The Ghost Of Yukon Jack Poem by Lone Dog

Now I know that most don't believe in ghosts
and I was one of these,
`Til one bitter night I saw a sight
that would make your blood nigh freeze,
I don't intend your mind to bend
or change what you believe,
But I know what I saw as I stared in awe
in the cold of an arctic eve.


`Tis that cursed cold that can bind and hold
a soul in a lustful spell,
So a man whose poor can somehow endure
the hardships conceived in Hell.
Yukon Jack, though he first fought back,
was caught in the tempter's hold,
So he left his wife for that harder life
of the muck and the mud and the gold.
He worked the creeks at the foot of the peaks
with his pick in his callused hands,
And he found the dust for which we all lust
as he mucked and he moiled in the sands.
Though he claimed to many that he hadn't a penny,
`twas believed he had struck the 'lode'.
And 'twas this belief that would cause him grief,
for evil obeys no code.

One wintry day, I was mushing my way
not far from his small abode
When I saw to my right a grisly sight
that made my blood run cold.
There lay old Jack with a knife in his back
and frozen as stiff as a board.
He'd a gaping glare; a frightening stare
and my pulse rate quickly soared!
I carried him back to his small birch shack
thenI buried him under the stars;
And the wolves - they howled, and the huskies
growled
and the lights flashed in spectral bars.

Two years had passed since I stared aghast
at the grisly crime on the trail;
Then, one frigid day I was mushing my way
through a blust'ry winter gale,
I recalled the shack of poor dead Jack
and the shelter available there,
So I drove my dogs o'er the frozen bog
to'rd his warm wood stove and a chair.
But the mournful wail of the blinding gale
harassed me through the day.
In the swirling snow of this Yukon blow
I could scarcely grope my way.
Then, as darkness swelled and my dogs rebelled
in the deathly cold of the night,
I saw ahead of my burdened sled
the strangest of all strange sights.
The small birch shack of poor dead Jack
was aglow with a lantern flame,
So I crept up near with a little fear
and peered through the window pane.
I gasped in fright at the startling sight
that lay before my eyes!
There, fully engrossed, sat old Jack's ghost
fondling nuggets of incredible size!
When he had done, he placed each one
in a poke he hid in his vest.
Though I watched from the rear, I could see it
clear,
right through his transparent chest.
And as I gawked, the snowstorm stopped
and the sky pulsed with twinkling stars,
And the wolves - they howled, and the huskies
growled
and the lights flashed in spectral bars.

Now I know that most don't believe in ghosts
and I was one of these.
I don't intend your mind to bend
or in any way deceive.
But I know what I saw when I stared in awe
while under the old shack's eves,
And you can bet your poke that this old bloke
now sure as hell believes.