Lee, was pinched in the Arctic ice. Passing from whaleship to
whaleship, he eventually turned up at Point Barrow in the summer of
1880. He was NORTH of the Northland, and from this point of vantage
he determined to pull south of the interior in search of gold.
Across the mountains from Fort Macpherson, and a couple of hundred
miles eastward from the Mackenzie, he built a cabin and established
his headquarters. And here, for nineteen continuous years, he hunted
his living and prospected. He ranged from the never opening ice to
the north as far south as the Great Slave Lake. Here he met
Warburton Pike, the author and explorer--an incident he now looks
back upon as chief among the few incidents of his solitary life.
When this sailor-miner had accumulated $20,000 worth of dust he
concluded that civilization was good enough for him, and proceeded
"to pull for the outside." From the Mackenzie he went up the Little
Peel to its headwaters, found a pass through the mountains, nearly
starved to death on his way across to the Porcupine Hills, and
eventually came out on the Yukon River, where he learned for the
first time of the Yukon gold hunters and their discoveries.
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