November 5, 2013
This post shares my grandfather’s history with you.
I received this postcard of my late grandfather Jacques today from a dear family friend, and it’s now dawning on me why I love the outdoors so much – even TV shows showing subsistence living like Mountain Men and Alaska, the Last Frontier: it is the life he led, which my mother told me about as a child.
Jacques Suzanne aspired to be the first person to reach the north pole. There is still debate about who actually did, but he was friends with Admiral Byrd – who is reported by some to have reached it first – and acquainted with Admiral Peary, who was originally claimed to be the first to reach the north pole.
Jacques raised malamutes, huskies, and wolves. He was an expert musher and gave professional dog-sled rides in his sunset years.
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He was also an artist and was particularly fond of painting sledding scenes, horses, and snowstorms of the kind he explored, as well as the indigenous people who inhabited those little-reached lands.
He appeared in a couple of films, including The Spell of the Yukon.
He was no stranger to controversy. Isn’t that always the way though in every family, when you root around enough? Search enough closets and you will find skeletons, no? In my family, you might even find skeletons sitting on the couch in the living room. Hah!
Here he is with my mother, his youngest child. The signs in the background are so fascinating, showing the kind of tours he was running at this time.
I love this photo.
Anyway, I think it’s sad that we have so little detail about life just two generations before our own. If you have a grandparent who is still alive, get as much oral history from them as you can – write it down! No matter what it was, it will be a treasured capsule for the time period, and a rich history for your own family.
Thanks for visiting! xx
