![]() ![]() Stan, originally a gang member in Boston, came to the Yukon in 1970, aged 20. But one can’t help drawing conclusions from his interviewees about greed, stupidity and unnecessary interference. Weymouth is too intelligent to write a simple critique of humans tampering with nature. I shouldn’t just say white people, but they cause a lot of trouble. When you see those big whales come ashore to die you know there’s trouble. In Alberta they’re squeezing oil out of the sand. ![]() During the Gold Rush, it had escalated from 5,000 to 40,000 in a single year. Weymouth meets the 89-year-old Percy in Dawson City - present population 1,375. Many men had arrived, woefully unprepared, and many were starving to death.’ For the first time, ‘the flesh of the Yukon king was given monetary value when it was sold in camps. Weymouth writes: ‘Before 1897, life had not changed significantly for the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in for several thousand years.’ In 1896, gold was found, and within three years, around 100,000 prospectors came to the region - the Klondike Gold Rush. One such is Percy Henry, a Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in ‘elder’, one of two surviving speakers of the Hän language. ![]() On his four-month odyssey (his Swedish girlfriend joins him) he meets a varied cast, all intimately involved with the salmon, some descended from ancient tribes. Weymouth canoes along the Yukon - at almost 2,000 miles, the longest salmon run in the world - starting at McNeil Lake (the salmon that return there will have travelled further than any on the planet) and ending at the Bering Sea. ![]()
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