Onésime Gravel was originally from Sainte-Anne in the Lac-St-Jean-Saguenay region of the province of Quebec. At the age of 26, Onésime left for the Yukon. He traveled with his uncle, Nolasque Pierre Tremblay and his Aunt Emile Fortin Tremblay, two pioneers of the Klondike. While they were on the Chilkoot Pass, a terrible avalanche swallowed up 74 men. Onésime and his parents Edmond Tremblay and Jos Fortin were able to avoid death’s unmerciful choice.
In the spring of 1899, when Narcisse Picotte sold the No. 14 limit on the Bonanza, Onésime Gravel was one of the group who bought it. The gross production of this concession was evaluated at $140,000 at this time.
In 1900 in a letter to his beloved who’d stayed at Lac St. Jean, Onésime begged her to join him in the Yukon where he found life without her monotonous. On June 21, 1900, Marie Fortin, sister to Emilie Fortin-Tremblay arrived by steam-boat in Dawson City. Five days later, Father Alphonse Desmarais blessed the union of Onésime and Marie at Grand Forks in a tent-chapel measuring 30 feet by 25 (about 9 m. by 7.5). Emilie Fortin-Tremblay had decorated it with wild flowers. This marriage was one of the first to be celebrated in the Klondike. The Gravels and their son, Albert, born in 1902, left Dawson city in 1913 to return to their native region.
Onésime Gravel later married Marie-Hélène Basque on May 24, 1945 in Arvida, Quebec, then Marthe Fortin on the 23 of October in 1950 at Baie-St.-Paul, Quebec.
Ref. Empreinte, vol. 11, p.32
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