Juneau: Wisdom Tree 4 Read Free Page A

was alive. Our family could have its loose end then.
    He stops at an alleyway leading off to the right between two buildings. It’s so narrow anyone could touch both walls. Ten metres in,it hits a flight of steps, maybe thirty of them, leading up to another flat stretch and then more steps. Three storeys up the next street runs parallel to Franklin, and behind it are trees and the slope of Mount Roberts. It is easy to imagine a mudslide here, or a knife fight.
    We stick to Franklin and the well-rounded tourists layering against the breeze, which has turned cooler. Maybe Hannah wasn’t out of line with the gloves.
    My father stops to scan the Red Dog Saloon for obvious signs of fakery and then says, ‘I’ve read about this place. Something about it.’
    From the outside, its upper level is as red as it should be. Its lower level is clad with vertical split logs, but there’s no suggestion they’re integral to the frame. The bar itself is closed until eleven, but a door on Franklin is open.
    My father takes a step in and stops so suddenly I stumble into him, my hands swinging to hissides to steady us both. His body twitches and he shuffles forward, reaching for the wall to keep his balance. His hand lands between two rows of T-shirts. He takes a full stride and stands against the shirts, straightening the front of his jacket and checking his bumbag.
    The room is crammed with merchandise—shirts with slogans, tote bags, teaspoons, key chains, bottle openers, oven mitts, all of them Red Dog-branded. Behind the counter, a man in his fifties—broad and balding in an old-fashioned way, no head shave for him—is going through his set piece for a cruising couple.
    â€˜Of course, that was the second Red Dog Saloon that they moved in 1988,’ he tells them. ‘From next to the Alaskan Hotel, on the other side of the road. Reassembled it here piece by piece. First one was on this side, two blocks up.’ He points to his left. As his hand drops back to the counter he notices us and says, ‘Hi folks,come on in. We’re just talkin’ ’bout the history of this place. We got Wyatt Earp’s pistol here.’ He indicates the door behind him. Presumably it’s a way to the bar. ‘He checked it in 1900 and never claimed it. He was on his way to Nome. Made a lot of money there from a business quite like this one. That’s where the rush was then.’
    â€˜Nineteen hundred,’ my father says, his voice sounding scratchy, Australian. He clears his throat. ‘When did this place first open?’
    The cruisers turn around. Her hair is from the salon in Steel Magnolias , styled hard on the ship this morning, probably her own work. They’re in matching navy Radiance of the Seas tracksuits, with pins to indicate a vast number of nights afloat with the Royal Caribbean line.
    â€˜I believe that was 1898,’ the man behind the counter says, with a tone that suggests personal pride, either at being able to recall the fact or that it makes the Red Dog a sincere participantin Juneau’s early days, albeit twice moved and once rebuilt.
    â€˜I had an ancestor who was here,’ my father tells him, looking at the man’s chest and then at his hands on the countertop. He clips the zip ends of his jacket together and pulls the zip up a few inches. ‘He got here a few years before that. 1893, we think. Or ninety-four.’
    He stops and looks the man in the eye, as if bracing for him to blurt out the story of Thomas Chandler there and then. My father has said it in Juneau now, this secret.
    â€˜Well,’ the man says, his voice still stage-loud. ‘The story goes that the Red Dog was a tent on the beach before they put up the building. Don’t know if that takes us back to ninety-three, but…’ He shrugs. ‘Close, I’d say.’
    â€˜My goodness, an ancestor,’ the woman cruiser says, smiling at my father and then at me.