Norman Lee
Norman Lee was born in England. In 1882, he left an apprenticeship with an architecture firm in London to immigrate to the Cariboo gold fields in British Columbia. He became a rancher and a trader.1) His ranch was located near Henceville, British Columbia.2)
In the spring of 1898, Norman Lee tried take one hundred and seventy-five cattle up the All-Canadian route with helpers, five cowboys, a horse wrangler, and a cook. He was not the only one on the trail from Chilcotin: Jim Cornell was about a week ahead of Lee with seventy-five head and Johnny Harris, with two hundred head, was just behind. The Harris party did overtake and passed Lee on the trail. They followed the Telegraph Trail out of Quesnel. There were all kinds of men and horses on the trail to the Klondike. From Fraser Lake to Hazelton, the trail was through heavy timber but there was good grazing. Harris lost a dozen or more to poisonous plants. Feed problems increased and most of the horses died on the trail. They were 260 miles past Hazelton and running out of food. Jim Cornell was at Telegraph Creek and he sold his cattle there. Lee planned to drive to Teslin Lake, slaughter the cattle and raft the dressed beef to Dawson. He rode ahead of his herd and came into Teslin with Johnny Harris and Jerry Gravelle and their herds.3)
Lee’s cattle arrived on October 3. The slaughtering finished just as the 40’ x 16’ rafts were ready. They hit a storm on the lake and most of the beef was submerged on broken scows. Lee abandoned his beef. Some of the men took Lee’s little boat and went on to Dawson. Lee tried to sell what he could at Teslin but there was a large quantity of meat available from the crippled oxen slaughtered there at the end of the trail. Harris and his herd was four and half days ahead of Lee and word came back that he was frozen in about two hundred miles above Dawson City and the beef was a complete loss as well.4)
Lee re-wrote the notes from his cattle drive and illustrated the story with sketches. He completed the manuscript in 1900 and it was published in 1960 as The Klondike Cattle Drive.5)