Hugh Brewster in the Yukon

The Spell of the Yukon

“No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)/It’s the cussedest land that I know,/From the big dizzy mountains that screen it/To the deep, deathlike valleys below.”

Maggie is reciting from The Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service as we head for Mayo, a village five hours north of Whitehorse. I’d proposed a photo stop by “the marge of Lake Labarge” (site of Sam McGee’s famous cremation), but since the sun isn’t quite up yet we push on. I yawn, feeling the effects of eight talks in two days. Maggie suggests I snooze while she drives, but with the dawn beginning to illuminate the “big dizzy mountains”, I don’t want to miss any of it. The jack-pines are laden with snow, flocks of spruce grouse feed by the roadside and a lynx scurries into the woods ahead of us.

We stop for gas by a large log cabin where Steve, a grey-bearded fellow who could pass for a sourdough, sells cinnamon buns the size of curling stones. Maggie asks if it’s been busy and he replies, “You’re the rush today.” The cinnamon buns, along with some sandwiches, become our lunch as we’re scheduled to be at Mayo’s J.V. Clark School for 1:00 p.m. My first talk there is about Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose and the mostly First Nations primary students listen attentively to a story of two girls in Victorian smocks posing for a painting in an English garden. My A/V presentation to the older grades about Dieppe and At Vimy Ridge gets an enthusiastic response and when I ask how many of them have relatives who’ve served in wartime almost every hand goes up — something I found everywhere in the Yukon. I mention my 7:00 p.m. talk at the Mayo Library and that evening we have over 20 attendees for a Titanic presentation — about seven percent of the town!

The next morning we stop at Eliza Van Bibber School in Pelly Crossing. Again, I start with the younger children for a Breakout Dinosaurs A/V talk where I highlight the creatures that might once have lumbered through their schoolyard. I then give a Vimy/Dieppe talk to older students and, at the end of it, the primary kids troop in holding aloft their brightly-colored paintings of dinosaurs. It’s a great moment and we bring out the digital cameras. Then it’s back into the car for a stop at a village called Carmacks and another day of talks in Whitehorse.

Two days later, as the plane circles over Toronto airport, I peer down at strip malls amid a grey drizzle. I reflect on my week of staggering scenery, crisp weather and warm people. And I think back to Maggie and The Spell of the Yukon: “The freshness, the freedom, the farness – O God! How I’m stuck on it all.”