Parrot Polly, captain Alexander and the curse of the Engineer mine

摘要

When Polly the parrot died in 1972, he was given a funeral procession and a place in the Pioneer Carcross Cemetery beside such famous Klondikers as Skookum Jim and Dawson Charlie. Rumoured to be over 100 years old at the time of his death, Polly had spent the previous five decades at the Caribou Hotel in Carcross, Yukon, learning to swear and drink whiskey just like the hotel taverns regulars. The parrot arrived in 1918 when captain James Alexander, owner of the Engineer gold mine, put Polly in the care of the hotel's proprietors. With his parrot's security assured, he embarked on a trip to Vancouver, where he planned to sell his mine. But Alexander never returned.