A Yukon Adventure

The lanky gentleman standing on the right in the photo above is my grandfather, George W. Roland. After languishing over my fireplace for an eternity I finally got the framed photo professionally scanned. Once this was achieved it was relatively easy to brighten, color balance and restore lost detail. The photo was taken on May 17th, 1898 on the bank of Lake Bennett in the Northwest Territories on his sojourn to the Gold Rush in the latter part of the 19th century. I'm the proud owner of my grandfather's legacy which is in the form of a diary that was written while enroute. My Aunt Betty took the hand written notes and typed them onto standard letter sized paper somewhere around 1938 and had those pages bound into a book or journal of the adventure. I decided to transcribe some of the diary entries right here so you could get a flavor of what their lives were like. Frank Thompson (the man sitting on the left) wrote most of the entries and it follows them through their adventures in Alaska, the Klondike and the Northwest Territories.
I've corrected the obvious typos but kept in some of the more interesting spellings and word usages to keep the accuracy and tone of the writer. I don't intend to publish the whole journal here, rather, I think I'll keep that between myself and my family. Besides, it might take months or even years to transcribe as it's quite a large tome. I hope you'll enjoy this very personal glimpse back in time.

George W. Roland , Frank Thompson
Journal, Klondike and Alaska


1898

March 6,

We left Bellows Falls, Vermont on Jan. 15th. George W. Roland and myself were met in Ny. by our other partner, A.F. King. My brother and Johannes Andersen gave us a dinner at Leon Flouret and we took the 7 P.M. train for the wild and wooley west feeling at peace with ourselves and all the world. Someone made so much noise on the ferry boat that the captain sent down word that he couldn't hear the fog horns. It must have been Jimmy de Kay.
We had scalpers tickets to Tacoma costing $71, including sleepers. This was First Class to St. Paul and Tourist sleeper from there on. Gus and I with much labor and calculation made out that we had saved $25 going Tourist and as we did not feel like economizing, we invested that sum in drinks in the dinner car where we got quite chummy with the old steward, who said he never saw second class passengers buy so much champagne in his life.
A.F. King (Gus) was in Alaska four years ago, where he got the mining fever and we intended going in last fall, only mother was ill and we put it off, thereby missing the chance of our lives for we would have been in just at the discovery of the Klondike when every one in the country made a big stake and got rich. George Roland is an ex-log driver and having always been in the woods ought to be of a good deal of help to us who know little of such a life. He is about twenty eight years old, Gus is twenty nine and I am twenty six. Gus lives in N.Y. City and Roland came from Maine. George was quite 'epris with a girl on the train, whom I think doubted the respectability of our party but picked him as the least of the evils. He would get up at six in the morning to talk to her before we got up, though we never troubled him that way til after nine. He came in one morning and aroused me from my dreams of home to say that he had been credibly informed by one of the original settlers that grizzly bears were on the increase in that section of the country we were going through. He spent most of the rest of the day looking out the windows for tracks of them.



We got to a little station in Dacota (sic) and almost the first man we saw was a fellow from home named Billy Hayes who left last year. At Tacoma we were met by Gus' brother, Charley, and a man named Fred Church who wants to go to Alaska with us. He seems to be a mighty nice chap and has been prospecting for the last six years in the Olympics. He knew Harry at St. Paul's School having gone from there to Princeton. We stopped at the Chilburg and the boys having made me treasurer, I took all the money and put it in the bank, allowing them to their great disgust, only twenty-five cents a day pocket money. Treasurer for agand like that is a thankless job though this strick (sic) economy was enforced pro-bono publico and they both of them turned on me and reviled me and accused me of using public funds. All the time however they were cheating themselves for they would go into George Bott's saloon next to the Chilburg and order drinks having them charged to the hotel bill.

While we were in Tacoma we were known as getting more free drinks in Bott's saloon than was ever done before. Roland has now a cognomen- Cocktail George-which he gained in this wise. He has a wonderous and insatiable appetite for Manhattan cocktails which he drinks at most unsuitable and in fact every occasion. He even got up one morning af four o' clock and drawing the night clerk to one side, for he thought himself back in Vermont, asked if he could get a drink anywhere. He was surprised and pleased to learn that in Tacoma the saloons keep open all night and also Sundays. After that he rose habitually at four.

We did not expect to come west til the middle of Feb. But George N. Wright, the man who I grubstaked last year, came on east with a proposition about certain hydraulic claims on the Dalton Trail, discovered by one "Long Shorty" Bigelow, a square man, which he would let us into if we would furnish the funds needful for putting us in the plant. So a company was formed and I was given charge of it. But in Seattle and Tacoma I learned enough to cause me to be very careful of anything "Long Shorty" may be in.
We bought our outfits at the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber Co. store and made a very good deal, getting enough clothes, food and mining utensils to last us a year and a half, for $750.00. This was a sad day for me however for going off by myself to buy a medicine chest I fell in with Charley King and some of his friends from the east and retired very early, leaving Gussie and George to sew up 144 bags that our grub was going in. They seemd to think I hadn't done right. Strange too. The next evening I had been rushing around all day getting the stuff on the boat that sailed the following morning, they got even with me for they decided to make the town remember their departure, but I remembering how much there would be to do before the boat sailed, refused to join them. Gussie opened the ball by putting both feet through George Bott's door panel, to surprise and annoyance to Mr. Botts. After that there was continual round of pleasure. The crowd, about ten of us, made the grand rounds, The Bohemian Club, Monogram Eclipse and many others. George, who seemed filled with the idea that a man could not get full on cocktails, confined himself to his favorite drink while took only beer. Consequently, about two A.M. when we went to supper, George ordered about two dollars worth and at once went to sleep, refusing to wake up and eat anything so we took him upstairs and put him to bed though he was afraid I would steal his boots. Gus could be got to bed til four and we had to get up at six for the boat left at nine and there was lots to be done. This was Wednesday, Jan. 26th, and our boat, the City of Seattle, always leaves on time. We had 260 cubic feet of freight and our tickets only allowed us 60 cubic feet, but by a wise expenditure of the public funds I managed to get it all on and saved forty dollars freight. We got to Seattle at 11 A.M. and and didn't leave there til 10:30 P.M.

It's a fairly mundane peek at their lives as they made their way cross country by train to Skaguay and ultimately, Dawson. But there is something else I wanted to share with you. As an aside I wanted to illustrate the friendship which was developed between Frank Thompson and my grandfather. Every relationship has its bumps and rough patches and theirs was no exception. There were times in the Yukon when they would get so angry with each other they'd threaten to kill each other, then make camp in seperate places until they got over their mad spot and calmed down.
Sifting through the diary I have found a handwritten letter of condolence he wrote to my grandmother on hearing of George Roland's death in 1951. The letter is as follows...

Telephone 2
F.L. Thompson
Rye Beach
New Hampshire

Dear Mrs. Roland,
I wanted to offer you and yours my sympathy over George's death.
I want to say in all sincerity that I thought of him as one of the best and finest men I ever knew. No one could appreciate the strength of character and goodness of George unless they had been with him in the things we went through together many years ago. I really knew him then and he couldn't have changed.
I have heard some one describe heaven (of which no one really knows what it is like) as opening a door and going into a room where all one's best friends who have died are. And if this is so I'm sure that there will be another little door into another room where I will find George and Gus King waiting for me. I hope so.
No one knows until sorrow comes how many good kindly people there are in this world. I never knew I had as many friends I had until this last year when I lost my only son and grandson, and I am sure you too are now finding it out and it helps a lot, doesn't it.
I am truly sorry that I can not come up to George's funeral but, alas, I too have grown old and have only been out of the house but six times this year, and can not go too far. So I can only send my sympathy, many expressions of sorrow and say may God bless you and keep you.
F.L. Thompson

George Roland died four years before I was born. And yet I feel a bond and kinship with him as strong as any real life friend. Wouldn't it be a treat if Frank is right and the door opens and George is waiting there to tell me some stories. How bad could the afterlife be?

This is the very first time this photo has been seen on the web and nearly thirty years since many in my family have laid eyes on it. His countenance looks down upon me every day while safely ensconced over my fireplace. No wonder I feel that bond. So welcome to the internet George Roland, so much has happened since your time in the sun.