AMERICA

Retracing an Irishmans Journey During the Last Great Gold Rush

Michael McMonagle

FOOTprints ACROSS

About the Author

Michael McMonagle was born in 1953. A graduate of University College Dublin and University of Dundee, he has worked in community development and as a manager of childrens services within the Health Service Executive. He is currently a director of the Lifestart Foundation and chairperson of Tir Boghaine Teo. His interests include sea kayaking, cycling, hiking, wildlife, trees and conservation. He lives with his family in Mountcharles, County Donegal. His previous travel book is called Walking the Back Roads: A Journey from Donegal to Clonmacnoise (Appletress Press, 2008).

Footprints Across America

Retracing an Irishmans Journey During the Last Great Gold Rush

Michael McMonagle

For all emigrants and refugees who, like Mic Mac Gabhann, have crossed a bridge of tears in their lives.

Acknowledgements

Travel writers always carry a debt of gratitude to strangers they meet along the way. This book would not be possible without them. Friends and family have helped shape this book. Special thanks to my family Terry, Eoghan, Aoife and Crna, and to the observations of Kevin Montgomery, Dr Aisling Gillen, Fatemeh Movahedi, Keith Corcoran, Marie Sundberg, Winnifred McNulty, Richard Boggs and Catherine Breslin. All at Orpen Press have done a great job in bringing this book to fruition, especially Eileen OBrien and Elizabeth Brennan. Thanks to John Hearne who edited this book with a discerning and sympathetic eye. Sen hEochaidh brought the story of Mic Mac Gabhann to the world. This enriched our understanding of the Irish emmigration story. Valentin Iremonger brought the story to a wider audience through his authentic translation of Rotha Mr an tSaoil into English. The author is grateful to Horslips and Barry Devlin for permission to use a quote from their song, The Wrath of the Rain.

Where have they gone to, those faded faces, Those erce moustachioed men?
Excerpt from The Wrath of the Rain by Horslips, Aliens (1977, Oats/Horslips Records) Copyright 1977, Horslips. Reproduced with permission.

Contents

About the Author ............................................................................... Acknowledgements ........................................................................... Map of America The Lower Forty-Eight and Map of Western Montana .............................................................. Map of Yukon and Alaska ................................................................ Preface.................................................................................................. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Road to Bethlehem..................................................................... Easton to Harrsiburg ................................................................. Harrisburg to Chicago .............................................................. Chicago to Minot ....................................................................... Minot to Whitesh, Montana ................................................... Whitesh and Flathead Reservation ....................................... St Ignatius and Missoula .......................................................... Philipsburg and Gold Creek .................................................... Butte, America ............................................................................ The Bitterroots ............................................................................ Cowboy Country ....................................................................... Browning and Glacier National Park...................................... Browning to Seattle.................................................................... Anchorage, Alaska ..................................................................... Fairbanks ..................................................................................... Fort Yukon .................................................................................. Fairbanks to Dawson................................................................. Dawson City ............................................................................... Dawson to Whitehorse.............................................................. Whitehorse to Anchorage ......................................................... Home ...........................................................................................

ii vii x xi xiii 1 12 21 27 33 40 52 60 71 79 86 96 105 118 133 146 162 172 186 198 207

British Columbia Sascatchewan Manitoba Ontario Minnesota Quebec New York

Minneapolis

CANADA

Alberta

Seattle

Washington
Minot

a in s

e M o

unt

Spokane

North Dakota Wisconsin South Dakota

asc ad

Wa ll Vall owa ey

Oregon

Idaho

British Columbia

Alberta

y e r Va lle R e d R iv

Montana

en y

Glacier National Par k Road to the Sun

Chicago

Horseshoe Bethlehem Curve Easton Pennsylvania Malvern Pittsburg Johnstown Harrisburg

M ts . leg h

Blodgett Canyon
o

Western Montana

n t a in

West Virginia Virginia

Browning Hungry Whitesh Horse Marias Kalispell Pass Bigfork Flathead Lake L Choteau Bob Marshall Polson Wilder ness Area Pablo Great Falls Mission Mountain Moiese St. Ignatius

Montana

Arlee Missoula

Helmville

Rogers Pass Lincoln Gold Creek

Granite Mountain
u

Hamilton Butte
n t a i

Philipsburg

Wisdom
n

Divide
s

Big Hole Battlefield Site

Idaho

Wyoming

America The Lower 48

Al

S a li s

ou h M

Illinois

Washington D.C.

Bi

tte

r ro

M ot

ou

nt

ain

Pr udhoe Bay Beaufort Sea

Arctic Ocean

North Slope
Pipeline-Prudhoe Bay to Valdez

Kaktovic

Little Diomede Island Fort Yukon

Northwest Territories

Bearing Strait

Wales

Yukon
Yu k o er n R iv

Fairbanks North Pole Dawson City

Ta n an a R iv er

Beavers Creek

St. Michael Bay

St. Michael Tok

Mt. McKinley Ruby Mt. Kluane Lake Kluane Nat. Par k Mt. Logan

Alaska
Chicken

Bear ing Sea

Whitehorse
Yu ko n Ri ve

Talkeetna Valdez Anchorage

Chilcoot Trail

British Columbia

Gulf of Alaska

Aleutian Islands

Yukon and Alaska

Preface

On a bright March day, I was walking with my son, Eoghan, through the rugged terrain of West Donegal. We had left Magheroarty on the coast and were heading for Derry, fty miles away. With the cone of Errigal at our backs and the bleak craggy bulk of Muckish Mountain in front of us, we stopped for something to eat at a place called The Bridge of Tears. Traditionally this was where emigrants from West Donegal bade farewell to family and friends when leaving for America. The group would halt just before the bridge, while the emigrant would cross alone. Family and friends would watch until he or she disappeared from view, knowing that it was unlikely they would ever see their loved one again. A book called Rotha Mr an tSaoil, translated as The Big Wheel of Life, had brought me to this place. It was a book that had grabbed my attention as a boy, and had kept me awake during Irish class. It was full of adventures in remote and spectacular locations, places a boy could only dream about. It documented the life of a man called Mic Mac Gabhann, who in 1885, aged nineteen, took his courage in his hands and left to seek his fortune in America. He too walked across this bridge, leaving behind kith, kin and hard times on a small, stony farm at the edge of the Atlantic. Along with countless others in a Europe hit by war, poverty, religious persecution and the eects of industrial revolution, he was drawn by that beacon of hope America. Rotha Mr an tSaoil tells the story of Mics journey from Derry to New York and on to Pennsylvania, where he worked on the canals and in the famous steel mills of Bethlehem. The lure of silver and copper brought him across the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains of Montana where he spent eleven years mining in Granite, Butte, Gold Creek and on the slopes of Old Baldy Mountain. When he heard that there was gold in the Klondike, he gathered his few belongings and made his way to Seattle. From there he took a steamer north to the mouth of the Yukon River in Alaska, then journeyed for another two thousand miles by boat and on foot to Dawson City in the Klondike.

xiv

Preface

He had many escapades along the way, and met people from all parts of the globe, including Native American tribes, miners, chancers and bandits. He experienced extreme cold, frostbite, dangerous working conditions, grizzly bears and mountain lions. He crossed one of the most pristine wildernesses on earth, and learned how to survive. Boom and bust were as common in Mics time as they are today. The 1890s in America were often called the reckless decade. Banks collapsed, businesses folded and, in the hard times that followed, people suered desperately. This was the end of the frontier era. The Indian Wars were coming to an end, the Native Americans were being forced onto reservations, the bualo were being slaughtered and the golden era of the cowboy dawned and dwindled. Then, as now, the same big wheel of life kept on turning. I had decided to give life to my dream as a boy. I was going to chase Mics fading footprints across America and onto the Klondike. His dream was fuelled by the prospect of gold and silver. Mine, by curiosity and a desire to glimpse the wonders he encountered and to see how the world he passed through had changed. I crossed America by bus and train, drove around Montana, hiked in the mountains and took a train to the port of Seattle. I ew to Anchorage, Alaska and travelled by train, small plane and minibus to the Klondike. I cycled in the hills in search of Mics gold claim and kayaked on the Yukon River. I followed my nose on the journey and, as a consequence, interesting new worlds and people opened up to me. This is my story.

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Inspired by the adventures of a hardy nineteenth-century Irish emigrant to America, Mic Mac Gabhann, who detailed his exploits in the Irish language book Rotha Mr an tSaoil, Michael McMonagle undertakes an epic journey to retrace his steps. Following Mics journey from New York to the Klondike Gold Rush, he traverses the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains of Montana, and the vast Alaskan wilderness. As he compares the America that Mic encountered in the late nineteenth century with that of the twenty-rst century, the author provides a unique perspective on a very different America.
Footprints Across America weaves the two journeys together and highlights the strong links between both eras. We are brought to historic places like Butte and Dawson City, mining ghost towns, Native American reservations, ranch houses and isolated Alaskan villages. We are dragged up mountains and down rivers. In these out-of-the-way places, the voices of cowboys, shamans, exotic dancers, soldiers, chancers, miners and Native Americans emerge to paint an insightful picture of life in America today, while the author also paints a compelling picture of the life of an immigrant caught up in the excitement of the Gold Rush. Michael McMonagle is an entertaining, easy-going and humorous travel companion who has an empathetic ear for the people he encounters and an observant eye for the natural world. In Footprints Across America he reveals the diverse and fascinating nature of America, then and now. Michael McMonagle lives in Donegal. He is the author of Walking the Back Roads: A Journey from Donegal to Clonmacnoise (Appletress Press, 2008).

Top cover photograph: Two missionaries headed for the Klondike gold elds at the height of the Gold Rush in 1897, Alaska Corbis images. Bottom cover photograph: St Mary Lake in Glacier National Park, Montana Michael McMonagle Cover design by www.sinedesign.net

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