Momma Says: To Read or Not to Read: Excerpt Tour Walks by Big Alex's Pond by Henry Van Berkel

Thursday, August 11, 2022

Excerpt Tour Walks by Big Alex's Pond by Henry Van Berkel

Walks by Big Alex's Pond

by Henry Van Berkel

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GENRE: Autobiography (Nature)

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BLURB:

Ten years after Big Alex MacDonald leaves his home in Ashdale, Nova Scotia, in the 1880's to find his fortune, he amasses fabulous wealth almost overnight in the Yukon and becomes known as "the King of the Klondike". At his death a decade later, there is not enough money in his estate to cover expenses. What happened to his immense riches? A century after Alex's departure from Nova Scotia, the author purchases "Big Alex's" family land and finds his own El Dorado amongst the riches of friends, neighbours and family, and the endless fascinations of nature. On hikes along the roads of the historic property he muses about the drama of his own past, and the life journeys of his family members and those of his neighbours.

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EXCERPT (Exclusive Excerpt):

Alex turned up at the Alaska Commercial Company warehouse in the spring of 1897, hair tangled, in muddy boots and patched pants and spilled $150,000 worth of gold onto the counter in front of the astonished proprietors and an astounded female newspaper reporter named Alice Henderson. He invited Alice to take one of the big nuggets, and when she hesitated—wondering perhaps what might be expected in return—Alex smiled sweetly, methodically rubbed his beard (as he was wont to do) and whispered, “Oh, they are nothing to me! Take as many as you please. There are lots more.” Alice selected one worth the equivalent of a year’s salary.

The fabulous wealth that poured out of his pits, rocketed Big Alex, in a matter of months, from being just another hard-working labourer to a Dawson City “aristocrat.” He was rich beyond his wildest dreams before the outside world had even heard about the incredible Klondike discovery. During his first summer, he brought thirty-nine donkeys out of the diggings, each one laden with a hundred pounds of gold. The summer edition of The Dawson Daily News called Alex the “largest mine owner in the Klondike and Indian River districts.” He was the biggest employer too, and he paid his workers well—often in land.

In July 1897, word of the immense wealth being unearthed in the Klondike was telegraphed around the world, immediately after sixty-eight hardy miners, each with an amazing story to tell, stumbled from the steamship Portland in Seattle, Washington, burdened down collectively with more than a ton of gold carried in buckets and bags and suitcases and teapots and cans. Four days earlier the steamship Excelsior had docked at San Francisco with similar cargo, but the news outlets there were caught almost unaware. In Seattle the press was ready. The rush from the outside was on.

Men and animals were propelled into frantic and violent motion by the electrifying news. A hundred thousand fortune seekers, some from as far away as Australia, caught the fever, dropped what they were doing, gathered up whatever cash they could and headed for the Klondike. Discouraged folks from all walks of life, many caught up in the deep North American depression of the 1890s, were stirred to new hope.

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