I had watched hundreds of young men jump aboard steam engines to make their way across mountains of the Yukon Territory, but since I had Lila with me, I had to do it the old fashioned way - hitchhiking. I caught a ride with a nice old man who was carrying a cart full of pigs to his brother’s farm. Lila and I sat in the back on the trip that took us close to the Yukon River, then hopped out and set up camp on the shore. All along the coast, there were men building ships to use to cross the river. We waited for what looked like the sturdies boat to be completed, then hopped in the back then prayed that it wouldn't hit a rock and sink. Thankfully, after close to three hours of being tossed and turned in the frigid rapids, we grounded. Now I’m here in Alaska, resting for a bit while I try to find the best place to search for gold. The gold rush here has been brewing for a few years, and I’d read about it in the newspaper over my father's shoulder sometimes, but I had never paid much attention to it before now. I have no way of getting a job as an under qualified sixteen year old girl with no family. Finding gold is all I could do to survive. Besides, Lila doesn’t complain about having to hide all day (even though she is a dog and can’t speak english), but I know that she would be better off in the wild, away from the egregious townspeople that try to kick her off the streets. I don’t just want to find gold. I need to.
I guess I didn’t ever really know what I wanted to do with my life, but I’m sure it wasn’t this. For the past few weeks, I had been setting scraps of food from the trash outside a few restaurants aside. I had been starting to get more daring in what I stole, thinking that Lila and I would both need to strengthen up in order to make the journey to the wilds. I was planning to wait out the winter to leave my safe haven, but Lila has been getting stir crazy and quite frankly, so have I. I was a bit of an explorer from an early age, not at all what you would expect from the daughter of a successful businessman. Since my mother had died when I was about four, my father had all control over raining me. He had never had an aptitude for parenting, so he just raised me the way that his mother raised him out on their farm house - freely. I was an explorer, and I would sometimes spend the night in the patch of woods in my backyard, but I always had my warm, comforting home to come back to. Now, I’m going to be all alone in the Alaskan wilderness with no company but a dog. I have no idea what to expect.