The Prospector

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Clarence’s sister in law Alice, accompanies the men to to keep house in their cabin at the icy Canadian camp. Alice is to tend to her ill sister Ethel. Alice is outraged when Clarence hires attractive Jane, a First Nation woman to live in and cook. Clarence and Alice have a love hate relationship and each have secrets kept from each other and from Ethel. One hundred and fifteen years later, Alice’s great-great-great granddaughter Anna, is tasked by her grandfather Peter, with traveling with her husband Owen to visit the granddaughter and great granddaughter of Jane to make amends. The trip proves to be a journey of her own as Anna discovers the complicated history of how her family wronged another and amassed their incredible wealth. Cooke, David (1984). Railmotors and XPTs. Australian Railway Historical Society NSW Division. ISBN 0-909650-23-3.

The women return to the party and pretend to be enjoying it. The narrator meets a boy named Lee and kisses him, saying “it felt no different from kissing a living mouth.” However, she is frightened when he calls her by real name, Jean, instead of Candy, the false name with which she generally introduces herself. Her legal name is Aubergine, which her parents gave her because they thought it sounded glamorous. When they discovered it was the French word for “eggplant,” they decided to call her Jean for short. A big family saga that's largely focused on the Klondike gold rush. The story alternates from the story of the 1890s in the Alaska to the descendants in the present day. Clarence and Ethel Berry strike it rich and return to their claim with Ethel's sister Alice in tow. It's Alice who has the loudest voice and she's also got a secret. The characters are well developed and interesting You are also introduced to Clarence's brothers Henry and Frank, Jim the indigenous guide and his sister Jane who also has a secret and are entwined with the Berry and Bush clan in the Klondike. In the present day a descendant of Alice's wants to make amends for the wrongs he believes were done to the indigenous tribe during the gold rush and enlists is granddaughter and her husband with the task of righting a wrong. This also has it' own twists and turns. When one of them mentions “the Emerald Lodge” and appears never to have heard of the Evergreen Lodge, the narrator realizes that they must have taken the wrong chairlift. The Emerald Lodge was crushed by an avalanche two years earlier, killing the twenty-six men who were working there. This means that not only are they at the wrong lodge, but all their hosts and fellow guests are dead—ghosts of the workers who were killed two years ago. Built to take advantage of the generous loading gauge on the new line, they were the largest carriages ever built in Australia. They were the first trains in Australia to have at-seat catering. [4] These held the record for the highest speed attained by an Australian train until bettered by a New South Wales XPT in September 1981. [10] I loved this historical family saga about relationships, while striking gold in the Yukon. Clarence Bailey, eldest son of a poor California family leaves California with a few provisions, and treks his way on foot to Canada. Clarence strikes gold and sends for his brother, Ethel his wife, and male workers to join him.And yet, Alice thought, what was so spectacular about one culture subsuming another? It was a process as old as civilization. As old as Egypt and older. As old as Jerusalem, Persia, Mesopotamia, the Aztecs, the Ancient Egyptians. As old as all the peoples that had crashed together and changed through time, without leaving a record, not as much as one course mark etched into stone.

anniversary of rail link (History of the Eastern Goldfields railway, officially completed on 1 January 1897, to the present, including introduction of the Prospector train on 29 November 1971) Kalgoorlie Miner 1 January 1997, p.2 There are also interesting passages regarding personal responsibility of the individual success stories that emerge — are those that strike it rich responsible for providing a strong moral example, and taking others under their wing? Or must they be even tougher and stingier than others, so they aren’t taken advantage of? How much of their lives are they obliged to share with the curious and the striving? Higham, Geoffrey (2007). Marble Bar to Mandurah: A history of passenger rail services in Western Australia. Bassendean: Rail Heritage WA. p.121. ISBN 978-0-9803922-0-3.

I don’t know if I’ve read any books set in the Yukon before, during the gold rush in the late 1800s, but it’s fascinating and heartbreaking. Both because of the indigenous people who are pushed out and the people who sold everything for a small chance at making it big.⁣ The counterpoint is set in 2015, with Alice’s great-great-granddaughter traveling to the Klondike to try to make amends with the First Nations people who were wronged. ⁣ This was my monthly read with Diane . We had been on a roll with 4 and 5 star books, but I guess we can’t love them all. The women retire to the powder room to decide what to do. Clara sees no reason to abandon their usual procedure. Even though their hosts are dead:

I will also give the heads-up — it’s unsurprising given the subject matter, but — there is quite a lot of conversation around the issues of discrimination, displacement, and racial resentment during this period and continuing into today. I think the author did well in terms of providing a view into a variety of different forms of discrimination: some characters flat-out didn’t trust the Indigenous population, some patronized them, and some in the present-day narrative, arguably, went too far and assumed too much in their efforts to be sensitive to the past. However, I did feel that all of these interwoven viewpoints and challenges were very much “told” to the reader, rather than “shown,” and felt a bit forced or stilted. With the standard gauge line from Perth to Kalgoorlie due to open in mid-1969, the Western Australian Government Railways decided to replace The Kalgoorlie overnight sleeper service with a daylight service. The new service commenced on 29 November 1971, cutting the 653-kilometre (406mi) journey time from fourteen to eight hours. With an average speed of 85km/h (53mph), it was the fastest service in Australia. [1] [2] [3] [4] Stops [ edit ] This might have been 4 stars if the connection between the time lines was better executed. Still worth reading. It felt like an accurate reflection of the history. I found the Klondike sections fascinating and learned a lot.

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a b "Prospector Timetable" (PDF). Transwa. Public Transport Authority. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 June 2020 . Retrieved 28 June 2020. All in all, had a couple hang-ups but it was a solid read about a historical period that you don’t see too often around here on Booksta. Would recommend giving it a try! Alice joins her already wealthy sister and brother-in-law up north, in a time where few women made the trek and none were listened to with respect. She’s a complex character, loyal to her family but also ambitious and prejudiced. ⁣I never really liked her, or many of the other characters in the past. She began to seem more and more greedy, unsatisfied with whatever her current situation was. There is one train each way daily between East Perth and Kalgoorlie. On Mondays and Fridays, there are two services each way. [5] Onboard facilities [ edit ] Yukon Gold Rush? Family drama? Moral questions about wealth and responsibility and manifest destiny? Sign me up!