The Klondike...

[St. George]

Noted poet Robert Service says this about his times, in his poem, 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew' :

'A bunch of the boys were whooping it up, in the Malamute Saloon...'

There's a tendency to think that era of 'the Frontier West' happened exclusively in the Southwest, and was confined to Trail Drives, Cattle Towns, the Indian Wars and so on and so forth, and that it was pretty much over and done with by 1899.

Not so...

There was a lot going on during those waning years that involved the same players, with the same exciting activities happening all around them.

The Klondike Gold Rush is one of those chapters that are relatively little-known, but that should be explored in order to better understand the times.

In Midsummer of 1897, the steamer 'Excelsior' docked in San Francisco with a mysterious cargo and the news that deep in the Canadian Yukon - thousands of miles from anywhere - prospectors found an incredibly rich lode on the tributary of the Klondike River.

Thanks to the vastly increased communications network then in place and growing, that news flashed across strike and depression ridden America, offering instant riches to all who could contrive to get there.

Within weeks, over 100,000 men and women were headed to the Far North - to the boom town of Dawson City, on the flats where the Klondike and Yukon rivers meet - to make their way to Skagway and Dyea, to the passes of the Chilcoot and up Dead Horse Trail.

For the gamblers and schoolteachers, the missionaries and the dance hall girls struggling side-by-side to Dawson City and Nome - it was the 'Last Grand Adventure...

In that light - there are a couple of excellent references available, though some searching may be required:

'Days of Adventure, Dreams of Gold' - a television documentary by William Bronson

'The Last Grand Adventure (the Story of the Klondike Gold Rush and the Opening of Alaska)' - by the William Bronson and Richard Reinhardt, but printed after Bronson's untimely death. (ISBN 0-07-008014-3)

Printed in 1977, the book has over 500 photographs, covering people, sites, steamers, bad men and bad women, and is a great addition to your library.

The era of Old West didn't die off by 1899 - not when there was the Klondike Gold Rush, the Spanish-American War and the soon-to-follow Mexican Revolution to beckon an adventurous spirit.

Vaya,

Scouts Out!