A 1949 Steam Adventure from Skagway to Dawson
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- This is a low-res scan of a 52-minute "home movie" which was shot on professional 16mm film, not the usual 8mm. This is a section of a much longer film - an entire Alaska coastal cruise with interior excursion, no doubt. A shot list of the film can be seen at railsnorth.com/...
Judging by the subjects, it was filmed by a woman - there are lots of kids and dogs, and no machinery. The amount of snow and the cars that are seen show that it was shot in May-June 1949. The photographer's identity remains a mystery, though, as I bought the film from a woman in Arizona who, in about 1985, acquired it from unknown man in New York.
Our mystery woman begins her travels in Skagway. People along Broadway are seen, and the old suspension bridge across the Skagway River. She then goes on the White Pass & Yukon Route railway to Bennett and Carcross, to Ben-My-Chree on the sternwheeler Tutshi, back on the train to Whitehorse and finally, and on the sternwheeler Casca which takes her down the Yukon River to Dawson City.
A funny aspect of the film is the editing. It's been spliced so that individual features are shown both northbound and southound consecutively! That makes it difficult to identify places along the Yukon River, as things may or may not be out of chronological order.
I will be editing the hi-res version into proper chronological order and adding narration as time permits (probably next winter), then will post the new version.
27:09 Five Finger Rapids
27:37 Winch that connects from someplace to boat & inches the boat into the correct spot to pass through. Go through Five Finger Rapids between the wrong monolith & your vessel is torn apart.
27:37 Wince winding up on the vessel
28:53 Picking up wood for the steamship to burn. There were several wood caches, each set apart for various shipping lines.
29:55 The Yukon Saw Mill - where Romeo Poulin worked once he gave up gold I the 1940s.
29:58 Dawson sidewalks not all in place yet.
30:22 Although the sign reads Dance Hall, this gives you an idea of the 22 VERY LONG caches that held everyone’s food and supplies throughout the winter, horse feed & bedding for the Mounties. Come the end of summer, steamboats, sometimes 20 to 30 would bring up all the winter supplies that the population of Whitehorse & Dawson needed to survive the harsh winter.
30:36 First view of Moosehide Slide over the city.
30:41 Dawson Nuggett, newspaper office.
32:49 Miner’s rocker & tourists trying their hand at rocking the paydirt.
33:08 Panning for gold
33:24 Dredge. Notice the men on the 2nd level, giving you the scale of this huge thing.
33:43 Tubes being raised up into the belly of a dredge to be separated from the gold.
34:26 A long view of a dredge and its tailings, or long wormlike, puffed up dirt that has already been through the dredge. The tailings look like the slippery footfalls of worms.
This is amazing film, and everyone still managed to dress well--no sweat pants and jogging suits. It is amazing when you think that some of the old timers were prospectors or knew prospectors first hand. This should be preserved it is something very unique. Robert Service's cabin, fascinating. The little bear kind of sad, but hopefully they took good care of him.
Great work on digitizing this old film. At about the 10:34 mark, there is a glimpse of what was left at that time of the F.H. Kilbourne sitting in the mud in the foreground.
Excellent clarity for a low-res transfer. Thanks for preserving this wonderful piece of history, Murray.
This is very interesting. The quality of the film is amazing. Had it not been for the clothing and automobiles, I would never guess in million years it was made in 49. Thanks for posting.
Thanks so much for posting this!! I frequent Carcross quite often and was there as recent as 2 weeks ago. It's so cool to see the Tutshi paddlewheeler, Dutchess steam engine, the beach, Matt watson store and such as it looked back then. You could even see the Desert in the background of one of the shots. Like a little window into 77 orbits of the sun ago.
13:40 I am pretty certain they are swatting at mosquito's. I was in the Yukon mid May of last year and they were crazy. I spent a lot of time doing similar hand gestures and movements when doing stuff outside of my trailer or in wooded areas.
Haha - yes, the Yukon dance!
Wonderful sharing
Murray.....What fantastic footage!!! I lived in the Yukon 1965 thru 1968 and made three trips down the Yukon River from Whitehorse to Carmacks. There were three stern wheelers on the bank at Whitehorse when I first arrived.....two later burned. I would have given almost anything to ride one but with the bridges over the river now that wasn't about to happen. I constantly search for video from that era and was really excited when I found your post. I know all the old communities along the river and was having trouble with the sequence. Realized when I saw the boat winching upstream through five finger rapids that the video wasn't in chronological order. Really looking forward to the narrated version. Is the historical society in the Yukon aware of your film? I know a person associated with them that would be interested.
Ken
Hi Ken. Glad that you enjoyed it. The Yukon Archives and Skagway Museum both got what are now low-resolution scans of it several years ago. I've just had a 4K scan done of it (just finished last week), and my plan is to edit the film back to chronological order and narrate it when I get some time.
@@MurrayLundberg Wonderful film indeed!! Have made any progress?
Thanks so much for sharing this Murray! What an incredible way to travel our Territory and Alaska!
The skill of the riverboat captains astounds me, and with a barge attached as well!
I would have loved to travel by sternwheeler, although Five Finger Rapids looks like a nail biter.
I'm somewhat surprised at the condition of some buildings, they look
as old in the movie as they do now. I suppose that is in part due to restoration and preservation efforts, but I would have expected them to look newer in the movie, only being 45 years old or so at the time?
The workers sliding down the ramps with the huge loads of wood on carts, that impressed me too. We would be hard pressed to find the skill and effort displayed in this video nowadays.
+FrozenFella - glad you enjoyed it - it's a pretty unique look at a period that's not well recorded. The shots from Dawson make it pretty clear why the capital was moved to Whitehorse. I often think that I was born 50 years too late - that would have been an amazing journey.
It's been a while... I thought I'd ask about the progress on the hi-res version of this? No pressure, just curious.
Good