Pictured here are portions of shelves of history in our home in Anchorage, Alaska. Specifically note the bookends, my most recent addition. My son-in-law Larry Fountaine of Pueblo, Colorado, made them for me for Christmas. 

He took the old rail sections from an old mine adit near Leadville, Colorado. The brightly colored pamphlets that they hold will be readily recognized by all insulator collectors. Glued to the bookend bases, and only barely noticeable, are two crossed dated nails, a pair at each end. They are stamped "6" and "07". Turn the "6" upside-down and you have a "9" Prior to 1907 the nails were stamped with only one number. These nails represent the years of our births, my wife's and mine, 1907 and 1909. 

We found the nails, along with others, on an abandoned section of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad near Carcross in the Yukon Territory. My wife and I have walked every old section and every abandoned side track from the road's terminus in Whitehorse to Log Cagin, a whistle stop on the summit of White Pass. I would say that there are no more old-dated nails along the entire northern end of the WP&YRR. 

The section where we found the nails was abandoned prior to 1920, because of two long bridges over Lewes Lake. Lewes was the original name of the Yukon River during the heyday of the Hudson Bay fur traders.

Mike Heney, the Irishman railroad builder, drained Lewes Lake in 1900 and almost washed away his own construction camp farther back along the right of way. 

I fell into the lake off an old bridge timber while we were searching for old ties and these nails. My wife Jo didn't laugh until after I had surfaced and dog paddled to shore. My glasses, which I knocked off in my struggles, still rest on the lake bottom wherever they settled. My floating baseball cap was retrieved with my bottle rake. 

You will note that all items on the shelves are labeled. I am more interested in the history of these collectables than I am in the intrinsic values. I am an explorer of old railroads, telephone and telegraph lines and old camps. Each item is marked with the date that I found it and its location. 

Above the bookends are some #9 insuls from Pampa, Washington. I broke insuls on this line when I walked to school as a youngster. There is an old iron bank in the shape of a boy and his dog. Then there are insuls from Stewart, British Columbia; Gallup, New Mexico; and from an old section of the Alaska Telephone Line from near Anchorage. 

On the same shelf with the bookends are railroad spikes gleaned from the Midland Colorado Railroad; from the Coal River R R in the Yukon; from Cripple Creek, Colorado; and from the AT&SFe from near Silver City, New Mexico. 

The big Locke insulator, probably a CD 286, is from the power line built in 1905 and abandoned in 1908 by the British-American Dredging Company. The electrical line fed their dredges in their unsuccessful attempt to get gold from Tar Flats and Blue Canyon near Atlin, British Columbia. 

Then there is a wooden matchbox shaped like a keg and stamped with "Gordon Bros Store-Pampa-1905". Next are chunks of undeveloped turquoise and an MJB can of old dated nails. 

On the lower shelf is the top section of a cabin door from an old Tagish Lake paddle wheeler. Painted on the door is the word "CAPTAIN". I found the broken door washed into the brush about high water mark while I was looking for firewood for our Carcross, Yukon Territory, campsite. 

What is not shown are the many loaded shelves and the numerous boxes unopened since the year that they were brought back home from our travels.

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Editor's note: 

Mr. Gordon wrote me that he and his wife Jo spend from July 10, or thereabouts, until October 1, or when snow storms are threatening, in the Yukon Territory and northern British Columbia. From April to June they tour with their Colorado trailer in the Southwest. They also have a trailer at their home in Anchorage, Alaska.