[Soft Guitar Music]
My name is René Rivard.
I've been a park warden on the Chilkoot Trail.
Started in 1990.
As a patrol, patrolling the trail for public safety and all that.
It's been a long time for sure.
And I'm just about coming to an end here of my career.
We all have to cry for me.
>>Daniel: I have a gift for René.
>>René: No we don't.
[Inaudible dialogue]
Me? Really you're filming me? Special. Thank you.
Transportation on Chilkoot during the gold rush was very important.
Early 2000, I was about to approach the Parks Canada archeologists with a proposal
to research on the old saddle.
Again, not to elaborate only on the history of the Stampeders and horses,
but also to make the transportation mode the pack saddle.
It was quite the operation, actually.
We know that from some Stampeders diaries.
That fortunately some grandson and granddaughters from hikers
brought this over, and it was new information for Parks Canada.
It was from the fellow, Ward Hall.
He was a Stampeder, but when he came over, he was just
interested to hang around the area a bit longer.
So provided service as a wrangler to the freighting company with the horses.
Which we believe was Orr and Tukey from Montana.
So their base camp was primarily at Deep Lake.
And basically the dairy says that the outfitter
at this camp there, I guess the cook would get up at 4:30 in the morning,
feed everybody and by 6 a.m. or so. Everybody were heading up
from Deep Lake up to the Pass, which was seven miles.
The best way to travel here was definitely in the winter for sure.
With the pack horses from Deep Lake horse camp.
And they'd stay on you know on a frozen lake and river.
The horses, right in the middle, on the bottom here.
And they had a daily run with the pack horses.
Like a hundred fifty plus horses and mules and jackass and appaloosa.
There was a variety. And the first one I had a bell in front.
And they were all, early in the morning, all heading up to the Crater Lake,
basically from Deep Lake and get there around 11 a.m..
Meanwhile, the people at the end of the tramway
would slide down all the equipment and gear down the shoot.
It was like a few hundred feet long.
That comes down to the on the ice of Crater Lake.
And the wrangler would pack all the horses and by about 1:30 p.m.
they were all loaded and everything.
And they had a mule at some point in that dairy described
that a mule pack four hundred pound of whiskey.
It was two cases of, two hundred pound on each side.
And there was a wrangler leading that horse all the way back down.
And he made it fine, apparently.
But they gave him a break of about a week break.
But anyway, at 1:30pm or so.
They all come down, loaded, pass Deep Lake
and come down to Lindeman City and get to the lake itself.
Where there was a barges and all the packhorse would be unloaded there
and come back up to Deep Lake for the night. By 8:30 p.m. or so.
So that was a day of operation for the horse freighting company.
What you see here is a replica of the goldrush pack saddle.
It's designed for. It was made for a mule. You could tell by the shape of it.
I can tell because I'm a pack saddle maker.
This one, one of the three good example suitable for replicas
I found, along the trail.
Christine, my coworker, was with me when we did the resource description.
We had a research permit as well at the time.
To look at the horse sites. You know. We had some building
and you could see on the ground harness leather
and those remains of pack saddles.
When I saw these old pack boards from the gold rush sitting on a rock,
that's why actually it was still suitable for replica because it was sitting on a rock
because it's organic, otherwise it would decay if it'd be on the ground.
So I found very few that way really.
But fortunately, I was able to able to find several to make replicas.
Because otherwise by now those saddle would be totally gone.
So that was a good reason for Parks Canada to for me to proceed
with researching on these old saddles.
Fortunately, I found one board, and two pieces of fork.
And it was a broken board. That's probably why they left it.
And I could tell the saddle was really well made because
of course they had a shape to fit mules
and they probably had different shape to fit other breeds.
But not only that, there's little pocket marks here, that they'll, they trim.
When it's new they would probably sit it on the mule and then and pass their fingers all around.
Wherever there's a little pressure point, they would flip it around and then with a pocket knife they would trim it.
Those special trims were so that the saddle would fit like a shoe basically
while fit on the animal.
The beauty of the archeology is the wear and tear of the artifacts.
In this case, the pack saddle are very interesting
how they you know, there's a movement between the pack board and the forks,
which are very solid, but the board has some looseness to it
to accommodate for compensate for the muscle movement of the horseback and so on.
So that's how pack saddles were made in the old days,
and that's how I make them as well.
I was able to relate to those old saddle
from the 1800 era because the elder Metis elder that taught me the profession
of making custom-made PackSaddles, he learned from the method of the 1800s as well.
So it was passed down and I was fortunate to learn this for me.
It's quite fascinating to think that from a tree you can, you know
carve it to a point, to become a saddle, which is a transportation mode.
I believe it's important to keep alive making packsaddle for horses
in the traditional way, which is hand carve with tools
because the profession is practically disappeared.
Eventually, I would like to pass on my
profession of making pack saddle to the new generation.
First, I want to get back to the profession itself.
Making pack Saddle as a business.
Once I'm established this way about in a year from now,
then I'll probably try to be a mentor for some young people
to learn what I've learned and pass on the profession, yeah.
I mean, all that time I spent working on the Chilkoot Trail,
we're talking about over 25 years.
I feel grateful to have work on the trail
because I strongly believe I made a difference.
Yes...In many ways.