Recently, I saw where a walking trail had been created along the Mayo River near the town of Mayo
That cave and the person who lived there had a profound effect on the course of my life
Recently, I saw where a walking trail had been created along the Mayo River near the town of Mayo.
The trail ends just below the hydro dam that is fed by the river and Mayo Lake. Someone mentioned an old cabin near the top of the high river bank. Here is the story about that cabin, which was not a cabin but a cave dug into the hillside, with a flat roof protecting it from rain and snow.
That cave and the person who lived there had a profound effect on the course of my life.
At the time, 1979, I was trying hard to be what my family, wife, and society thought I should be: a Steady Eddy. I had a career with the power company and they had sent me to Mayo, Yukon, to work in the old hydro plant there.
Just below the dam there lived a hermit with his spotted dog, in a cave the old man had dug for himself into the high, sandy bank of the Mayo River. Folks around Mayo said that the hermit brought gold into town on a regular basis from his claim there on the riverbank. Roly Ronaghan, the mining recorder, weighed it for him.
The old man, whom I heard later was Irwin Armstrong, gleaned enough gold from his claim to pay for groceries and dog food. Over the years he wrote a book and disappeared with the manuscript and his dog. No one saw him again in Mayo.
In that little town, he fit right in, being no more self-centred or strange than any of us living there. He never returned to his claim and when it lapsed, I staked it in my own name. My job was giving me ulcers and I wanted something to do on weekends. One afternoon I went there with a pan to try my luck.
In the very first pan, down at the riverbank, three rice-sized nuggets of gold shone up at me. A chill raced up and down my spine. I remember gazing all around to see if anyone was spying on me. I tried another pan and hit five more specks of gold. These were about the size of the nib on your ballpoint pen.
I had discovered what I had been looking for all my life: the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Never again would I work as a wage-slave, fill out time cards or ask my supervisor’s permission to go on holidays. I would speak my mind to all the bank managers, landlords, bosses and prickly neighbours I had ever known. I would never ever worry again what anybody thought of me. All because of the hermit’s gold.
I quit my job with the power company and went to work on that gold claim. My ulcers immediately healed and have never returned. But, although it is hard to believe even yet, not one more speck of gold did I find there.
I dug, blasted, sluiced, and tore the back wall from the hermit’s cave, to no avail. I think the old geezer dropped that gold where I could find it, and no one has ever been able to discover his lode, although several I know have tried.
A few years later I was sitting with a couple of friends at Diamond Tooth Gerties in Dawson. We started talking about the hermit’s gold and a big American came over to our table.
“I heard you fellows talking about that gold claim. I can take you right to where he found the gold. I am a professional psychic and fortune teller. If we go there, the hermit’s spirit will tell us exactly where to dig.”
I didn’t go but my old friend, George Peel, went along with the psychic and they hiked in there. George said later that the guy took out a black stethoscope and started listening to various trees with it but the hermit would not reveal the secret. That gold has to be within walking distance of the cave, perhaps in a rocky vein, or in the conglomerate boulders strewn along the riverbank.
In the meantime, I became a part time gold prospector and roamed the valleys and hills of the Yukon. I turned up gold here and there but I was really hooked on the search itself.
Eventually, I wrote a book about those experiences (Yukon Gold) and have played around at writing and publishing ever since. You might find some volumes called The Yukon Reader in various places.
Although the old hermit is long dead, he steered me to a better life. I did work for NCPC again, at Inuvik and other parts of the Arctic and always went looking for gold in those areas.
Most of us have experienced something that gave our lives a turn. Looking back, I wish I had realized at the time how much fun I had during those years.
