Digital Bob Archive

It was on December 22, 1935, that Mary Joyce hitched up five dogs and drove up the river to Tulsequah. Several Indians were leaving for Atlin and she accompanied them. The trail was good, with few open places in the river, and they reached Atlin on January 7. She advised Juneau via Pacific Alaska Airways radio that she would go by way of Burwash, and added, \"Having more fun. Beans, rice and moose not bad.\"

Mary took the well-traveled trail from Atlin to Carcross and then into Whitehorse. Mrs. Jean Jacquot, wife of a big game guide, accompanied Mary to Burwash Landing on Kluane Lake, near where the Jacquots lived. From there a guide took her through what was pretty much a trackless wilderness to the Tanana River. Once the river was reached, she was on her own, but Pilots Joe Crosson, S.E. Robbins and Joe Barrows of Pacific Alaska Airways, flying between Juneau and Fairbanks, kept close tab on her progress.

Mary had been invited to represent Juneau at the Fairbanks Ice Carnival which was to open early in March, and the carnival committee was also watching her progress. She was already behind schedule at Tanana Crossing - now known as Tanacross - and lost four more days with an attack of flu. The carnival committee sent Herman Lerdahl to pick her up with his plane, so she left her team behind and on March 5 flew into Fairbanks where she delivered a letter from Governor John Troy to Mayor E.B. Collins.

Mary Joyce was warmly greeted and royally entertained during the carnival, but although the committee had dubbed her Miss Juneau, she declined to compete in the Miss Alaska contest since the ten entrants had been elected by popular vote in their home towns. She was accorded honorary membership in the Pioneer Women of Alaska, a different organization than the Pioneer Auxiliary. The only other person so honored had been Mrs. Warren G. Harding.

On March 15 Mary flew back to Tanana Crossing with Pilot Alf Monsen on a PAA plane, hitched up her dogs and drove to Fairbanks where she arrived at 1:40 p.m. on the 26th. She was presented with a foot-high silver cup, suitably inscribed. She and her team then returned to Juneau by air, the last leg from Whitehorse in a lO-place Pilgrim piloted by L. Frank Barr.

It had been a notable dog team journey, long before women were entering and winning the Iditarod race.

Not long after she returned to Taku Lodge from her Fairbanks jaunt, Mary decided she wanted to learn to fly and that summer she joined the Juneau Flying Club. The club had a Klemm \"Sky Lark\" plane and many Juneau residents were learning to fly it, including Dr. L. P. Dawes at 61. The instructors were Sheldon Simmons and Jimmy Rinehart. That summer, however, the club purchased an Aeronca plane and Mary took her lessons in it. She was an apt pupil and soloed after five hours of instruction, said to be a record for women in Alaska.

But Mary's flying career ended when, while making a landing she had a minor collision with a motor boat. There was little damage and nobody was hurt, but Mary was razzed by club members until she hung up her wings.