King.

After the Dunavants depart, Jason buys salmon for King from a clerk who hands him maps of the Chilkoot Pass and the route to Dawson City along the Yukon River. The clerk tells Jason that most “cheechakos” (newbie stampeders unfamiliar with life in the north) need at least two weeks to build a boat for the trip to Dawson City; they must cut timber on the far side of the pass, mill it, and construct raft-like vessels. The map marks spots where stampeders coming down from Chilkoot Pass build their boats on Lake Lindeman, and those coming from White Pass build theirs at Lake Bennett. Jason has about six days to get over Chilkoot Pass, hike 27 miles to Lake Lindeman, and hike another six miles to the head of Lake Bennett where his brothers should be finishing their boat.

Jason and King head to Chilkoot Pass. When Jason sees the summit, he is astonished at its steepness, especially the highest stretch known as the Golden Stairs. The general mood of stampeders, though, is one of endurance and hope, not despair like White Pass. The altitude causes Jason to gasp and feel tired, but the tight space and proximity to others causes everyone to climb “lockstep,” single file; there is no room for resting except once halfway up. He makes excellent time hiking down the far side and sets off for Lake Bennett.

Arriving full of hope, Jason asks all the boat builders about his brothers. Finally, a man tells Jason that his brothers lucked into trading food for passage on another party’s already-built boat as soon as they arrived. Jason is flabbergasted. Uncertainty fills him. He offers to work in exchange for a spot in their boats, but all refuse since he has no supplies. He hikes back to Lake Lindeman, but no one there will help him without his own outfit.

Jason and King retreat over Chilkoot Pass. Jason recognizes Jack London carrying an enormous pack up the summit. Jack tells Jason that Captain Shepherd’s health caused him to go home, but Jack’s group picked up a new member, Tarwater; Jack and his partners, Sloper and Goodman, hope to build their boat rapidly and set out before the river freezes. Jack plans to arrive at Lake Lindeman in time by moving his outfit in piecemeal fashion: hiking three miles forward loaded with 150 pounds of supplies, then three miles back to get the next load. Refusing Jason’s request to join them, Jack confirms that the Mounties require each newcomer to have 700 pounds of food: “Five men and four outfits would about sink us” (87).

Jack surmises, however, that a boat-building party might take Jason if he had his own outfit. Jack offers Jason Captain Shepherd’s outfit, if he wants to collect it in Canyon City at the foot of Chilkoot Pass. He asks only for “mind fodder” in return, and Jason is happy to give him The Seven Seas. Jack signs over the outfit’s inventory sheet to Jason. Overjoyed, Jason tells King that they “aren’t beaten by a long shot” as they descend (91).

Jason finds the outfit and measures it out by weight—75 pounds for him to carry and 50 for King. They set out on August 18, proceeding as Jack did: three miles bearing the loads, stashing the supplies off the trail under a tarp, and returning for the next load. He moves the 1,200-pound outfit piecemeal over many days, the hardest leg being the Golden Stairs. Along this arduous journey, he learns how to make bannock (a kind of sweetbread) and observes a man named Eric Hegg towing his photography equipment and a box-shaped darkroom over the pass using a team of goats. Jason arrives at Lake Lindeman on September 8, knowing that he is in a race to make the river journey before the freeze-up.

Jason finds Jack, whose boat is almost complete. A Mountie arrives to say that only days remain to launch boats, as Lake LaBerge upriver will freeze over soon. After Jack’s party successfully navigates the rapids connecting the lakes and sets out, Jason acquires a canoe from a man who could not get past the rapids. Jason packs as much of his outfit into the canoe as he can, saving space only for himself and King. On September 18, with winter looming, he sails onto Lake Bennett.