"Canada" magazine, an illustrated weekly journal edited by Walter J. M.
Lefroy and published in London and Toronto, in its issue of March 17, 1917, has the following article by Mary MacLeod Moore, with illustrations of "Girl Guides" of Dawson, Mrs. Geo. Black, Capt. Geo. Black (Commissioner) O. C. Yukon Infantry Company and officers, and Dawson high school boys who have enlisted:
Ye who would challenge England;
Ye who would break the might
Of the little isle in the foggy sea
And the lion-heart in the fight -
Count well your horse and your swords,
Weigh well your valor and guns,
For they who would ride against England
Must sabre her million sons.
The sullen fire of the German guns on Belgium called men from all over
the world, even from the great Yukon Territory, far up in the North of Canada, "along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snow-slide shivers," a land so far from international politics that men might have been forgiven for being a little tardy in their response. But these splendid strong men of the Open and the Wild needed no spur. They came and they are still coming.
Though the Yukon is nine thousand miles away in the farthest North, where darkness and light are so strangely divided that for more than a hundred days newspapers can be read at midnight in the open air, the enthusiasm over the war for which the British are fighting heart and soul is intense.
Over six hundred men have come from Dawson since war begun. Many walked long distances to enlist. In 1914 the first band of men from Yukon began to train, and, eventually, went to France, and won distinction. The latter word is used advisedly, for seven men in the Yukon Motor Gun Detachment won the Military Medal, the captain was awarded the Military Cross, and a number were promoted. Now a new body of men is in England in training - the Yukon Infantry Company, C. E. F., in command of Captain George Black, better known as the Commissioner of the Yukon Territory, who has as a corporal Lyman Munger Black, his son.
The Yukon contingents contain, beside the Commissioner, four members of
the Yukon Council, which is the local Parliament, the Dawson Fire Chief, a Church of England clergyman, who is serving as a private, a chemist, several High School boys, former members of North-West Mounted Police, trappers, miners and prospectors.
So much for the men. What about the women andthe girls of the Territory?
Mrs. George Black has accompanied her husband and son to England, and tells of what has been done in her far off home by the non-combatant sex. Mrs. Black is a real Yukoner, though an American by birth, for she went to Dawson in 1898, and walked over the famous Chilkoot Pass. Her earliest home was a little log house, and she has seen the country grow, and draw nearer and nearer to the outer world in the nineteen years in which she has been associated with the North.
"First, it may interest you to know," she says, "that in proportion to the population the Yukon has given more to the patriotic fund than any other part of Canada. Men, women and children have averaged $20 per head, which is pretty good when it is considered that we are not rich people up there in spite of rumor. All the Funds have been helped - Patriotic, Red Cross and Daughters of the Empire. I organized three chapters of the last-mentioned up there, and a fourth has been named after me, and I also organized the Women's Patriotic Service League. Everything is for the war. Any festivity arranged has a war fund for the motive; everyone is enthusiastic, and no sacrifice is too great.
"And the girls? I must tell you about our Girl Guides, who are very sorry they can't be soldiers. Three years ago we organized the Guides, with Mrs. Frank Osborn as Scout Mistress, and Miss Hilda Potter and Miss Hazel McIntyre as Lieutenants. Mrs. Osborn is also the Regent of the Martha Munger Black Chapter of the I O. D. E. and President of the Women's Auxiliary of the Church of England. Each summer the Girl Guides spend two weeks in camp about twenty miles above Dawson, on Klondike River. Lately sixteen of the guides passed the Tenderfoot Test, and are now wearing trefoil pins.
"They are being drilled, too. Major Knight, the Commandant of the Royal
North-West Mounted Police in Dawson, is drilling the Girl Guides, the Boy Scouts, and two hundred Dawson men who are ineligible for active service overseas, yet feel they want to be ready in case Canada calls for men for home defence.
"Shall I tell you about the socks the Duchess of Connaught made for us?
Her Royal Highness very kindly sent me six pairs last winter which she had knitted on her machine. Three pairs were raffled for $25, and three pairs were sold for the same sum, making $50 in all. Then the winner of the raffle returned the three pairs to me. I gave them to the Chapter and they in turn raffled them for $100. So you see we got $150 for the Royal gift, and felt very pleased with the result."
Mrs Black is in England for the first time. Her one adverse criticism is of something for which it is impossible to blame either ourselves or the Germans - the weather.
Lives there a writer who has the strength of mind to refrain from quoting Service in connection with the Yukon? I doubt it. Thinking of the war and of the soldiers from the Yukon who are fighting for the freedom which men of the open prize, one knows them to be:-
"The men of my mettle, the men who
would 'stablish my fame,
Unto its ultimate issue, winning me
honor, not shame."
