Digital Bob Archive

Mary Joyce had a busy year in 1935, the year she received Twin Glacier Camp at the mouth of the Taku River as a gift from Mrs. Eric L. Smith. She at once began to convert the camp from a private ranch back to the original purpose Dr. H.C. DeVighne had built it for, a place for visitors. Hackley Smith, during his years there, had added a number of buildings and Mary converted these to quarters for up to thirty visitors. And she changed the name from Twin Glacier Camp to Taku Lodge, a name that has remained ever since.

Mary Joyce was born in Baraboo, Wisconsin. She was always, at least in Alaska, reluctant to reveal her age and various sources have placed her birth year from 1893 to 1908. It may have been about midway between those extremes. Mary graduated from high school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and finished nurse's training at Mercy Hospital in Chicago. She was working in a Hollywood, California hospital when Mrs. Smith hired her as a private nurse and brought her to Alaska.

In addition to the work of getting ready for and taking care of guests, Mary had an additional job for a time in the spring of 1935 - radio operator for an airline. Pacific Alaska Airways, a subsidiary of Pan American, established a twice-a-week mail and passenger route that spring between Juneau and Fairbanks, with a stop at Whitehorse. The flight path from Juneau was up Taku Inlet and the Taku River, across Atlin Lake and into Whitehorse, with a reverse course on the southbound flight. The company needed a radio communications station somewhere on the Taku and first placed it at Taku Lodge, with Mary as operator.

The initial flight from Juneau was on April 2, 1935, and all went well except that Robert J. Gleason, the communications superintendent for PAA, was not satisfied with the signal quality as the plane proceeded up the Taku River. Later that year the station was moved up the river to a site on Canyon Island, less than two miles from the boundary. There a building was constructed to withstand the Taku winds and R.E. West was installed as the operator.
From the station it was said there was a view 15 miles downstream and 40 miles upstream.

Business was good at Taku Lodge. With mining activity continuing on the Tulsequah and elsewhere upriver, there was a good deal of traffic up and down the Taku. William Strong's river boats came down to the mouth and were met by boats from Juneau carrying both freight and passengers. Often travelers stayed overnight at the lodge before going on upriver. And people from Juneau began to use the lodge, for fishing trips, just to enjoy the scenic beauty, and in the fall, for hunting.

About the time snow began to fly, Mary got the idea that she wanted to make an overland trek from the lodge to Fairbanks, timed to arrive at the interior city in March during the annual Ice Carnival. Long distance dog team travel was fast disappearing in Alaska as the airplane came more and more into use and some of Mary's friends tried to talk her out of the venture. But she began training a five-dog team and to make preparations for the journey.