For fifty years, Poole Field provided the Nahanni region with leadership, supplies, and tall tales. The son of an English aristocrat and the Metis daughter of a HBCo. factor, Poole had grown up hearing John Beads and Robert Cambell talk of their pioneering explorations of western Canada and the Yukon Territories. When he turned sixteen, he joined the NWMP, and in 1898 traveled with a large consignment of dogs for the Yukon. After two years as a Special Constable there, he took his discharge to explore the gold fields of Nome and Fairbanks, then returned to the Yukon to established himself as a trader at Ross River. There he married a Dene chief's daughter and traveled frequently with them across the Mackenzie Mtns. to the Great Bear Lake. By 1920, he established trading posts on the NWT side at Trout Lake and Nahanni Butte and gave support there to the Dene, the RCMP, gold prospectors, and travelers. In the 1940's he helped the US Army with the CANOL pipeline project and in 1944 moved to Aklavik to seek gold on the Firth River. Ill with cancer, he died in 1948 and was buried without a marker in Vancouver. Fifty years later, with the involvement of family and friends, the RCMP officially dedicated the placement of a bronze marker on his grave, and his life was celebrated with a reception. Both events were filmed by the Don Wilder, the cinematographer of "Nahanni," the famous Albert Faille NFBC short. This YouTube posting was provided by Nahanni historian Norman Kagan, and is a shortened version of a documentary with statements by Kagan and Spencer Field, a grand-nephew of Poole Field. Videographer Douglas Tuve captured stills and edited the original production.

• published: 11 May 2011
• views: 4475