B.C.: Yukon Sketches: A Collection of Stories and Verse

By Eric N. Foster

In B.C. - Yukon Sketches, Eric N. Foster explores two landscapes: the outer landscape of the small working towns of lumbering, mining, and farming as they were fifty to sixty years ago; and the inner landscape of a young man searching for a meaningful maturity for himself through working and talking with others as he meets them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stuart Channel Publishing
• Release date: Sep 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476046495

Eric N. Foster

The author was born in England but raised in Canada on Vancouver Island near Duncan, B.C.. As a boy he read many stories about Canada's north and hoped to live there one day. He first worked in the Yukon as part of a geological survey crew in 1957 and then on a construction crew in Whitehorse. In 1969 he returned to the Yukon as a teacher, first in Whitehorse and then at Beaver Creek, Mile 1202. He found life there good for himself and his young family and the people and country very colourful and interesting. At the present time the author is retired and lives in Saltair, near Ladysmith on Vancouver Island.

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Table Of Contents

Verse

The Winter Maple

The Rape Of The Yukon

Old Mac and Me

At Last, the Sun

Aurora Borealis

Trip

Growth Pains Of a Nation

A Summer Drama

Visiting Fisherman’s Wharf, Sidney, B.C

1970 Easter Holiday

Old Wire

The Grower

Crazy, Crazy Man

Fret Not, Sweat Not

The Saga Of the ‘Sudbury’

Return To the Yukon

Whitehorse

The Lunch Hour

Sunset Over Active Pass

Stories

Prospect Trail

A Fool For A Fish

Coons and Deep Apple Pie

The Short Life of Willie

The Return Home

Brief, Sweet Interlude

A Mouse Tale

A Day In The Park

Never, Never Again

The Old Gent

Under New Management

Verse

The Winter Maple

From the frozen, white ground, the brown-black leviathan trunk

Stretches upward; solemn, silent, magnificently strong.

The incomprehensible, awesome beauty of the Natural Order is reflected

In its near perfect, radial-lateral symmetry.

Hydra-like; huge, twisting arms reach out and up

To become intricate networks of gnarled, twisted, delicate fingers.

The winter air is still and crisp.

Against a grey-stratified sky through which

The distant sun shines and dazzles,

The monstrous, majestic Maple stands and soundly sleeps.

The Rape Of The Yukon

Ever since the rush of ninety-eight

When great black hordes of Whitemen couldn’t wait

For long-term wealth; and ventured forth

To cast their seeds of greed throughout the North,

Yes, ever since the Christian, Whiteman came,

The North has never, never, been the same.

What is it that guides this monstrous breed,

That fills his head with tricks and soul with greed

To possess all; and change the land

Where once a brave, proud race could firmly stand

And survey all from snow-capped mountain peak

There lived a race who knows of what I speak.

Words like these I know make Whitemen scoff,

‘The natives now,’ they claim, ‘are better off

In many ways; they all can eat,

No longer do they die from lack of meat.

There’s jobs-a-plenty, work for one and all,

Now all they have to do is come play ball.’

Come play ball for what, the natives ask.

It seems the end’s unworthy of the task

That lies ahead; to change the North

To yet another place of doubtful worth

Where men work hard to change the world outside,

While deep within the soul has long since died.

The end’s unworthy of the means, we cry.

Your way of life is hardly worth a try

From what we’ve seen; for at its best

The Whiteman’s envious spirit cannot rest,

But wants to change, and change, and change some more

Until not one in millions can keep score.

It’s true that you can lay the forests bare

And change the streams to filthy sewers where

No fish can live; and build great towers

Where people sit and pine for scented flowers.

We know that you take pride in your machines,

But then you’ll drive for miles in search of scenes.

A paradox, it is, the Whiteman’s way.

To have your cake and eat it is the play

You seem to choose; but what avail

Do creature comforts bring, when children wail

To see their parents living bitter lives,

Absorbed in inane tasks, as bees in hives.

Yes, creature comfort is the aim of most,

Time and effort saved is what you boast

To be your forte; but saved for what

It seems to us are things you haven’t got.

You seek the things we had before you came,

But they have gone and you must bear the blame.

We once had time to fish and hunt and roam.

The land you see around you was our home

With no four walls; no clock with hours

Said this time’s theirs and that time’s ours.

It’s true that many young among us died,

But those who live, they really lived with pride

Each mine that’s made, each road that’s built

Serves only to increase the guilt

That you should feel; for what you bring

To us up here has a familiar ring.

If what you have done elsewhere insults Man

Why do you spoil the Yukon with your plan?

Remember once how Europe was so rich

In timber, minerals, soil, and water which

Made her so great; but still her fame

Was just a ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ game.

Is Europe now the loveliest of all places?

Are Europeans now the noblest of all races?

The New World, like the Old, has now grown sick.

Toronto, New York, Paris, take your pick –

They’re all the same; who can feel proud

Of what the Whiteman’s leaders have allowed?

Is this the life that’s destined for the North?

Is this the best the Whiteman can bring forth?

The Yukon now still has its pearl-clear streams,

Its fresh, clean lakes where Trout and Grayling teem

And Pike abound; the air is clean,

The grassy knolls and timber stands are green.

The game it boasts alone today is rare —

The wolf, sheep, goat, moose, caribou, and bear.

The last frontier it is so aptly called,

But even now in parts it’s badly mauled

By man’s machines, those monstrous tools

That often transform wise men into fools.

Does Whiteman fail to learn from his own past,

That economic empires do not last?

There’s little great about the Whiteman’s ways

Where every man upon each other preys

To get ahead, a man’s success

Judged solely by the goods he can possess.

For goods and land and wealth the Whiteman fought.

Is this the message Jesus Christ once taught?

‘It’s not enough to criticize,’ you say.

‘If you’re enraged show us a better way

To run the North, where would you be

Without the ‘greedy’ Whiteman such as me?

Show us the way to make a promised land,

We’ll lend an ear and try to understand.’

Our answer to you all is loud and clear

We want no part of Whiteman’s rule up here

In this Our Land; a land that once

Supported us with all our needs and wants.

Pack up and leave the Yukon as you came,

Go search your souls instead of wealth and fame.

We’ll do without the luxuries you boast.

It’s love for life and Pride we want the most

To have again; we want the pride

This harsh, but full land once gave all who tried

To learn its ways and then become a part.

That challenge made us brave and stout of heart.

We’ll do without your highways and your cars,

Your retail stores, machinery and bars

That suck us in; that only aid

To make us more unsure and more afraid

Of what the future threatens for our race,

A future that we feel ashamed to face.

We’d rather have the life we had before,

When this great land of ours meant more, much more

Than just a place; it Mothered us

And we survived without the Whiteman’s fuss.

We didn’t crucify the mouth that fed

Then rob it of its life-blood as it bled.

We weren’t too proud to modify our ways,

To humbly bow our heads and make our days

Fit Nature’s plan; a plan which yet

You’re still, like fools, determined to upset.

Just look, you’ll see the Chaos Mankind has done

When he and Nature are no longer one.

So Whiteman, leave the Yukon as it was.

It’s such a crime to come here just because

You want more wealth; you know that this

Has never, nor will ever, bring Man bliss.

Your arrogance has made our life a curse,

It’s best you leave before it gets much worse.

Your arrogance will surely be your ruin.

There’s little sense we see, in what you’re doing

To your own House: a house inside

Of which we all must follow to abide.

We want to live in this House as it stands

And humbly change our ways as it commands.

Old Mac and Me

Old Mac and me, we’d drink our tea

And tear the world apart.

But then we’d build it up again

And make it look real smart

(He was a Socialist and I was Uncommitted.)

I’d visit Mac in his old shack

Oh, any time of day,

And sometimes find him getting up

Or about to hit the hay

(Mac slept when he was tired etc.)

Old Mac was glad he sometimes had

A chance to sit and talk.

For mostly, through his wakeful hours

He’d either read or walk.....…

(He read Philosophy and walked for miles.)

Now get me straight, there was no hate

Or spite in this old man.

His heart was warm and filled with love.

His mind; no small, sealed can

(He’d laugh at most things, but at himself the most.)

Mac built his new Xanadu

Upon two age-old themes;

Two simple things that elude Man

And just exist as dreams

(Love and the equal distribution of wealth.)

Not from above Mac’s kind of Love

Came, but from here below.

He reasoned that most folks desired

To live in peace, you know

(And this necessitates Love.)

Old Mac, he’d had a lot of bad

Years trying to work a farm,

And this had caused him to conclude

That riches do much harm

(I used to tell him that this was just ‘sour grapes’.)

On two or three things we’d agree

And then we’d have some fun,

By arguing over everything

There was beneath the sun

(Mostly economics and its hand-maiden, politics.)

Old Mac would start to state his part

In language firm and ripe,

But then he’d always have to stop

And try to light his pipe

(He never would manage to get it lit.)

I’d give my slant on Hume and Kant

And those before and aft.

If ‘They’ had heard a word we said

‘They’ would have called us daft

(We didn’t think we were at the time, though.)

In hours or so, I’d move to go

But Mac would shake his head,

And then invite me to stay on

And share with him some bread

(He’d offer the best food he had in the place.)

I think I’ll try as time goes by

And age creeps up my back,

To stay as young in heart and mind

As my good host, Old Mac

(A difficult and worthy enough goal, I think.)

At Last, the Sun

At last, the sun

Breaks through the thinning clouds

And casts a strange, bright glare

Upon the rain-drenched ground.

The long, long curse

Of winter’s greyness gone,

Life slowly oozes back

Towards the joys of Spring.

This is the Law

That Nature demonstrates,

For every harsh, cruel act,

A kinder one will come.

And so in life

When death or danger strike,

Do not dismay or run

For look! At last, the sun.

Aurora Borealis

Some say the northern lights are beautiful,

A colored spectrum shining o’er the land.

And when the people say they’re wonderful,

I think that I can easily understand

The spell that binds the people of the North

Together in a grip as strong as steel,

That strengthens them and sends them bravely forth

To disregard the things that others feel......

The biting wind that chills you to the bone,

The freezing air that cuts you as you breathe,

The miles and miles that make you feel alone,

The long delays that sometimes make you seethe

Whenever there is something you must do

Before the icy winter locks you in,

And curbs the plans that you sat down and drew

Of all the rich success you hoped to win.

Or when the summer comes and brings relief

From months and months of winter’s icy grasp,

But only then to rob you like a thief

As stifling, insect-filled air makes you gasp

And scratch and curse the God-forbidden land

That makes your every moment seem a task,

That holds you in its strong tight-fisted hand

So that you look within yourself and ask.

Just why it is you suffer this abuse

From Nature’s mighty army as it moves

Towards a goal that seems to have no use,

Except to follow in the same old grooves.

To ask yourself just why you stick around,

When life could be so much more comforting

Down South in some large city’s hallow’ed ground,

Where nothing much is felt of Nature’s sting.

You wonder why you don’t pack up and go

To warmer, greener places that you’ve seen,

Where people live the type of life you know,

And distances would not be far between.

Where there would be so many things to do,

And every day would offer something bright