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After the Gold Rush
publication date: Feb 14, 2008
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author/source: Polly Evans
The discovery of the yellow stuff near Dawson City in the Yukon in 1896 led to the greatest gold rush in history, with thousands braving the perils of the sub-Arctic wilderness in search of wealth. Polly Evans follows the trail of the Klondike stampeders The rain had seeped through the leather of my carefully waxed boots and gathered in sloppy pools in the soles. It had wheedled its way into my waterproofs and formed small reservoirs in my sleeves so that when, forgetfully, I raised an arm to point out a cairn though the mist, a freezing jet of water slammed into my chest with a glacial stab. We were hiking in the very height of summer, but the thermometer cringed at a mere 2ºC. And, relatively speaking, we had it good. The men and women who had made the Chilkoot Trail famous had journeyed in conditions far more arduous than these.
The Chilkoot Trail was the most well-trodden path to the gold fields of the Klondike in the winter of 1897–8. This was the last of the great gold rushes, and perhaps the most extraordinary of them all. A rich seam had been struck by three men, George Carmack and his Indian brothers-in-law Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie, in August 1896. A handful of hopeful misfits with their hearts set on gold had been drifting to the north for several years and a few small mining communities were already established. When their inhabitants heard of the Klondike strike, they swarmed to stake their claims on the creeks.
Throughout that stark, dark winter of 1896–7 these hardy men toiled, painfully extracting the precious metal from the permafrost. And when in May 1897 the ice of the Yukon River broke at last, some left for the Outside, as they called it, carrying their riches with them.
The first ship, the Excelsior, docked in San Francisco on 14 July 1897. America was in the depths of economic depression, and when the ragtag bunch of grizzled miners alighted from the steamer heaving nuggets of Klondike gold in their battered bags and boxes, the imagination of a weary public was set ablaze. When a second ship arrived in Seattle three days later, 5,000 people crowded the docks to greet her.
‘All that anyone hears at present is “Klondyke,”’ the Seattle Daily Times reported. ‘It is impossible to escape it. It is talked in the morning; it is discussed at lunch; it demands attention at the dinner table; it is all one hears during the interval of his after-dinner smoke; and at night one dreams about mountains of yellow metal with nuggets as big as fire plugs.’
In the weeks that followed, around 100,000 dreamers and desperados threw in their jobs in offices, factories, banks and schools, and set out for the creeks of the Klondike. Most of them had no idea of the hardship they were heading towards.
It’s reckoned that 22,000 aspiring gold miners, including a young Jack London, travelled over the Chilkoot Pass that year, and it was they who renamed this trail – which runs from Dyea, at the head of the Lynn Canal on the southeast coast of Alaska to Lake Bennett in Canada – “the meanest 32 miles in history”. The terrain in parts is tortuously steep and, because there were fears of a famine in Dawson City – the town which had sprung up beside the Klondike River – Canadian authorities demanded that those entering their territory had to carry sufficient supplies to last them a year. They calculated that these goods should weigh 1000lb; Mounties posted at the summit, where the border between the US and Canada lay, checked supplies and collected customs duties. In order to ferry their outfits, most stampeders needed to hike the Chilkoot 20 or 30 times. They were on the trail for months, in the very depths of a sub-Arctic winter.
More than 100 years later, local guide Stefan Wackerhagen and I clambered towards the summit ourselves. Beneath us lay ‘the Scales’, that point of the trail where stampeders had weighed their goods, bargained with fellow prospectors for those items they were missing, and discarded unnecessary paraphernalia. Still today, the ground of the Scales is littered with abandoned gold miners’ gear – picks, shovels and strangely shaped detritus that has sat here, slowly oxidizing, for more than a century.
Above the Scales, the trail is scarcely worthy of the name. It’s not a path but a route marked by orange beacons across a field of thunderous-grey boulders. We slithered over them through the downpour. During the winter of 1897–8, when the summit was covered in snow, steps were cut into the ice. They called them the Golden Stairs. The image of an incessant train of men, staggering in single file like a trail of ants against a backdrop of white, is perhaps the most abiding – and agonising – image of the Klondike gold rush. Even now, in late July, we sometimes crossed a snowfield where we had to tread carefully, ever aware that our feet might break through a precarious snow bridge. And then we reached the top and a tiny wooden cabin. We dived inside, drenched and half-frozen, desperate for hot drinks and shelter.
We’d started out the previous day from Dyea. Then, the weather then had been glorious. We’d made our way over the soft forest floor of the Alaskan coastal rainforest beneath spruce, hemlock and cottonwood trees, whose seeds had floated through the air and sparkled bright in the sunlight like tiny specks of silver. The trees’ branches were draped with pale-green old man’s beard, and on this clear day the sun shone through the leaves and the lichen, illuminating them in dazzling shades of green. On the horizon, bright-white glaciers descended infinitesimally slowly, breaking off into icebergs in distant lakes.
A short way ahead of us, a bear had walked. We passed fresh scat and a clear print in the mud. A small rabbit lolloped across the path and hunkered in the bushes. The trail was damp – earlier in the week, it had been closed due to flooding – and the water was high. Sometimes we made our way over waterlogged ground on boardwalks; in places we changed our boots for sandals and waded through clouded glacial streams. We saw few fellow hikers: the Chilkoot Trail is now designated as a national park, and numbers are limited to 50 each day. As almost everyone walks the route from south to north, one can travel for hours without seeing others.
Our destination that first night was 8,000 thousand when stampeders holed up during the winter storms. It was two streets deep and there were restaurants, hotels, saloons and a bathhouse. A certain Mrs Purdy stayed in the Grand Pacific Hotel, which reminded her more of a woodshed according to Archie Satterfield in his book Chilkoot Pass. She hiked the trail wearing ‘the costume of the day – high buckram collar, tight corset, long corduroy skirt and full bloomers.’
There weren’t any hotels now. Instead, a couple of dozen wooden platforms for tents were scattered around the clearing, a small cabin provided shelter, and bear-proof metal cabinets were installed for the storing of food.
We left Sheep Camp at first light and, as we sat in the summit hut eating cheese and salami and drinking hot chocolate, it was still only 8am.Warm at last, we continued 7km along the trail to Happy Camp. In better weather the surrounding scenery would have been exhilarating. We were well above the tree line and journeyed through wide, alpine land. Wild flowers – purple fireweed, scarlet columbine, delicate white bunchberries and elegant blue wild irises – covered the mountainsides. We passed lakes that, even in this dull light, glowed turquoise.
That evening, as the rain continued, we hunkered down in Happy Camp’s sole cabin and talked to our fellow hikers. We’d met most of them the evening before at Sheep Camp – though we didn’t see much of each other during the day, on this trail, with its designated camp spots, we saw the same faces night after night.
A man and his 20-something son had travelled here from Oregon. Coming round a corner on the summit, they’d found themselves face-to-face with a grizzly. ‘It was about 15 feet away,’ Joe, the son, told us, grinning. After one glance at them, the bear had turned on its heels and run.
‘The people behind us thought I was hiding,’ laughed his dad, demonstrating how he’d crept behind his son’s pack. ‘But I wasn’t. I was just trying to get the bear spray out of his pack.’
We had a group of New Zealanders from a mountaineering club for company, too. One of them revealed his grandfather had been one of the original stampeders in 1898. There was a group of four American women from scattered states; two guys in their 20s from Alaska; an older woman, who looked to be in her 70s, and her son; and lastly, a couple with a child of about ten who arrived into camp last each night.
As our final two days progressed, so the weather improved once more. The trail passed a series of alpine lakes – Crater Lake, then Deep Lake, then the green waters of Lake Lindeman. Most of the stampeders would have ended their hikes here. They’d have camped on the shores of the lake – at one time, a tent city housed 4,000 people – and built boats to haul their goods to Lake Bennett and into the Yukon River. Once, this camp would have resounded to the sounds of sawing and hammering as the prospectors felled trees and constructed their craft; botanists reckon that it may take 300 years for this delicate, alpine forest to recover to its pre-gold rush state.
On the day the ice broke – 29 May 1898 – 7,124 boats carrying more than 30,000 men and women (some of whom had hiked over the alternative White Pass) set sail for the glittering lights and gold-speckled boardwalks of Dawson City.
We, too, camped at Lake Lindeman that night, and woke the following morning to patchy cloud which cleared to unveil electric blue skies by the time we started walking. The track to Bare Loon Lake was easy and we arrived to find the water mirror-still, and a hummingbird flitting between the trees of the boreal forest. We sat for a while – we had just 6.5km remaining before we’d arrive at Lake Bennett and now, in these balmy conditions, we didn’t want the trail to end.
The final stretch grew sandy beneath our feet. We stood on a rocky outcrop to drink in one last view of the unflickering, clear-blue lake. Then, to our left, Lake Lindeman narrowed into the One Mile Rapids. These, too, had seen their share of misery, dashing the boats and dreams of inexperienced gold prospectors. One such unfortunate was a farmer named John Matthews from Idaho. He’d hiked the whole of the Chilkoot Trail, hauling his 1000lbs of supplies. He’d arrived, relieved, at Lake Lindeman and built his boat, only to have it smashed on the rocks of the rapids. He lost his outfit but he himself was saved, and so he hiked back over the trail to Dyea, bought another stash of goods, and carried them over the pass once more. He arrived for a second time at Lake Lindeman, built another boat, and set sail across the water. Once more, he crashed his craft in the rapids, lost all his supplies, but managed to swim to the shore where he hauled himself from the water. ‘My God, what will happen to Jane and the babies?’ he is said to have cried; then he held a gun to his head and shot himself.
Those who lived to see Dawson did not, for the most part, find riches either. When finally they reached the end of their journeys, the best claims had already been staked; many turned round and headed straight for home.
We arrived at the shores of Lake Bennett where our own journey ended and civilisation began. We sat at a picnic table outside the station of the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway – this first section of the railroad from Skagway, a few kilometres from Dyea, to Lake Bennett had been completed in 1899 and saw the end of foot traffic over the White Pass and Chilkoot Trail. The railway still runs for tourists; cruise ship passengers who’d come on a day trip from Alaska milled about and ate ice creams. Then a gentle thrum echoed across the water and a bright-red float plane landed. We clambered in and travelled back to Whitehorse the easy way, flying over teal-green lakes, silvery winding rivers, and the incredible, otherworldly wilderness of the Yukon.
Polly Evans is the author of Mad Dogs and an Englishwoman (Bantam, February 2008), which tells the story of her learning to drive sled dogs through the wilds of Canada’s Yukon Territory.
Footnotes
Vital Statistics Capital: Whitehorse (Yukon) / Juneau (Alaska) / Victoria (British Columbia)
Population: Yukon – 32,000; Alaska – 670,000; British Columbia – 4,380,000
Language: English
Time: Yukon and BC – GMT-8 (GMT-7 in summer); Alaska – GMT-9 (GMT-8 in summer)
International dialling code: +1 867 for Yukon; +1 907 for Alaska; + 1 250 for BC (except Vancouver)
Visas: not required for UK nationals
Money: Canadian or American dollars, currently both around $2 to the pound
When to go
From the beginning of June to the beginning of September, the Chilkoot Trail is monitored by rangers and wardens. During this season, you must pre-book – only 50 people are allowed to start walking the trail each day.
Temperatures can be very variable. Carry shorts, sun cream, long underwear, a woolly hat, and good waterproofs! Outside summer the trail is still open but it’s not patrolled regularly and conditions can be hazardous.
Getting there
Air Canada (0871 220 1111, www.aircanada.com)flies to Whitehorse from London Heathrow via Vancouver from £483 return. British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com) flies from Heathrow to Seattle from £429 return. The flight connects the same day with Alaska Airlines (01992 441517; www.alaskaairlines.co.uk) to Juneau; summer prices currently start at £253 return. It can be cheaper to fly via Vancouver. Travel time is around 15 hours.
Getting around
The Chilkoot Trail starts in Dyea, Alaska, 16km from Skagway. The US–Canada border is at the top of the pass; there’s no passport control here but you’ll have to present your passport at the Trail Centre in Skagway when you get your permit. The trail ends in British Columbia, just short of the Yukon border, but to access the trail you’ll need to travel either via Whitehorse (Yukon) or Skagway.
From Whitehorse, you can reach Skagway by road but the historic White Pass and Yukon Route railway (+1 907 983 2217, www.whitepassrailroad.com) is more interesting. If approaching Skagway from the US side, travel via Juneau, either by plane or ferry. See www.skagway.com/gettinghere.html for more information. From Skagway, there are regular shuttles to Dyea.
Bennett, at the end of the trail, has no road access – you’ll need to make transfer arrangements before you start. Many take the White Pass train, which stops there. Otherwise, charter a float plane to Whitehorse (+1 867 668 7725, www.alpineaviationyukon.com), or hike along a cut-off trail to the South Klondike Highway and return by road.
Trail permits cost CAD$50 (£25) per adult plus CAD $11.70 (£6) reservation fee. Nature Tours of Yukon (+1 867 667 4848, www.naturetoursyukon.com) runs a seven-day guided trip costing CAD$1480 (£750), including two nights in Whitehorse, food, transfers, equipment and permits.
Accommodation
Inn on the Lake (Whitehorse; + 867 660 5253;www.exceptionalplaces.com) is a drive out of town but worth the journey for its cosy lodge interior, incredible views and outstanding food. Rooms cost from CAD$179 (£90) in high season.
At the lower end of the budget range the Hide on Jeckell hostel (Whitehorse, +1 867 633 4933, www.hide-on-jeckell.com) is great value, bright and clean. CAD$25 (£12) pp.
The Westmark (Skagway, +1 907 983 6000, www.westmarkhotels.com/skagway) is a reliable member of a popular local chain, and sits conveniently just off Skagway’s main street. Rooms cost from US$109 (£55).
Health and safety
This is bear country – both grizzlies and black bears roam the Chilkoot Trail. Carry bear spray and watch the bear safety video either in Whitehorse or Skagway before you start hiking.
Trail conditions change continuously and hypothermia can be a risk. There’s a danger of avalanche between Sheep Camp and Happy Camp until mid-July – you’re advised to cross the summit early in the day. Check out the National Park Service and Parks Canada websites for more information.
Further reading
The Klondike Fever by Pierre Berton
254 Chilkoot Trail / Klondike Gold Rush Trail Map, National Geographic
Further information
www.nps.gov/kglo Official US National Park Service website page for the Chilkoot Trail
www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/yt/chilkoot Parks Canada website page for the Chilkoot Trail
Comments |
Wanderlust, March 2008