Poole Field (d. 1948)
	
The Field family had a noble British lineage dating to the 14th century. When Edward Field's family fortunes declined, he immigrated to the Red River Settlement and became a founder of Wedena, Saskatchewan, where Poole Field grew up. Poole was seventeen when he joined the North-West Mounted Police in 1898 and requested a Yukon posting. He served two years at the Tagish Customs Post and then took his discharge. He spent ten years in Alaska carrying the winter mail between Nome and St. Michael and exploring the Tanana River above Fairbanks.((Norman E. Kagan, "Pelly Pioneers at Ross River." //Alaska Geographic,// Vol. 25, No.2, 1998: 86-89, 91-92.))
	
Field and Clement (Clem) Lewis established a trading post at the mouth of Ross River about 1900. Field met some Fort Norman people at the Yukon border and travelled with them back to the Mackenzie River and farther to Great Bear Lake about 1905. By 1908, Field was back at Ross River with Kittie Tom and they travelled to Dawson to be married in the Anglican Church.((Poole Field and J.H. MacNeish, “The Poole Field Letters.” //Anthropologia,// No. 4, 1957: 47-60;  February 8, 1913 letter in Yukon Archives, Pam 1913-18c.1)) A marriage license application for Poole Field and Maskis is dated 3 July 1908.((Indexes to Applications for Marriage Licenses, 1898-1901. Yukon Archives, YRG 1 Series 1. Vol. 75 Microfilm)) Maskis was Tagish.((Ida May Goulter, "History of Carmacks." September 1977. Heritage Branch files.))
	
In February 1913, Field wrote that he spent ten years hunting and trapping with the people claiming the Upper Pelly country and its tributaries. The original people had completely disappeared except for one old woman now on the Pelly.((Poole Field and J.H. MacNeish, “The Poole Field Letters.” //Anthropologia,// No. 4, 1957: 47-60;  February 8, 1913 letter in Yukon Archives, Pam 1913-18c.1))
	
Field was responsible for continued trade with the Mountain people at Ross River. He and partner William Atkinson had a successful hauling business. He followed the example of Clem Lewis and wrote to the head of the Geographical Service of Canada and sent them items of interest, now at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Kittie Field died of pneumonia about 1912 and is buried at Hoole Canyon.((Norman E. Kagan, "Pelly Pioneers at Ross River." //Alaska Geographic,// Vol. 25, No.2, 1998: 86-89, 91-92.)) Field was listed as the manager of the Taylor and Drury store at Fort Selkirk in 1911-12. ((Polks Oregon and Washington Gazetteer and Directory, 1911-1912: 506.))
	
Atkinson was often away and soon Field and Atkinson's wife, Mary, were a couple. When Atkinson returned to the post they fled to Dawson. Field, Mary and his oldest daughter, Tannie, remained in the Yukon for two more years, mostly at Carmacks. They then travelled out of the Yukon to Vancouver, Edmonton, Fort Simpson, and ended up on the South Nahanni. Joe Coté, Jack Stanier, and other Yukon friends joined them there and Field's fortune's rose again. He continued to trade and promote the Nahanni from the NWT. He and Mary raised two children of their own. In 1945, with Fred Envoldsen, he took his family north to the Yukon's Firth River where his friend Jujiro Wada had found gold.((Norman E. Kagan, "Pelly Pioneers at Ross River." //Alaska Geographic,// Vol. 25, No.2, 1998: 86-89, 91-92.)) Field and Fred Envoldsen had a half-interest in the original discovery claim.((A.A. Gillespie, "The Firth River gold strike." //Western Miner,// Vol. 21, No. 5, May 1948: 78.))
	
In 1948, Field fell ill with cancer and was taken to St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver where he died on April 22nd. Reverend Swanson officiated at his funeral saying he was one of the finest men he had known in the north and the best musher. Mary moved back to Dawson and worked in a senior's home where her former husband lived out his days.((Norman E. Kagan, "Pelly Pioneers at Ross River." //Alaska Geographic,// Vol. 25, No.2, 1998: 86-89, 91-92.))
	
Excerpts from Poole Field’s letters to a member of the Geological Survey were published in the journal //Anthropologogia// in 1957.((Poole Field and J.H. MacNeish, “The Poole Field Letters.” //Anthropologia,// No. 4, 1957: 47-60.)) Sixty pages of his 1913 and 1939 letters are held by the Archives of Alberta.((Archives Society of Alberta 2018 website: https://albertaonrecord.ca/poole-field-fonds))