by Rusty Erlam
There'll be a dogteam missing from this year's Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous the team trained by Paul Ben Kassi of Old Crow.
Paul Ben is dead, the victim of drowning on the Porcupine River last summer.
The wily little Loucheaux Indian first entered the Rendezvous scene in Whitehorse in 1965 although his team was well-known in Old Crow for years before that.
He worked on the freighting boat "The Brainstorm" which in summer plies its way from Dawson down the Yukon and up the Porcupine. That first year he was sponsored by the Brainstorm owners and Klondike Nugget and Jewellry in Dawson City. He didn't win but he ended up amongst the Rendezvous' top contenders.
And he was colourful. Though 52, he darted about like a boy and he had
winning ways with the women.
His team was superbly trained and was fast....so fast in fact that Paul Ben didn't need to run the way the other mushers did to gain time. He rode. As Freddy Stretch put it:
"When that guy comes up behind you in the race he doesn't holler 'track'.
Those dogs just curve out around you and come in in front. And Paul Ben rides."
The following year The Whitehorse Star received a letter from Paul Ben
asking if anyone could sponsor his team for the 1966 Rendezvous. They put the appeal in a headline in the paper and a few weeks later a letter came from an elderly woman in Larned, Kansas. Her name was Levina Wheeler and she had met Paul Ben, she said, the summer before on the Brainstorm when she was touring with her late doctor husband. How much would it cost to sponsor him?
The Star did some dickering with Great Northem Airways and came up with a figure of $600. They phoned Kansas and passed the news to Mrs. Wheeler. She sent the cheque.
That Rendezvous, Paul Ben showed up with her picture and the words "The
Kansas Angel" on his dogsled. It would have been nice if he could have reported to her that he won but he didn't... he came second to Wilfred Charlie.
At the dog mushers' party following the race all of the mushers including
Paul Ben talked to Mrs. Wheeler by telephone. She said that although she hadn't been present in Whitehorse it was one of the most exciting days of her life.
The best days were still to come. In 1967, now sponsored by Cal Miller
and Carlings, Baul Ben Kassi, at 54, won both the aggregate and the fastest single lap awards.
His lead dog "Venus", one of the best in the territory, was photographed and painted and sketched and her picture still appears in the Rendezvous office.
The Ben Kassi team came third in 1968 and Paul Ben passed the sleigh over to a younger man, John Joseph Kay who came second in 1969.
Eighteen-year-old Stanley Njootli of Old Crow mushed the team to its most important win in 1970, easing out Edmonton contender Nick Molofi.
Last year with sponsors Cassiar Asbestos and Gordie's Trucking of Whitehorse the team slipped to fifth place.
Paul Ben went back to Old Crow and resumed his normal routine. Then, on a
Sunday aftemoon in September, while he was going up the Porcupine in his riverboat, he fell overboard and was drowned. His body was not recovered.
They say his mother travelled upriver every day to look for Paul Ben and eventually the people of Old Crow held a memorial service.
The weeks went by and eventually they shot the dogs of the Paul Ben Kassi team. They said his mother said that was what he would have wanted.
