We arrived at Ogilvie’s Roadhouse on the Yukon just when twilight fell upon the great land. The roadhouse stood high up on the river bank, and, when we got on top of the bank, I noticed a fellow cutting large blocks of wood with a two-man saw. 

“Humph,” I said to myself, “some Skookum Swede.”

The saw was about six feet long. The saw wielder used one hand to pull and push the saw through a spruce log with a chunk of wood on the opposite end to hold the saw in the cut. I noticed the saw-user had long hair which was not unusual for prospectors or trappers. It kept the face and head warm. 

“Hello,” I said. “How are you, John the Baptist?”

Turning around, the sawer said in a feminine voice with a Swedish accent, “I am not Johnny, the Baptist, My name is Mary.”

That was my first introduction to “Stampede Mary.” She was a good looking Swedish girl who was a good cook, an excellent housekeeper and the manager of the roadhouse. We had heard about her as being one of the best cooks on the trail, a hard worker and a woman of good moral character. She made us a fine meal and showed us our bunks. They were, as in every roadhouse, in the same large room. 

Our beds were made of peeled poles, and for mattresses we had spruce boughs and red-top hay. There were three more prospectors and a trapper, all sleeping in the same room where Mary cooked.

After a good meal of mulligan, and before retiring for the night, we filled our pipes. One old trapper told us that he trapped up and down the Yukon and on several creeks, and had made Ogilvie Roadhouse his headquarters.

Mary, he told us, had a rather unusual experience. A few weeks earlier she had made a trip down the river with her dog team. The team consisted of five dogs, all of different breeds — four males and a female for a leader who was very smart. While she was away, the trapper took care of the fires in the roadhouse. Towards evening, he could hear “Stampede Mary” coming up the trail. He went out to help her unhitch and feed the dogs.

“Well, Mary,” he asked, “what kind of trip did you have?”

“Oh,” she said, “the trail was not bad, but I had trouble with dogs. Not my team, but there were a couple of stray dogs that kept following me. I tried to chase them back but they wouldn’t go. Once, they wanted to fight my team, so I took my whip and gave them a good lashing.”

“Well, gentlemen,” the trapper told us, “I said nothing to Mary, but the next morning I had a good catch of fur and took the animals to the roadhouse to skin them. I called for Mary to come out and said, ‘Look, Mary, what I caught in my traps last night.’

“‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you killed the dogs that chased me.’

“Yes I did, but take a good look-- they may look like two dogs, but they are a pair of timber wolves.”

“Funny about women,” said the trapper, “she wasn’t afraid of the live wolves, but she was mighty scared when I told her the two dead ‘dogs’ she had whipped were wolves.”

Printed with permission from the family of Gerrit “Heinie” Snider.