North of Sixty

Grace Tyreman.

Want to know where to find Yukon gold ? It is in people like Grace.
 I met Grace at the Gold Show in Dawson City. Grace and her husband pan for gold in a tiny town called Mayo, miles from anywhere. To get to Dawson that day they had to get past six grizzly bears recently awake from their hibernation and feeling real ornery!

Grace was telling me that her mother died last spring in her hundredth year. All those dark winters at 40 below hadn't seemed to harm the old lady. They buried her on a mountain overlooking their cabin so she could keep an eye on things.

The bishop of the arctic did the ceremony.

When I spoke to the Bishop later that day I asked him whether he remembered doing the funeral of grace's mother.

"Never forget it." he replied. "First of all I had to travel thirty miles
on a snow covered track. When I got to the Tyreman place I asked where the body was. 'Oh she's up on the mountain.' came the reply."
"So," says the Bishop "They loaded me on an ATV and hauled me up the mountain in a snow storm. I was so cold when I got there I felt that I would have been warmer in the grave."

Then, he added: "I guess that's all part of been part of being Bishop of the Arctic, but it sure would have been easier if they had buried her in the back field."

Jubilate.

Ian

North of Sixty

In 1898 at Bonanza Creek, a short distance from Dawson City,  George Carmack, Skookum Jim and Tagish Charley made one of the richest gold strikes in history.

News of this discovery set off the Great Klondike Gold Rush.
In ten short years over 300,000 people made their way to the Far North to seek their fortunes in the Yukon Gold Fields. My great grand father Peter Curtis was among them.

One piece of history quickly glossed over is the testimony written on a board outside St Andrews church in downtown Dawson.

It states that:

 " Robert MacDonald, a preacher at this church, left his gold claim in order to pursue the  greater riches of men's souls during the Yukon Gold Rush"

Jesus said " If you have money, employ it to win people to heaven, so that when you die you will have friends to welcome you to your eternal home."

MacDonald not only will have friends in Heaven, he made plenty on earth also. When he wanted money to build his church the miners paid $15,000:00 in gold dust to put up the building mortgage free.

Any preachers out there? Stick to your calling and leave the rest to God.
Jubilate.

Ian

North of Sixty

How about this beauty! It's the skull of a sabre toothed tiger.The other a mammoth tusk.
Andre snapped a couple of photos of these pre-historic creatures when we were at the Yukon Gold Show last week.

It might come as a surprise to many people that the most well preserved remains of these ancient creatures come right out of the placer mines around Dawson City.

The area around here is a veritable grave yard of mastodons, woolly mammoths, giant grizzlies and sabre toothed tigers, all being dug out of the perma frost in the search for gold.

Without the carbon dating guess work that goes on, I read in Genesis six that a great flood buried the old world and caused the extinction of thousands of ancient species.

If you go to this part of the earth their bones are on display for all to behold and when you see them  the account of Noah's ark is all the more believable.
Got a better idea as to how the mastodons finished up in Dawson City?

Jubilate.

Ian

North of Sixty. The Bishop of the Arctic

We meet some fascinating people in life, no more so than when we travel to one of the four corners of the earth.

Such a place is Dawson city where, literally,the trail runs out.

It was here that Andre and I met the bishop of the Arctic. The man on the right!

He joined us on our bench overlooking the mighty Yukon River with his assistant, Laurie Munro.

For the next half hour he told us how he came to be overseeing the largest parish in the world (about 2000 miles across).

When he mentioned that he had begun his career as an evangelist in the Church Army I asked him if he knew my old friend, Ken Weaver. Ken and I had worked together when I lived in England.

"Well, Praise God!" said the good Bishop, "Ken was my evangelism mentor in seminary."

Even when I am 3000 miles away from home I am always astounded by the family of God and how interconnected it is.

One day you will be sitting on a bench by the Crystal Sea in Heaven and you will staggered by who comes up and sits beside you. It might even be the Bishop of the Yukon.

Jubilate
Ian

North of Sixty

My friend Andre and I stepped off the plane in Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon. Ostensibly we were in the territory for the Yukon gold show but we were also conscious that we were there to meet some interesting people. There are plenty of them in those parts and both of us were ready to witness for Christ.
Emilie who works at the Klondike Ribs and Salmon was our first contact.

This young lady was full of joie de vivre and was impressed with my rendition of "Land of Hope and Glory". So much so that she brought Andre and I from the rear of the fifteen minute line up to a special table in the back room. On the way she took a liking to my light weight Swedish Spring jacket and said she would love to have it. Ah well! Halfway through my grilled halibut the Lord reminded me of the scripture:

"Who ever asks for your coat give him your jacket also."

So there it was .

The last were first, Emilie got the jacket and Andre and I had the pleasure of witnessing for Christ on a cold Spring night in Whitehorse.

Jubilate

Ian