Martha (Burian) Collins

The dusty old brown pickup, barreling out from Dawson on rough and wash-boardy Ridge Road, slid around a blind corner and then scuttled over to the right in a rooster-tail of dust and gravel at the sight of the even-older five-ton taking its piece of the road right out of the middle. The two vehicles slowed and the drivers, in the habit of Yukoners meeting anywhere in their sparsely populated territory, stopped to chew the fat for a moment or two. The weather was discussed and the condition of the #$%& goat track, and bets were made on the probable bust size of the pretty new server at Gertie’s. Then, as they prepared to take leave in their respective directions, the trucker rolled his window down again.

“Hey, Frank,” he called. “There’s a berry picker back about 3-4 miles. Better stop and tell her I saw a mama grizzly and two babies just around the corner from her. I’da gone back but I was flat out and couldn’t get ‘er shut down. Maybe you could warn her, though.” He rolled up his window and was gone in a blast of gravel and acceleration.

The travel-stained Chevy continued on its way, slowing, after a time, to check the road. Finally, its driver glimpsed the small group of bears on a sunny knoll, the young ones wrestling and playing while the mother stripped blueberries from the loaded bushes with tongue and claws. Okay, he thought, there’s that old griz…now, where’s that other picker? Rounding the next curve, he caught sight of an elderly sedan parked in the ditch, and recognizing it, smiled to himself and pulled to a stop.

“Hey, Martha!” he hollered. “Martha. You got company just around the bend.” He scanned the hillside. “E-ey, Martha…”

A head popped up out of a waist-high thicket. “What? Is that you, Frank? What the heck do you want?” The berry picker stood all the way up: a short, robust figure dressed in a man’s work shirt and pants, colourful kerchief wrapped around her hair and a plastic pail hanging from a hank of yellow rope tied around her ample waist.

“Just wanted to tell you there’s a grizzle-bear and her cubs in the next patch over. Thought you’d like to know.”

“Huh! Okay, thanks, Frank…” As the pickup pulled away, Martha sank back on her haunches and pulled a few more handfuls of berries into the pail, then got up to take a wary look around. “Darn it all… this is such a good patch.” She raked another handful into the bucket, but being a berry picker of some experience, she knew to quit while she was still whole and healthy. Lugging her pails and picking as she retreated, she ceded the hillside to the lady with the big teeth and claws, and moved along. After all, she consoled herself, it’s a big country and a good year for berries.

The Yukon is a big country and to Martha Collins, just about any year was a good one for berries. Oh well of course some years were better than others. Some years the berries were so thick that you could sit in one spot and fill your pail without even having to scootch over anywhere; other times, you had to travel to heck and gone to fill a pail. But plentiful or sparse, the sun-browned and tireless Martha Collins took the harvest as a personal challenge, living out of her car for weeks on end until she had filled her pails with as much fruit as she deemed necessary to keep her family in jam and preserves for the winter.

When the berrying was done, she turned her attention to canning and preserving the crop from her large garden, the huge and lush produce resulting from Martha’s know-how as much as the rich, deep topsoil in the Yukon valley. Finally, she and her husband Phil, would butcher and store enough moose and caribou, fish and game birds, to fill their larder against the deep freeze in their immediate future.

The Collins’ lifestyle was subsistence living at its finest and Phil and Martha exemplified the true Yukon pioneer.

Martha Burian had followed her brothers from Alberta to the Yukon in the middle 30’s. While most of the family went into the wood business supplying cordwood to the steamers that plied the Stewart River, and brother Rudy bought the roadhouse at Stewart and saw to the more basic, personal needs of the river travellers, young Phil Collins among them.

Phil had come into the country some years before and had established himself in the small community of Stewart, long shoring in the summer and trapping in the off-season. He often took his meals at the Burian’s roadhouse and he soon realized that there were a few other basic needs that required some attention. Between muscling ore and tanning skins, Phil set out to woo the pretty, if independent, young cook.

His courting style was somewhat unorthodox, his opening salvo a complaint about the cost of a meal and a bed. “I could be sleeping under a spruce tree for nothing,” he grumbled, “and frying up my own grub.”

“Yes, you could, and welcome to it!” was the spirited reply, as Martha turned her scrutiny to another young man who professed delight at paying one dollar for her good moose stew and another for a decent bed with clean fresh-smelling sheets.

Eventually, Phil’s courtship took a more acceptable turn and the spring of 1937, he and Martha were married.

It was the start of a long partnership that took them to most communities in the developing North and a few points south. In the ensuing years they weathered the economic boom and bust that is an established Yukon developmental tradition, by diversifying their own occupations and talents. Martha and Phil put hands to anything that would add to the family coffers. Together they ran the road house at Stewart but as their children grew to school age, the move into the larger center of Dawson seemed a good plan. There, Martha took work cooking in the hotels and cleaning houses “on my hands and knees mind you!” while Phil freighted and, with Ed Whitehouse, operated the ferry across the Yukon River at Dawson for two seasons. When summer work slowed to a trickle, they turned to provisioning for the lean months ahead, and all winter long, they both ran trap lines.

In 1949, they left Dawson and while Phil went to work on the newly built Alaska Highway, Martha followed along, finding eager takers for her cooking skills in the many newly-established highway lodges: the Watson Lake Hotel, Christies’ Jac’nMac’s at Lower Post, Fireside among others. True Yukoners, however, from time to time, they returned to Dawson where Phil went back to freighting and trapping and Martha’s culinary skills were put to good use at the

Dawson hospital. Both of them served as “baby-sitters” at the local jail when required.

The years went by, as years tend to, and as their children grew and left home there was less need for all the berries and furs. Phil and Martha were now in search of a spot to retire and count their blessings.

Dawson was a familiar and well-loved niche but in keeping with the restless spirits that had kept them on the move over the years, they decided it was just a bit too comfortable. A small condo in Whitehorse was tried but that too palled and eventually, they moved farther afield to the whole new scenario of Keremeos, in beautiful British Columbia, where most of their family now lived. There, they settled down, secure in the knowledge of a job well done and a life well and truly lived.

Phil passed on in 1998. Martha spent a year grieving and mourning the loss of her life partner and when she was done, she packed her berry clothes and kerchief and headed North once again. For several summers, she worked for Walter and Cami Yaremcio at their gold mining operation, cooking, cleaning, and yes, picking berries, returning to Keremeos in the fall. In 2004, she moved, bag and baggage, to the Yukon to live with her daughter, Penny, and son-in-law, Don Sippel, at Marsh Lake.

On September 4, 2016, Martha turned 100, and friends and family came from near and far to wish her happy birthday. In recognition of the endless hours spent in service to the RCMP, Martha was escorted into the party by the RCMP Commanding Office, Archie Thompson. Along with many personal tributes from children and grandchildren, Commissioner Doug Phillips presented certificates of recognition from Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and David Johnston, Canada’s Governor General. Premier Darryl Pasloski praised her for her contribution to the Yukon and her dedication to her family and her community. Martha took it all in her stride graciously accepting the tributes and accolades with her usual aplomb.

For the past two years, Martha has called Macaulay Lodge home. Her unlined visage and twinkling eyes are those of a woman many years younger. Arthritis has put the kibosh on her berrying but her hands are seldom idle as she crochets afghans for her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Smiling, her fingers flying, she reminisces about her life in the Yukon when she and Phil, along with a stringer of daughters and the aggrieved only son, traveled the trails and river ways together, finding work where it was to be found. “And when there wasn’t, “she says with a shrug, “we made do.”

And of course, they did. After all, wasn’t it Martha who said, “It’s a big country and it’s always a good year for berries!”

Added later: Martha had had an aorta valve implant done by Dr. Woods at the age of 94. Martha passed away peacefully at Macaulay Lodge on December 27, 2016 at the age of 100 years and 4 months. She was surrounded by family. In her last few minutes, she opened her eyes and asked gently, “Is my heart broken?” When we said yes she said, “Thank you for everything and tell everyone that I love them,” then closed her eyes for the final rest.