"Our great-uncle Abel has a cool, down-to-earth manner, even when describing the most dramatic of circumstances. He and his companions crossed the continental divide, first paddling upstream, but all he says is that it was easier when they started down the western side. Yes! And we learn from him. When the river got too congested with ice in the fall, they simply waited for it to freeze completely, in order to be able to trek along its solid surface. He tells us how two of his companions were stricken by scurvy. And he mentions cabin fever as a genuine mental health crisis, of which people died. Others, he says, starved or froze. Yet he comes through, calm and practical.
I imagine his daughter Lydia asking him for years to complete his story, and finally taking it down in conversation with him. Maybe that was best, because we seem really to hear his voice. But then we lose him in mid-sentence. How much more would there have been? What we have is precious, at any rate."

"What a fascinating story! The world was much bigger in those days. Too bad he didn’t finish the story."

"An amazing story that left me hanging at the end.
What a incredibly challenging lifestyle he experienced. Seems like a world away from our comfy living conditions of today.
The assortment of characters Abel met during his journey were so well sketched."

"I liked reading this engrossing account of this perilous trip. It's too bad that he never finished it. This story includes lots of names of people who crossed paths with him, helped him, traveled with him for a way, became friends with him. Luckily, his story did not end as badly as many gold rush prospectors, who never made it back home at all. Interesting material!"

"I enjoyed following the story while tracing his trip on a Google map. What incredible distances he travelled, mainly by boat.
It’s unfortunate Abel couldn’t finish his story, but it remains a great testament to his determination and fortitude."

"Craig, like you, I followed the story with the help of Google maps and I couldn't believe how far north Abel got, especially under such harsh conditions!
I also found an interesting article that discussed the "Edmonton route" that Abel took. (Most "stampeders" went up the Alaska panhandle.) The article,"Yukon Transportation: A History" by Gordon Bennett, also has wonderful historical photos including early settlements, dog teams, steamboats and more. It's at http://www.publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.864235/publication.html. On p. 27, Bennett quotes from Pierre Berton's Klondike (p. 231), and in doing so answers a question that most of us probably have:"

Of the one hundred thousand people who set out for the Klondike in 1897-98, only two thousand used the Edmonton route. Few of those who did ever reached their destination. "Not a single one," Pierre Berton has written, "as far as can be determined, found any gold at all." In almost every case it took two years to go from Edmonton to Dawson and by the time the lucky ones finally made it, the gold fields had been staked from end to end.

"Abel may not have found any gold, but he left us an action adventure treasure. From his Alberta Land Surveyors' page we read that as an apprentice surveyor in his early 20s "he went north on government surveys ... in 1887 and again in 1889. On these surveys, he made his first acquaintance with the big woods and took to the frontier life like a duck to water." What happened after his story ends? Notes for Abel in the Weekes family database file from Larry Sutton conclude with "Abel is listed on the 1900 Census of Alaska, living in Fort Yukon, arriving in Alaska in Aug 1898." The the surveyors' page tells us "Freighting, both with boats and dogs to various mining camps, trapping, sawing lumber, wood cutting, mining made up a busy and fairly adventurous life until the fall of 1902, when he told his partners, 'if I don't go soon I won't be wanting to go.' So he caught the last up-river boat and came outside. The White Pass and Yukon Railway being in operation, it was a pleasure trip coming out."

"I grew up always knowing that Abel Seneca went from Edmonton to the Yukon during The Gold Rush. I suppose I thought that it was just something that people did in those days. I can’t really remember when I first read the actual written account. Now, reading the reactions of those for whom the story is new, I have a renewed appreciation for his journey. It was quite amazing!"