The Story of Ben-My-Chree and My Breakfast Nook
The breakfast eating counter has now been installed, and with its installation comes the need for the telling of a very romantic story. The counter is made out of a large plank of B.C. fir that's close to 100 years old. The plank is grey and rubbed as smooth as driftwood from years of being in the water at the Taku Arm near the Yukon/B.C. border. However inside, it's still white and as strong as any wood newly cut today. The beachcomber who found it and cut it to size for me was amazed at how well it had endured.
The plank was part of a wharf at the lakeside homestead of an English couple named Otto and Kate Partridge. They came to this area during the Gold Rush, but never made it to the Klondike, choosing instead to settle on a remote piece of land which Otto named Ben-My-Chree as a tribute to his wife. It means 'girl of my heart' in Manx (he had grown up on the Isle of Man). They planted huge vegetable and flower gardens; there were two acres of formal flower gardens with 40 different varieties, some of which grew to amazing heights (the delphiniums were 10 feet high!) One theory is that there is thermal activity in the area creating a micro-climate that provided an extraordinary growing season.
People from all over the world started to come see this place. President Roosevelt and the Prince of Wales spent time here among others. Kate would greet her guests in a long formal gown, and after Otto showed them around the gardens, they would be invited to the drawing room where Kate would entertain them with organ music (she had a small portable organ which she carried over the Chilkoot Trail when she first arrived here and was apparently quite a good musician) and served them home-made rhubarb wine.
I have never been to this place - after the Partridges died it was left to nature and it's not easy to get to - but those I know who have taken the boat trip there say there is a magic about the place like nothing else they've experienced. I hope a bit of that magic has been transported to my home now. I do laugh when I think about what the Partridges would say to us eating off one of their wharf boards!
By the way, I will post photos on the week-end - Joe has the digital camera with him in Old Crow.
7:47:05 PM 
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