Wrong Turn

The storm came on much quicker and heavier than Lucas had ever seen , A storm of the century perhaps , who knows .

Seven years in a row he had made the trip , starting in the late spring from southern Alaska and following an old map that his grandfather had originally made , and then was passed on to his father , which then came to him .

His grandfather had made the trip as a young man in his twenties , five years in a row , with nothing to show for it .

So he gave it up as a wild goose chase , but ten years later he had tried one last time .

At thirty seven years of age . He sold everything he owned and headed back to the Yukon .

He told his beloved , that he would come back rich this time or not at all .

She had begged him not to go , Told him she might not wait for him , But he knew she would . and obviously she did .

Lewis Long headed out with a mission .

In some small town in Alaska , just south of Juneau , he got off a stage coach , and bought a dog sled and team , he bought bags of dried fish and pails and pans for the dogs , he bought cured deer and moose meat , he bought bags of beans and rice , He bought a shotgun and shells to fend off bears , he bought two cases of whiskey , to fend off what ever else might befall him . He bought sacks of flour and brown sugar . he bought a jar of honey wrapped in a leather sack , He also bought pouches of seeds and two sacks of coffee , A pick and shovel as well as a pan for sifting gold , three bear skins and two wool blankets and an axe and hatchet and the finest bowie knife he had ever seen . A frying pan and two pots , utensils and a canteen . He bought some basic tools , a hammer , a saw , a flint and striker and a several lengths of rope , plus a few other odds and ends , He recorded all of this in a leather bound journal , which he wrote in every evening .

The last thing he bought was " Crud ".

Lewis was just heading out of town when he met a man who was just getting back from , " The Territory "

The man was half starved , he had three scrawny dogs pulling his near empty sled , and one dog that was much bigger than the others , he was still obviously under fed and in poor condition , but was clearly a lead dog .

The man told him that he had been forced to eat two of his dogs , and a two others had run off . But " Crud " had gotten him through .

He had stayed too long and had been forced to spend the winter , he had barely made it out alive .

Lewis headed out in early march , he made his way north east and to a site that he had worked on his last trip , following his own map .

He spent the months of May and June working the old site with little success .

At the end of June he had less than two ounces of gold flake . from panning at a shallow bend in the river where he had made his camp and prospected in previous years , with similar lack of success

He decided to move up river and came to a series of short water falls .

almost immediately he started finding pay dirt , flakes , and tiny nuggets , and then a big nugget , and then more , and even more .

He came back with more than two pounds of gold , a fortune .

But he had stayed longer than he should have , the weather was already starting to turn . But Crud led the way with an urgency that surprised Lewis and he was able to make it back before the winter set in .

The return trip was much harder than he expected and at one point his sled overturned and his foot got caught beneath it .

nothing was broken , but he had several deep gouges that before he got back had become infected .

within a few days of his return the foot had to be amputated .

Lewis was never able to return to that mother lode .

His haul from that last trip however turned out to be a great fortune .

Nearly thirty years later William Long took his turn at the Alaskan wilderness following a copy of the map that he had made from the original that his father , Lewis had shown him . His father had also advised him on several other aspects as well . Such as how to pick a good dog , what supplies to take , when to start , and perhaps most important , know when to leave .

William made the trip twice , three years apart . On his first attempt he managed to find the original camp but never found the water falls that his father had described in many stories , but had never set down properly on the map . As it turned out , that small river had two branches feeding into it . And several other branches off of each of those .

William did however come back with seven ounces of gold on his first attempt by panning the stream there in front of the old broken down cabin that his father had thrown together decades before , not a fortune by any means , but a very fine payday at the assayers office .

On his second trip , leaving behind his wife and new born son , William never returned , having apparently perished in the harsh Northern Wilderness .

William's son Lucas grew up hearing the tales told by his grandfather , of his great adventures in the far north .

Lewis Long had invested his fortune very well , Turning his small fortune into several thriving business ventures , that provided very well for him and his family until the day he died at the age of 76 , In the year 1902 .

Lucas had seen his grandfathers map many times . he could have drawn it from memory if needed , but when the old man died , it became his .

Not just a copy as his father had followed , but the actual original map made on an animal hide , deer skin most likely . He also got his hands on his grandfathers journal , which his grandfather had rarely spoken of .

Lucas spent the next year planning his trip , His mother tried repeatedly to talk him out of it , but his mind was made up .

He booked passage by train , to Juneau Alaska . Once there he purchased a sled team and the same provisions as his grandfather , as described in the journal to get to the town of " Judd's Dream " , where the map began .

When Lucas got to "Judd's Dream " two days later , it was a ghost town . But that was where the map started so that was where Lucas started .

Lucas headed off in the direction that seemed to be north east , as the map indicated , and before long he seemed to be following a trail of sorts .

Three days later he passed by a long body of open water at the foot of a rocky hill , at the southern edge of that small lake was a large boulder , with the words " Last Chance " , carved into it , and when Lucas checked his grandfathers map , there it was .

Lucas had seen this on the map before , but never realized that it was a trail marker . The old trail had grown over during the decades of disuse , but every now and then a bit of the old trail would become apparent , an old fire ring of stones or a now rotted and fallen down shelter . It was never much but it was enough to guide Lucas and give him the confidence to keep going .

He was two weeks into his trek when he found the site of the old cabin .

Most of it was collapsed and rotted .

Lucas had matched his grandfathers provisions precisely , with the addition of a canvas tent and a cot .

Lucas set up camp next to the ruined cabin and stowed his provisions and equipment in the tent and staked out the dogs in a perimeter around it .

The next morning he struck out to find the waterfall , he knew that he might get some gold by panning at the camp but he was after the big strike that waited at the waterfall .

He headed upstream , he knew that his goal was less than two days from camp , he just had to find it by the process of elimination .

On his first attempt , he followed the stream taking every left fork , and marking them with a post that he drove into the ground , as well as marking it down on a new map , since his grandfathers map ended at the old cabin . at the end of his second day out he returned to camp .

Two of the dogs had dumped their water pails over and were in poor shape as a result .

Lucas dug shallow holes and put the water buckets into them so that they could not be tipped over . He fed them from his supply of dried fish and made sure that they were all doing well .

His next trip out he took a right turn at his first marker , following a larger stream .

He passed by an odd ravine at first , but then went back for a second look .

It was obviously a washout but was now dry .

Lucas decided to follow it .

A few hours later he came upon a short cliff above a sandy pit .

This had once been a waterfall , but now was dry , He started digging through the sand with his bare hands letting it sift through his fingers watching for a glint of yellow , this had to be it .

And then there it was in the palm of his hand , a small yellow bit of grit , no bigger than a flea , but it was gold , he was sure of it .

He kept digging and found another , and then another after that .

He had found it .

The waterfall had dried up but the gold was here .

He made his way back to camp as quick as he could .

He collected a few items , hitched the dogs together ,and moved his camp .

he left the sled behind . and most of his provisions .

He sifted through the sand finding grains and nuggets , the rest of that summer . and well into the fall .

As the sacks of flour emptied , he filled them with gold .

Then one day , the first snow fell , Lucas woke up and crawled out of his tent to an inch of new fallen snow .

Had he stayed too long ?

He packed up his bags of gold and broke camp .

He could always come back again next year .

He made two trips carrying the gold back to the old cabin .

He gathered up what provisions he had left , and started home .

He had seven bags of gold on the sled when he started back .

He estimated at least 70 pounds of gold .

The dogs had a hard time with the sled , it was much heavier now . and there was very little snow yet . even though it was already icy cold .

But a week into the trek the weather changed , a storm came down from the north , with bitter cold and blowing snow .

Lucas pushed on day after day .

When the blizzard hit with it's full force , Lucas tried to push on .

The dogs came to a stop , the storm was just too intense and they were unwilling to continue .

Lucas decided to hold up for the night and wait out the storm . he spread the bear skins , creating a makeshift shelter and brought the dogs beneath it with him .

By morning the storm had passed but a steady wind continued to howl

Lucas looked out from beneath his makeshift shelter and realized that he was in the center of a frozen lake , He had strayed from the trail .

Lucas realized his mistake , he rubbed a spot clear of the snow on the ice beneath him and saw that it was not thick enough for his sled .

Lucas got to his feet , the storm had passed and the wind had blown much of the snow clear . Now the sun was shining and the ice , frozen from the storm , was now shimmering wet and melting .

Lucas took a step towards the rear of the sled , hoping to mush the dogs to the shore .

At his first step he heard the ice crack .

He unhitched the dogs and they bolted for the shore .

Lucas grabbed the sacks of gold intending to follow in suit , as the ice gave way , and he sank beneath the fragile surface .