The history of Toklat—that gift shop/former restaurant/bunkhouse/loving home near the end of Castle Creek Road 12 miles south of Aspen—is intrinsically tied to dogs and dogsledding, even though the huskies haven't worked this land since 1974. But Toklat's basic premise has always been its connection to nature. In fact, Toklat is an Eskimo word meaning "a valley formed by a glacier."

As it gears up to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Mace family who founded Toklat and have always promoted self-suffIciency and respect for nature's blessings, along with curator Alaistair Steele, are putting together a three-dimensional living exhibition tracing its history since 1949. A special interactive exhibit opens on or around June 15 (this is true mountain time, after all) in a temporary log cabin outside the main building.

It hasn't been easy deciding what to include, so Lynne Mace, the only daughter of land stewards Isabel and Stuart Mace, sought the help of Steele, a friend from England who "stumbled upon" Toklat four years ago. "I've got more stuff out there than you can shake a stick at," Mace said about the wealth of collectibles overflowing the landscape.

Not only was Steele enlisted as superintendent of the collection, but he was able to bring an outside-the- family view to Isabel Mace's oral recollections. "I was fearful I would say, ‘that's not the way it was,'" Mace explained.

Pragmatism and the sublime tend to blur lines up in this high-altitude former-mining town. Most familiar with the lay of the land will tell you spirits are omnipresent in Ashcroft. Steele, who considers himself a rational sort, saying "I'm very cynical and not New Age," sensed Stuart Mace's spirit one early morning while the young Brit snoozed peacefully in Toklat's "Choo Choo Room." "I felt Stuart was kneeling next to the bed telling me things," said Steele, who had not met the valley patriarch while he was still alive.

But the young man did form a tight bond with Isabel, whose oral history he would later spend one month recording. She "provided a lot of the spine for the place," said Steele, who wants history to give proper credit to the woman who was as instrumental as her husband in the establishment of Toklat, while raising a brood of five at the same time A historic photo of Isabel shows her helping to build the Toklat roof. She was eight months pregnant when the picture was taken.

Always Ahead of Their Time

Toklat's history is best grouped by decade, from the post World War 11 days when Stuart and Isabel arrived from Salida looking for just the right place to raise their family, their sled dogs and pioneer what was then a radical live-off-the-land lifestyle.

Stuart had been in charge of the canine corps during the war and was looking for an appropriate place to foster “the whole person—mind, body, artistic self," he once told journalist Bill Moyers.

Their introduction to the Ashcroft valley came through Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke, who had caught wind of Stuart's expertise with the four-legged friends. It's not coincidental that they also shared a similar mind- body ethos with the Aspen couple credited with founding its latter day renaissance.

After rejecting two sites closer to Aspen, the family hooked up with Ted Ryan, who owned the Highland/Bavarian Lodge in the Castle Creek Valley that was originally slated to be a ski resort. Ryan offered the Maces a lease on the splendid acreage.

Dogsleds and Jeeps full of materials were hauled up the unpaved road to build the Toklat lodge, beginning in 1947. Just three people, though characters each, resided there at the time: Joe Sawyer, The Whispering Swede," and a third man named Mr. Fitzgerald.

“Joe hunted for his food, but no one knows how he survived,” said Lynne Mace with a chuckle. The Swede had his own special talent. “If you threw a watch in his cabin, you could return and it would be fixed,” she recalled. Rumor has it that his spirit performs the same duty to this day.

Dogsledding was the essence of Toklat's first decade as guests would reside in the lodge and tour the snowy expanses with the dogs or on skis. The Toklat reputation grew to interest Hollywood: the Sgt. Preston of the Yukon television series filmed its winter scenes here from 1954-6.

By 1959 Toklat’s focus moved to Aspen, where the Maces opened a restaurant first in the current site of the Hickory House and later, to the Durant Avenue location now occupied by the Chart House. The Aspen restaurant lasted a decade, before more limited meal service returned to the original high altitude site. Dogsledding continued in the upper valley until 1974, when Dan MacEachen, a young and eager musher, proved himself worthy to care for the animals. He moved the operation to Snowmass Village, calling his new business Krabloonik.

That same period saw the Maces helping form the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES), which fell perfectly in line with their environmental convictions. Going hand in hand with that emphasis were the founding of Toklat nature walks and the introduction of “council fires,” where stories of the area were and still are today, readily shared with pre-arranged groups in a relaxed setting.

Self-sufficiency has always been a Toklat theme, but so have hospitality and ecological concerns. Long before it was trendy, the Mace family was cooking healthily, with menus featuring quionoa, grains, locally grown mushrooms and root vegetables. The Maces took natural foods one step further when they founded the Malachite farm in Southern Colorado, located on the eastern side of the Sangre de Cristo mountains

It was during the early 1980s that Stuart decided to revisit his love of art, including collecting the luscious woods that continue to fill the Toklat gallery. Stuart also fostered his passion for photography. He seemed to spend more time on these projects after losing his beloved son Greg to a climbing accident in 1986. Stuart himself succumbed to pneumonia brought about by cancer seven years later.

Coming Full Circle

Lynne Mace returned to Toklat originally to care for her ailing father and later, to run the family business. "When I was growing up it was a veritable revolving door around here," Mace said of the “waifs and strays” whom her parents would offer a roof, a hot meal, even a job.

But here she was, after stops in England, France, Washington, DC and Connecticut, an orphan of the big bad world who had traveled extensively but was ready to stoke the home fires The Maces don't own the 2.79 acres in the upper valley on which this treasure sits but enjoy a lease from the Ryan family that extends through Isabel's time on earth. Lynne Mace said she's been trying to buy the land since 1992.

Which begs the question: After this generous lease expires, what will be Toklat's future? Toklat's current incarnation is as a gift shop featuring regional artists and carefully selected, tasteful crafts. It's managed by Aspen native Sue Wall, who has her own fond memories of the Ashcroft valley, including weekly picnics with her family to the ghost town. Her remembrances are revitalized by other's recollections.

"One of the great joys of working here is the number of people who come in and have these wonderful stories," said Wall. "People walk in here with reverence." And that's what Steele wants to capture in the exhibition—the rich history along with the here and now. "I don't want to make it so it's entirely rooted in the past," he said. "I want it to be now."

Toklat's evolving landscape includes blooming ceramic flowers swaying in the yard, a marble puma and an eagle sculpture for the summer season. "For me, coming back here to do the 50th is a privilege," Steele said, echoing the sentiment of at least two generations worth of Toklat visitors, along with some human and canine spirits as well.