Johnny Johns from Paul Erlam’s Memory

I’m not very scientific about this, but I’m convinced that something in the air in Yukon creates wonderful, unique, larger than life characters. It could have to do with the weather, maybe the isolation. Or maybe mother nature protects her magnificent creation by making it so difficult to live that only unique, tough individuals can pull it off.  In any case, even in a community of larger than life characters, Johnny Johns stood out.

I’ve mentioned Johnny several times in my posts. It’s hard to tell stories about Yukon without mentioning him. Johnny Johns stories popped up in our research just as they pop up in my posts—intermittent, without much real knowledge of Johnny Johns to connect them.

A Johnny Johns Post–Polly of Carcross

But a year and a half ago, we got lucky.

Paul Erlam contacted us through our research website. Paul is retired now but he spent his working life in Whitehorse. He and his father before him published The Whitehorse Star. Pursuing a research project of his own, Paul had questions he hoped Researcher Chris could answer. We had mentioned Johnny Johns in a post on that website and he mentioned that as a young man he had known Johnny. Spent time with him.

At my request, Paul wrote for us a piece about Johnny Johns story that revealed a lot about the man behind the stories. I recently asked his permission to “guest-post” that story on my blog.

To his email granting permission, Paul attached a photo, and explained “I reread the piece it brought back a rush of old memories, so I dragged out an old photo album and found a photo of Johnny Johns telling a “charging Grizzly” story to my eldest son Chris. I believe the photo was taken on January 1st, 1972. I thought you might like to see what he looked like.”

Yes, we want to see what he looked like! And we think you will too.

Here’s Paul:

Hi Dennis and Chris

I just read Millie Jones’ story of Carcross in the Alaska Highway days and I enjoyed it very much. It’s wonderful her remembrances of Carcross at that time and the treatment of black soldiers has been recorded by you and I look forward to your upcoming book.

I was also very interested in Millie Jones mention of Johnny Johns. It brought a flood of memories because I was a neighbour of his during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and he was a very interesting guy. I hope you won’t mind if I share a story with you.

I was brought up in Whitehorse but in 1967, when I was a lad of 21, I bought a cabin in Carcross and, as I mentioned, Johnny was a nearby neighbour during the summer months. Over the years we got to know each other pretty well.

Johnny was always a welcome visitor to my place and if there was a party going he could certainly keep it lively with poetry, songs and many, many hunting and fishing stories. I was well aware he was a famous big-game guide but he was in his 70s when I first met him so his major outfitting days were behind him. But I always told him how much I wished I had been able to camp out with him “back then”. One morning in early August he stuck his head in the door and said he wanted to get out of town for a couple of days and he and a grandson (sorry, I can’t remember his name) were going to “scope out” some areas close to Carcross. I could come if I wanted, he said, but we weren’t hunting, just looking and camping. One thing though, they were leaving in half an hour and I had to supply some of the food.

I jumped at the chance and hightailed it over to Matthew Watson’s old false-front building which was, in those days, an actual grocery-mercantile store run by Bobby Watson (I believe it’s a T-shirt shop now). Bobby had a 40-lb round of cheese which sat on an old cheese cutter so I bought a big wedge of that plus tinned beans, tinned butter, jam, coffee, sugar cubes, anything I could think of. Then it was one last stop in the Caribou Hotel bar for a bottle of Black Velvet whisky. Johnny and his grandson were waiting in an idling pickup, ready to go, when I finally got done and I held my box of groceries out for Johnny to take a look. He gave it a once-over, shook his head a bit then pointed to the Black Velvet. “Better get one more of those,” he said, “We’re going for two days you know!”  His contribution to the food supply was a canvas bag of bannock ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and a can of Chrisco shortening) and a large gunny-sack of Moose ribs. These ribs were full size, around two and a half feet long.

We travelled around the Snafu and Tarfu Lake areas during the day, looking for sign, and stopped at Tarfu for the night. We had a large tent they put up with Johnny insisting I not help. I suspect they just didn’t want me fumbling around.

We lit a fire then sat back with white, chipped- enamel cubs full of Black Velvet whiskey mixed with cold lake water and he began to tell his stories:  past hunts; big moose; caribou; grizzly attacks; fishing stories; hunter’s that froze with buck fever; hunter’s amorous wives and even meeting with Royalty— Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip visited Whitehorse in 1959 and Johnny was included in a “special guest” line of people introduced to them.  I asked Johnny if she spoke to him. “Yeah,” he said, “she asked me where I was born?”  And what did you say? I asked.  “I said: ‘I was born under a spruce tree, ma’am, at the South end of Tagish Lake”. Wow, what did she say to that? “She didn’t say nothing,” laughed Johnny, “”she just smiled and moved on to the next person in line”.

The twilight evenings are still long in the late summer and during the stories Johnny’s grandson had propped the moose ribs up facing the embers of the fire. In a while they began to steam and Johnny judged it time to prepare the bannock. He mixed together a couple of cups of flour, some baking powder and a touch of salt then slowly added water and stirred until he had a thick paste. A frying pan was laid across the coals and a glop of Chrisco added while at the same time a pot of beans was nestled up to the heat. When the Chrisco began to sizzle he dropped dollops of the bannock mixture into the pan and we sat back and watched them cook.

Then it was time to eat, and what a meal it was: curved moose ribs it took two hands to hold; fry-pan bannock a la Johnny Johns; dark Heinz beans in molasses and camp coffee with a shot of Black Velvet. Dessert was more bannock slathered in strawberry jam, cheese (and a bit more coffee and BV.) Then it was back to story telling around the fire.

Eventually his grandson went to the tent to sleep but we stayed up, under the stars, long into the night talking and laughing.

Johnny used to recite a wonderful poem called There Still Is Time. He claimed he was on a hunt guiding for a man who had travelled the world. They had been sitting in a tent for days waiting for a torrential rain to let up and the hunter complained he was running out of time. Johnny told him to cheer up, they had plenty of time to do whatever they wanted. He said the man then took out a notebook and started working on the rhymes – with Johnny’s help.

Some might wonder if that was true – but the poem is certainly real and Johnny could recite it perfectly and he did, that night, under the stars:

I was at Johnny’s Carcross funeral in January 1988. There were hundreds of people from all over the country. Everyone had favorite stories and memories, and laughter was in the air. Many people, me included, tossed a handful of dirt down onto the casket – one last contact with the wonderful man. Some of the young ladies dropped red roses. There were speeches and eulogies then it was over and we all went to our respective homes. In bed that night I thought back over the twenty years I had known Johnny Johns and my mind came to rest on that August evening the two of us had talked on and on into the night. Then I fell asleep – with a smile on my face.

Well that’s about it Dennis and Chris.

Thanks again for your dedication in recording the history of the highway builders and thank you Millie Jones for your memories of Carcross and Johnny Johns.

Cheers!

Paul Erlam

 

                    There Still Is Time

Too swift, too swift, each moment’s flight–

Too soon today is yesterday.

From sprouting youth, a thirsty fight

I’ve fought and come a dusty way;

Few of my fifty years were gay;

But Life holds many an ample tun

Of Sherry, Port and rich Tokay–

It’s time to get some drinking done!

 

The wintry world is deathly white;

Horizons and our souls turn gray;

But Spring has always set things right

With flowers, and bluebirds roundelay

I’ll take her fragrant trail in May,

Far north, when silver salmon run

Where little rainbows paint the spray.

It’s time to get some fishing done!

 

The aspen flames; the oaks are bright;

On mountain meadows Blacktail stray;

The elk are bugling. Mallards light

On whispering wings. But still I stay

And parch desire with long delay,

While Hunters’ Moon and Autumn Sun

Lift up the heart–and who’ll gainsay

It’s time to get some hunting done!

 

I am but half asleep by night,

And less than half awake by day!

I’ll race the Fall to Kenya’s height,

Outstrip the Spring near Hudson Bay,

Hunt dragon eggs in far Cathay,

And drink the stars to bed, for fun.

I’ll see no stars through graveyard clay

It’s time to get some living done!

 

I’ll tell the piper what to play

Until the Fates my thread have spun!

Death never takes a holiday

It’s time to get some living done!

——————+

 

P.S.Years later I learned the poem was written in 1940 by a mysterious man named Walther Buchen. But even now, in these days of Google-everything, I can find no information about him.