The Life and Times of Samuel J. Groo
At 4 o’clock in the morning, a light snaps on in Park City. Lannie Scopes leaves his sleeping wife and sidles downstairs to be deep in the Klondike. Anyone with an understanding of the writer’s craft knows that the early hours of the morning are often an author’s witching time. Is there something about the drowsy rise from the subconscious that spurs creativity and imagination?
Certainly there was in Scopes’ case. He has written a tale about the Alaskan Gold Rush that is entertaining, ingenuous and powerful. His vivid imagery and twists of plot pull the reader into a real page-turner.
Scopes began his dance with Klondike lore when he found an old journal in his grandmother’s attic. Leather bound, folded in half, it looked like it had just emerged from the back pocket of an old prospector. It had.
The diary proved to be the account of his great, great uncle, Samuel J. Groo. Prompted to seek his fortune far from the bank robbery where he had gunned down a sheriff, Groo joined thousands of “stampeders” on a glacier in Alaska.
His thirst for gold was real, but he left behind a dear sister and her fledgling family. The heartstrings that tug on his psyche interplay throughout the tale of desperadoes on ice, making the book an appealing love story as well as an adventure.
From an historical perspective, Scopes’ telling of his great, great uncle’s experience is an eye-opener. In 1898, the Alaskan Gold Rush killed many a man before he found his “colors.” Scopes paints the picture of the horrific conditions on the “All American Route” with humor and dread.
“There were three kinds of men,” Scopes said in a recent interview at the Alpine Cyber Café on Main Street, “Those who prospected, those who served the prospectors, and those who preyed on the prospectors.”
Scopes crafts his characters with finely wrought prose. There is Groo himself, an outlaw and sharpshooter with a mighty decent heart. His true friend Tom Clancy has the loveable gift of Irish repartée. His evil foe John Mackin is the man we love to hate. The once-beautiful Kate, alone in the wilderness with a death sentence of scurvy, is the one we wonder about.
The confluence of the rivers the characters travel could not be as treacherous as the affairs of men. Scopes has woven a tale with all the trappings of a Hollywood movie. The story begins with Groo’s childhood. The son of a stern polygamous father, Groo loses favor when his mother dies in childbirth. The father and remaining wives tyrannize Groo and his sister, who run away. Mary Elizabeth finds marriage with a fine young man, but Samuel Groo becomes a miner. Curious circumstances lead Groo to take up with Butch Cassidy’s wild bunch (true story). Finding himself a hunted man, he boards a steamer for Alaska.
Stuffed into the bowels of the freighter, Groo shovels coal in a hell-hole of a boiler room, earning his passage to the land of dreams. Emerging from below, he glimpses the haughty Kate, an enigmatic figure whose father professes to be a missionary.
After reaching Port Valdez, Groo is suckered by a slick opportunist with the sales pitch, “Buy a map of the ‘All American Route’ and reach the Klondike faster.” Before the adventure ends, Groo encounters the unattainable Kate again and finds a secret treasure more precious than gold.
Historically, Scopes said, the All American Route turned out to be longer than any other trail to the Klondike. Steep glaciers, murderous rapids, wild animals and un-tamed men combined to kill over half the “stampeders” who tried it.
The author’s imagery enchanted me as a reader. I could not imagine how Scopes, who has never been to Alaska, could possibly have filled out the sparse entries in his uncle’s diary with such delightful detail.
Scopes finished the novel in the mid-1990s and sought a publisher. Thanks to iUniverse, the self-publishing arm of Barnes & Noble, this amazing read is now available for us to enjoy.
Lannie Scopes was a musician before embarking on a career in advertising. He writes and performs cowboy music throughout the West. He and his wife Terry are now realtors in Park City. “The Life and Times of Samuel J. Groo” is available at Dolly’s Bookstore on Main Street and the Spotted Frog Bookstore in Redstone.
Lola Beatlebrox is the author of “Your History Your County,” a children’s history of Summit County published by the Summit County Historical Society. She lives in Brown’s Canyon with her husband Zafod, two dogs, three cats and three llamas.
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