Tales of Sourdough

The term sourdough originated during the Klondike Gold Rush when settlers began to flood into Alaska. Due to the limited availability of leavening in the remote bush of Alaska, settlers made their bread using a sourdough starter which uses flour, water, and sugar to naturally collect yeast from the air. The use and consumption of this bread was so widespread that these settlers began to be known as "sourdoughs."

The history of sourdough, however, begins long before miners came to Alaska. Sourdough is the oldest form of leavened bread and was used at least as early as ancient Egypt. It was probably discovered by accident when bread dough was left out and good microorganisms -- wild yeast -- drifted into the mix. The resulting bread had a lighter texture and better taste.

Are the sourdough pancakes done yet, Mom?

All sourdough recipes begin with a starter -- a mixture of flour, water, and a little sugar. Sitting at room temperature, wild yeasts in the air and on the grain settle into the mix. The fermentation that occurs after a few days gives the starter its sour smell. Then it's ready to use, for years if treated with respect.

A starter, or "sponge" as the pioneers called it, feeds many families over many years. Starters have always been passed through families and from friend to friend. I have kept my last starter alive for 10 years and there are stories of starters that are much older. There is one starter from a famous bakery in San Francisco that started back in 1849 and is known as the "Mother Dough".

Starters can be kept thriving simply by adding equal parts of water and flour to a portion of the starter every couple of weeks. Replenish it, keep it stored in the refrigerator, and it will last indefinitely, acquiring more personality as the years go by. The extra tanginess that comes with age is highly prized and is why older starters become treasured members of the family for sourdough junkies.

So for the start of your sourdough adventure . . .a short tale from a time long ago.

Sourdough Starter & The Mad Trapper Of Rat River.

Nobody knew much about Albert Johnson. He arrived in Fort MacPherson, Northwest Territories, Canada on July 9th, 1931 on the southern edge of the Mackenzie delta (67 degrees N latitude).  His arrival was uneventful, a man simply descending into the town on the idle wind with a lot of cash in his pocket. He was by all accounts, in his mid to late thirties, with a rugged build, icy blue eyes, and a taciturn disposition, keeping to himself. These physical characteristics in men that trapped for a living in the north were nothing out of the ordinary, some youthful, some old, most bearded, yet all with that same attentive attention to the wilds around them.  Among such men, Albert Johnson melted quietly into the landscape.

What the locals noted as strange was this young man had pockets of money and build a large cabin with a good view on three sides in the prime trapping area of the Rat River, but did not obtain the requisite trapping license. He didn't invite questions and shunned visitors. Most often he was found alone, leaving quarters only to stride to a small bluff overlooking the river, his woolen shirt fluttering around him like a flag, as he stood watchful and mute.

When the trapping season went into full swing, something changed. The traps in the area were disrupted. Smashed, bait tossed about. There was no evidence of the act but for the cry of the wind through the trees that seemed to assume the human sound of rage and pain. Indian trappers complained that someone was interfering with their work. In this region trapping was the only source of food and livelihood for many, settler and native alike, and interfering with it was the most serious of crimes.

Angel Abby doing her best "bear" imitation.

Several pointed fingers at the hermit-like Mr. Johnson. The Indians said he "was mad". So one cold day Constable Alfred 'Buns' King and Special Constable Joe Bernard, each of whom had considerable northern experience, decided to call on Johnson to investigate. When they approached his cabin they noticed smoke billowing up from the chimney, wrapping around the house like a fortress. After numerous attempts to strike up a conversation in 40-below temperatures, about as productive as arguing with someone about politics, and getting nowhere with a man holed up with a gun, they decided to return to Aklavik to get reinforcements.

They returned with two more Mounties. Steam came from the edges of the cabin door as if it was warm inside. Men and beasts moved slowly in the cold, white fog brightened only by a shortened sun, the cold air gusting around the men, heightening the sense of urgency. A simple knock on the door and without warning, a shot rang out, three bullets splintering the wood and smashing into Constable King's chest. McDowell did not wait. He dragged his friend to their sled and cracked his snake whip as loud as Hermit Johnson's rifle. Tongues out, the husky dogs plunged forward, racing back through the night, fueled by hunger and the smell of blood. They made the 100 miles back to Aklavik in 20 hours. It was a record that saved Constable King's life.

Ten days later a new patrol mushed out to Rat River to avenge Constable King. Albert Johnson had used the interval to turn his hut into a blockhouse. He had dug the dirt floor out to a depth of four feet and cut loopholes at the floor level. For 15 hours Albert Johnson, ruler of that minute world, held off the Mounties. Dynamite charges blew the roof off his hut. Albert Johnson retired, like an angry woodchuck, entrenched in his dugout, willing to fight to the death. With temps at forty below and food for both men and the dogs running low, the police withdrew, thwarted again. As the coppery twilight gave way to a dark sky, only a few stars that dangled near earth like shards of ice, were witness to Johnson's thoughts.

For the third time, a police patrol set out from Aklavik, but this time Albert Johnson had fled from Rat River, trying to beat his way through the arctic winter to Alaska and safety. What followed was the northern country's greatest manhunt. Trappers rushed their wives to trading posts for safety, then joined the posse. They were loosely organized but realized as we still do today that it is the spirit of the law, and not the form of it that keeps justice alive, and they were willing to leave all behind to ensure justice for an officer taken down simply trying to preserve a man's work and the fruit of their sweat.

Thirty miles further in the posse finally tracked where Mad Albert had built a fort of ice and snow. There was another battle. In it, Constable E. Millen died. Police ammunition ran out and the posse withdrew for supplies, leaving three men to watch the fort. In the middle of the night, Mad Albert Johnson slipped away again in a blizzard that covered his snowshoe tracks, winds wailing a hymn of mourning for another fallen officer.

They called in Capt. W. R. ("Wop") May, a survivor of the epic battle which ended in the death of Germany's famed Baron Manfred von Richthofen. "Wop" May was at Fort McMurray, Alberta, 1,100 miles away, when Constable Millen was shot.

Flying in that day was slow, it was risky and clouds were low to the hard earth. There were no instruments to guide you in bad weather, no controllers to help you find your way. All you had were wings and courage. Articulate honor in the face of death. Men like Captain May, those that earn their names, know what risk is, and they elect to it anyway. With winter weather making the sky a time bomb of ice, May took their frantic call for help and took off in an Army monoplane, headlong into the swirling snows of the pursuit, armed with nothing more than a craft about as maneuverable as a Brinks Truck equipped with a single bomb rack.
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Even flight in a blizzard couldn't hide Albert Johnson from the eyes of Capt. May. Days later May reported that Albert Johnson had crossed the Yukon River, and was tracking west from the Pierre House trading post, only 175 miles from the Alaska border. The manhunt resumed full cry.

On Jan 30th he was confronted once more. After a short shootout, Constable 'Spike' Millen lay dead - shot through the heart. Johnson made his escape by climbing a sheer cliff in the dead of night, somehow rising out of the darkness like a phantom from the grave. The Mounties' reputation was on the line, their ability to take down one lone man reduced to a whisper of cold promise left in prints of a snowshoe.

Albert Johnson seemed to be no average trapper. The Mounties said of him to be capable of great feats and was crafty beyond belief. The local Inuit said at one point in the chase that Johnson could snowshoe 2 miles for every 1 mile a dog team had to break trail. The cold was brutal, pulling the air from your lungs, as the hairs in your nose froze to Brillo pads that blocked the little breath you could take in. Yet Johnson was able to flee, and at a pace faster than the best of the best, so many times they thought they had him, when his departed form split the night like artillery, breaking the lie of silence.

He took down one other officer before being felled in one crashing volley. On February 17, 1932, May directed the Mounties to a hairpin turn in the middle section of the Eagle River where a gun battle eventually brought Johnson down. It took 9 bullets to Johnson's body to finally end this week's long order. The fallen officer, Sargent Hersey was rushed back for aid in May's airplane. The Mad Trapper, Albert Johnson came back on a police sled, dead, frozen stiff. No one ever claimed his body. No one in Alaska or the trapping fields had heard of him. No one had ever heard him utter a single word. Yet he had the modern-day cash equivalent of the cost of a new home in his pockets (as well as a knife, fish hooks, nails, and a dead squirrel).  His identity was never known, quietly buried, a DB Cooper of the Wild North

To end his rampage, and ensure the reputation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police it took seven weeks, a dozen straining dog teams, the life of a good Constable, the wounding of two others, and a fighter ace. And it took sourdough.

For a particular sourdough starter was carried along on that famous hunt for Albert Johnson. As the mounties and their posse stayed on the trail of Johnson for several months, the men had to prepare food on the trail in the harshest of conditions. The mix helped keep the posse fed throughout much of the manhunt.
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As Fall gives way to winter it's a good time to make a sourdough starter, flip pancakes, bake bread or roll out tasty biscuits. If the only "sourdough" you've had has been packaged, preservative-laden bread from the store you are missing out on something truly spectacular. Light fragrant, and tangy, it makes white bread hide in the closet in shame. Add homemade gravy and sausage to it and it's absolutely addicting.  For pancakes, they can't be beaten.

Throw in some butter and Birch Syrup and you have a filling breakfast that won't weigh you down for a manhunt or simply provide you nourishment for your soul. I think Captain May and the Mounties would have approved.