Rolling Pin

Cylindrical wooden pastry roller

Medium brown in colour with twelve sections engraved with various flora and fauna patterns. A metal bar extends through centre of roller and has a modified wooden cylindrical handle at each end. The pattern is divided into four groups of three panels. Left to Right: 1) owl, bird, apple; 2) bird, floral, bird; 3) bird, fish, pear; 4) bird, grapes, bird

The rolling pin is made in the traditionally western style with an external roller around a central rod with handles extending on either side. This pin is made with flora and fauna intaglio carved into the roller to make a fancy design on the dough. The flowers and birds that adorn the wooden pin would have been ideal to make relief design for shortbread or sugar cookies.

The North West Mounted Police required that each man bring a year's worth of food over the Chilkoot when they entered the Yukon. Required provisions included 400lbs of flour and 25lbs of sugar which would provide plenty of ingredients for these simple cookies. Making confections was a popular activity for the few honest working women in Dawson City. Lacking in cooking equipment women would bang out tins to make pie plates, bake apple pie and sell them by the slice at inflated prices. Small fortunes were made on sweets.