Young Percy This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Klondike Sun

   www.yukonweb.com/community/daw - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/28/1999   Last Visited: 8/19/2001

   Young Percy ( 85 years young ) himself never hankered to follow in his father's sled tracks. He ran the mail route twice , both times in the winter , about two years apart. He recalled that it was some time in the 1930s , '35 or '34.
   
   The first time he made the run things went just great , and it was quite enjoyable , though not something he wanted to do forever. By that time he was already working for the Company , as men of his generation often refer to the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation.
   
   A couple of years later he said he decided to give his father another little holiday. This time , nothing went right.
   
   The two younger pups of the team wanted to be with their mother , and she had been left at , a bit lame.
   ...
   I left Fortymile , and there was a blizzard , Percy said. Oh , it was a blast , whiteout and everything.. He was to deliver something to the homestead of C.B. Tidd , a former Mountie and sometime writer who lived near Twelve Mile.
   
   I was doing all right. The trail was well marked with spruce boughs , but when I got on that river you couldn't see five feet ahead of you.
   
   ...
   Percy junior went back to work for YCGC.
   
   He said that people tend to forget that his dad often used horses for the trip even in the winter when the loads were too big for his usual nine dog team.
   
   The old man never told the kids much about his trips. He'd come home chilled and frostbitten , they'd ask him how it had been , and he'd just say , Fine.. Percy was pleased , years later , to read about some of his dad's adventures after they were written up.
   
   When the Second World War came along , Percy signed up for a hitch , eventually arriving in France just 30 days after D-Day and getting home without a scratch..
   
   Before embarking for England on the Queen Mary , however , he hitch-hiked from Halifax to Wolfville to see his father's home county.
   
   Pretty good down there , but it was a Sunday and everything was closed up.
   ...
   A one time school mistress who was then the post mistress told Percy that his father had worked at a farm in the area , but there was no way to prove it.
   
   There's no record at all , of course , he said.
   
   After the war , Percy junior worked at a number of jobs , retiring in 1976 after a stint as a plumber with the federal Ministry of Transport. He and Ruth decided to make their retirement home in Qualicum Beach , where a program administered by Veterans' Affairs assisted them in obtaining a reasonable mortgage.
   
   Since then they have come back to Dawson a few times , but have found it an expensive trip , unlike the days when they used to visit for a weekend from Whitehorse.
   ...
   Percy likes the idea of a race named for his father. He can't see very well at all these days , but the sounds of the race brought back a lot of memories for him.
   
   What comes back to me is when these dogs are ready to start ... they're all tied up there , barking and everything. I used to help my dad when he used to start in the morning. I'd help him and hitch the dogs up. We had to secure the sleigh the same. Oh , man , they were ready to go - barkin' and everything. That brought back a lot of memories..
   ...
   Thinking of watching the winner , Peter Butteri , arriving on March 16 , Percy said , I used to dress light like that , too.