BOBILLIER, MARCEL (2-3A) (122 ENGLISH)
We re-lighted the fire. While we ate breakfast of hot soup, a big grizzly bear approached our camp at a distance of 200 feet. Since we'd been warned that we'd see only mountain goats, we did not need guns. We were not armed. _we wondered "What to do?" We shouted. He looked at us, backed away, then he returned to get a closer look. Father Boyd got his axe ready. I picked up a piece of wood_We shouted again and the bear disappeared behind rocks. We were sure relieved for it must have been a grandfather of numerous bears_
The weather was not nice that morning. The fog or mist hid all the heights and did not seem to condescend to leave too soon.
We picked up our knap-sacs and left around 9:15. We climbed out of the bottom of the stream which still dominated the old pylons which supported the cables which transported merchandise to the summit_.
We climbed rocky mountain spurs where here and there we saw souvenirs of the gold rush days. At the bottom of the ravine, we noticed an old steam engine which was not pushed out of sight. We were in fog and could see nothing at 200 feet in front of us. However I took some photos of this fantastic scenery of rocks and peaks of all dimensions where the narrow circle of these mountains, a city of tents and a few houses had been built sixty years ago..
Arriving above a slight mound or hillock, I suddenly noticed something unusual: two small tents in front of me_We called and the man who was still sleeping was truly surprised to see us. It took him a few minutes to realize we were two priests from the Yukon on an excursion to the Chilkoot. He was Dennis Cooper. He was here with his brother who even in the mist, was inspecting the area. They had left Dyea Saturday night two days before us. Thus we had covered in one day what had taken them three. We camped just a half mile from their encampment.
Alexander, his brother, arrived soon after. We talked for a few minutes and, leaving our knap-sacs we went to look over this old encampment where the wooden houses of old had all fallen under the heavy snowfalls. We found spots that had been leveled for tents, old furnaces, a complete black-smith shop with pliers, and hammers, plates and a lot of iron items here and there. Father Boyd brought back an old rusted knife and fork as souvenirs. I didn't bring anything back!
Since the fog was very thick, we could not tell exactly how wide this rocky vale was, nor where this tent-city lay. We didn't even see the famous rock-slide which we had to climb to get to the Pass. But the Americans assured us that it was only a few hundred feet farther. The precipitous mountain overhangs were raised up on all sides of us. And everywhere we looked we saw piles of freshly broken rocks.
We said good-bye to these men who had come to take cinematographic photos for the T.V. and wondered if they should continue their travels beyond the Pass or return to Skagway. Our experience encouraged them to continue on. They arrived in Bennett three days after us.
In fact a short distance from there, we discovered the famous one-thousand-foot-high rock-slide which we had to climb. Five rusted cables hung on the rocks. We followed them from rock to rock, at times grabbing onto them. At 200 feet in height, we noticed smoke filtering through the mist from the encampment of the two Americans.
We climbed and climbed from one crag to another thinking of the long line of gold-seekers of the gold rush era having seen photos showing us one person behind another in a continual ascending line. The inclination of this slope was 35 degrees and in the winter months, during those years, these big rocks would have been covered in a thick layer of snow in which the miners had sculpted out steps. The area had been christened "the Scales". In March 1898, an avalanche had buried 74 men in an area a bit lower down.
In two spots along the ascent, we saw an old winch which served to hoist up the merchandise to the Pass and, up above, we found a copper machine, a piston-run motor still sitting on its large wooden skids with which it had been hoisted to this level.
The climb was not too bad. We went slowly. There were precipitous crags overhanging this rocky gap where goats had been seen by the Americans the previous evening. The higher we climbed, the more the crags got closer and tighter.
When we reached the summit, the Chilkoot Pass, we found ourselves between fifty-foot walls. It measured a quarter of a mile in length and kept climbing in gradual steps. Barren rocks covered the bottom of this ten-to-twenty foot corridor. In some spots, water coming from melted snow banks at the bottom of this ravine flowed under the rocks.
Going through this pass, we discovered many vestiges of the past: iron metal, boards, old used-up and heel-less shoes, pieces of a workman's old overalls.
This gap right on the summit of the mountain, at 4000 feet of altitude, was truly fantastic. These two rocky walls, in mist, between which we continued to walk from one rock to another, had something rather mysterious.
Another gorge less high was on our right which the horses could climb more or less and which the gold-seekers used to return down to their different posts, but it was longer to go over. Each man had to have about one ton of provisions in order to enter the Yukon. The police at the summit of the trail would not let anyone in without this minimum amount. If not, it would have meant famine and all the rest that follows.
We reached the summit at noon exactly. We took a photo and ate a chocolate bar. Then we started our descent on the other side, in the same scenery of rocks and crags, and blocks of accumulated rocks all in an indescribable disorder.
We were in Canada. Nothing marked the border at the bottom of the ravine. The boundary marks were on the neighboring heights.
The fog was always quite intense, but suddenly, it seemed, that its shade was different. I made my companion aware of this, at the same time that what I saw beyond the mist or fog was the surface of Crater Lake which was six hundred feet below, just at the base of the slide of rocks fallen from the Chilkoot Pass.
The scenery in this region was beautiful even with the fog, and the walk was quite easy. We went from mound to mound, from ravine to ravine first of all following the sides of the long Crater Lake and the stream which came out of it. The trail was well marked and full of rusted horse shoes, of debris, of rotted boards, and other souvenirs.
Around 3 o'clock, the fog lifted slightly. The sun tried to pierce through the fog. We noticed the dry summit and the steep sides of the mountains which wedged this empty valley.
We climbed, we descended, we followed the sides of the hills and edges of a string of little lakes; we went across bear tracks whose steps were well seen in the soft sand.
At the end of these lakes the trail was indicated on our maps on the opposite side of the valley. If we followed it, we'd have had to go across the broad stream which flowed out of Lindeman Lake, which was not without some difficulties. So we decided to stay on the same side of the valley and to scale the rocky heights which were covered in balsam and short bushes. Finally we reached a last gorge which tore the neighboring mountain and where the view of a large glacier visible from the railroad, was the sign that we were approaching civilization.
In fact, we'd been noticing the end of the Lindeman Lake for a while, a lake quite a few miles long where the waters were as pure as all the waters of this region which skirts the spur of the chain of mountains which we are following.
We thought we'd camp on its shores, but we found at 8 o'clock that at night at a certain distance from the headwaters, the twilight came quickly. So we camped under the first pines we came across that day. We set up the tent for the third and last night; we prepared a delicious pot of soup and we went to bed on hard ground while the rain started to drum on the canvas of the tent. It rained non-stop all night long, so much so that in the morning of Thursday, August 28th, the whole area was bathed in humidity.
4th Day
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