I'm so glad I keep a journal when I travel- otherwise I would forget all the little details that make trips so fun. Like just now I was reading July 11th's entry for last year, Day 2 on the Trail, and I mentioned Arnie, the German tourist! I forgot all about him! He was a great guy. Used to be a hardcore mountaineer, until he realized, in his own words, that there was much more to life. "Like parties," he said, in his German accent, "I think it is very nice to party." So his love of partying caused him to put his mountain climbing days behind him.
Day 2 found us at Sheep Camp, still on the American side of things. The American Ranger gathered all us hikers around and told us a bit about the history of the Chilkoot, and had some old photos to show us. Then he recited, from memory, that most famous of Canadian poems, The Cremation of Sam McGee (There are strange things done under the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold). He did it very well, too. Although the American side of the trail is less scenic than the Canadian side, I have to give them props for having friendlier rangers, and for supplying their outhouses with toilet paper, unlike the Canadian side. Nothing sucks worse than taking a poo and realizing there's no toilet paper. But we brought our own, of course, being vetern pooers in the woods and all. One guy we met at Lake Bennet on the last day wasn't so foresightful- he told us, total strangers that we were, that he had been forced to use his socks for the last few days, so we lent him some of our supply- it was the humane thing to do.
This is the best book version of The cremation of Sam McGee. I love the paintings in it- my grade 3 or 4 teacher read it to us and I always remebered the vivid paintings, but I had no idea who did them until this year when I got an issue of the U of A's alumni magazine with the artist (Ted Harrison) on the cover, so I tracked down a copy of the book and have lived happily ever after.