Tales of an Unsung Sourdough
The Extraordinary Klondike Adventures of Johnny Lind
by Phil Lind and Robert Brehl
Page Two
122 pages
$39.95
The extreme focus on the drama of the Klondike Gold Rush tends to obscure the stories about the gold seekers who were already in what would come to be called the Yukon Territory as a result of that event.
John Grieve Lind, better known as Johnny, was one of those who had already trekked north to seek the precious metal along the Fortymile River, which had its own, smaller, gold rush in the 1880s. His grandson, Phil Lind, has long been fascinated by this story and has spent a lot of time and money creating the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection at the UBC Library.
He has made liberal use of these resources and his grandfather’s journals to produce a book which tells Johnny Lind’s story and also provides a lot of context and extra information.
The coffee-table-sized book is a fine package with a good map, a useful timeline and 50 historical photographs (many of them full-page reproductions) selected from the Gold Rush Collection.
While there are eight chapters which focus on Johnny Lind’s life and legacy, there are an additional six two-page segments, not listed in the table of contents, which explore the following topics: the history of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people; Canada’s governance of the Yukon; Gold Fever and other ailments; notable fortunes made in the rush; the all-Canadian route to the Klondike; and extraordinary women.
Johnny Lind worked his way north after leaving home in Pond Mills, Ontario, as a teenager in the mid-1880s, working at a number of jobs in the USA, which provided him with some of the skills he would need when he was attracted north by the lure of gold. This decision was made by the flip of a coin, which might have sent him to Venezuela to seek oil instead.
He was early arriving in the Yukon, making it to Forty Mile two years before the discoveries in the Klondike, and gaining his sourdough status, along with some valuable placer-mining experience, at Franklin Gulch, along with his business partner “Skiff” Mitchell.
It’s not certain how much gold they found there, but it was enough to grubstake their activities in the Klondike when they learned about that strike and relocated upstream. They bought pieces of staked claims and were well established by the Rush of 1898.
He mined successfully with his two business partners, Mitchell and Johnny Crist, who married two of his sisters and would eventually leave the Yukon for the last time in 1901.
Just how wealthy he was at that point is unclear, but he was able to buy homes for his unmarried sisters and get in on the ground floor of the cement-producing business, founding St. Mary’s Portland Cement Company Ltd. and making it a success in spite of heavy competition from Max Aiken’s (later Lord Beaverbrook) Canada Cement.
The company ran until 1997, when it was sold, against Phil’s wishes as a minority shareholder, to the British Blue Circle company.
The Lind family were major employers and benefactors to the community of St. Mary’s, for many decades, and the Lind legacy of parks and recreational facilities still stands.
In the book’s epilogue, Phil relates the tale of a Zodiac cruise down the Yukon River in the late 1960s or early 70s, where he and his companions got into a spot of trouble with the U.S. military on that side of the border at Campion Air Force Station.
The Lind family visits Dawson City with some regularity and, in 2001, donated $250,000 to the Dawson City Museum to pay for the John G. Lind Storage Facility and the Lind Gallery at that establishment.
They anticipate a return visit this summer with members of the third, fourth and fifth generation descendants.
Phil has been the vice-chairman of Rogers Communications Inc., has been recognized for his service to Canada by being inducted into the Order of Canada; and for his contributions to broadcasting, as a member of the Cable Hall of Fame in Denver, Colorado.To produce this book, he has teamed up with the award-winning journalist, Robert Brehl, a former Toronto Star and Globe and Mail reporter who has previously worked with him on Right Hand Man: How Phil Lind Guided the Genius of Ted Rogers, Canada’s Foremost Entrepreneur.
