Edward Fearon (1859 - 1933)
	
Ed Fearon was born in England. He left gunnery school at Kingston in 1878 to join the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) and remained with the force until July 1880. He was discharged at Fort Walsh by his own request. He later served with Colonel Otter’s Scouts during the 1885 rebellion and was awarded a medal for bravery.((Grant MacEwan, //Blazing the Old Cattle Trail.// Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 2000: 162-168.)) Fearon bought the Commercial Hotel in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan in 1890 and he and his wife [Annie] ran it until it was sold at Christmas in 1896.((Joan Champ, “’Your Home on the Range:’ The Commercial Hotel at Maple Creek (Part 1).” //Battlefords News-Optimist// (Battleford), 18 July 2019. //News-Optimist// 20020 website: https://www.newsoptimist.ca/opinion/columnists/your-home-on-the-range-the-commercial-hotel-at-maple-creek-part-1-1.23886949.)) 

Fearon was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the North West Territories for Medicine Hat in 1894, but he was absent in the north for two legislative sessions. The 26 March 1897 //MacLeod Gazette// reported that the first beefsteak to reach Circle City, Alaska sold for forty-eight cents per pound. The steaks were from a ten-pound piece of beef slaughtered at Forty Mile and packed and shipped two hundred and fifty miles to Circle City by Thomas O’Brien. When O’Brien arrived with it, it was put on display and attracted much attention.((Grant MacEwan, //Blazing the Old Cattle Trail.// Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 2000: 162-168.))  

Fearon thought he could drive cattle to the Yukon as well. The Conrad and Price Ranch manager offered him cattle for forty-five dollars a head when he returned or, if Fearon failed, he would take the cows from Fearon’s herd. Fearon decided to go at once and got together an outfit and one hundred four-year-old steers. He took Bessie the cow as a leader and put them all on the train to Vancouver. The animals and a ton of hay were transferred to a scow and a tug pulled it north to Skagway. The hay had to be cached along the trail for the cattle. The first of Fearon’s men to reach Bennett started to build rafts to carry the stock and hay. Some American cattlemen were at Skagway as well and the three herds were ready for the trail at the same time. After a week of hardship on the White Pass, the men and cattle reached Bennett where the scows were almost ready. Two big rafts and one small one were loaded. When an expanse of grass was seen, Fearon stopped the armada and let the cattle graze for a day or two. The scows went through Miles Canyon and the Rapids before Fearon knew what was happening, but only a couple of steers were lost. They arrived in Dawson in the middle of October. Even the hides and viscera brought more in Dawson than the best beef was worth at Maple Creek, Saskatchewan.((Grant MacEwan, //Blazing the Old Cattle Trail.// Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 2000: 162-168.)) He sold the NWMP ten thousand pounds of beef for a dollar a pound and sold the rest to the general market at $1.50.((Michael Gates, //Dalton’s Gold Rush Trail.// Whitehorse, Lost Moose, 2012: 91-92.)) Bessie was soon to calve, and she was sold as a milk cow for $1,000. Fearon collected his pay in gold dust.((Grant MacEwan, //Blazing the Old Cattle Trail.// Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 2000: 162-168.))