I've spent some time looking around old mines and logging shows where men
did a lot of hard work and didn't think anything about it, but the one that
I am always amazed about was a gear I stumbled across along the Chilkoot
Trail. The Chilkoot was one of the major routes into the Klondike during
the gold rush days. The Mounties required prospectors to bring 2000 pounds
of supplies with them before they would be allowed to enter Canada. They
didn't want a bunch of Cheechakos to nursemaid although they ended up doing
a lot of that anyhow. One of the tough spots along a tough trail was the
Golden Stairs, a steep pitch up to Chilkoot Pass -
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Miners_climb_C
hilkoot.jpg/1280px-Miners_climb_Chilkoot.jpg">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe
dia/commons/thumb/4/40/Miners_climb_Chilkoot.jpg/1280px-
Miners_climb_Chilkoot.jpg
A lot of packers made more carrying loads up to the pass than digging for
gold.
Some years ago I hiked the trail from Dyea to Bennett Lake and it wasn't
unusual to still find items cast off by the horde. The one that amazed me
was a cast iron gear. We were 10's of miles from tide water when we came
upon the gear sitting in the woods, probably part of one of the several
tramways that were built to ease the passage over the pass. This wasn't
just a gear; it was a GEAR!, maybe 6" thick and about as many feet in
diameter. I have no idea what a chunk of cast iron that size weighs, but a
lot more than the load I was carrying. I have tried to image how that
piece of iron got to where it sits now, but it must have taken a fair
amount of effort over uniformly bad trails. I am not aware of any sort of
a "road" that followed that route and spots along the trail there today
wouldn't pass anything much wider than a mule. Maybe one of these days
I'll hear the rest of the story.
Phil
On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 10:21 AM, David Nighswander <
wishingstarfarm663@m...> wrote:
> >From: James Thompson
>
>
>
> > Aha, says I, the old millwright, the drive shear pin is broken on the
> drive. So I opened it >up and replaced the broken shear pin, and all was
> right with the lathe again. And this was >considered to be miraculous. Not
> everyone is trained to know how machinery functions.
>
> And it’s men and women like you that keep us from living in the forest
> hunting for bugs.
> As long as you are willing to teach, the skills won’t be lost.
> That’s really a good thing cause I’ve eaten far to many bugs from my
> motorcycle days.
>
> Dave N.
>
> aka Old Sneelock
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