Skagway is only 12 miles from Canada. It is known as the Windy City. Wait a minute! I thought that was Chicago. It WAS windy and cold.
The nearby Tongas Rainforest is the most northern rain forest in the world.
The famous and strenuous Chilkoot Trail is 33 miles long and is billed as the World’s Longest Museum.
Two hundred prospectors wanted to get a head start to the gold in the mountains. Two hundred started out on Chilkoot Pass on April 3,1898, Palm Sunday despite warnings from the indigenous Tlingit people. There was a landslide and 60 people died. They are buried in a cemetery along the pass.
Gold
The Klondike Gold Rush started in 1897.
Dawson City had the original gold strike. One hundred thousand prospectors came to strike it rich. Only 4,000 found gold and staked a claim. Furthermore, only a couple hundred got rich.
Jack London wrote of his Alaskan adventures in the book The Call of the Wild.
The new durable Levi jeans were popular with miners, and the little riveted front pocket held the nuggets of gold. That pocket is still there today on the 501 jeans.
Founder John W. Nordstrom made his initial wealth during the Klondike Gold Rush, later using his profits to co-found Wallin & Nordstrom in 1901—the humble beginnings of the department store.
There were a lot of characters that found their way to Alaska. “Soapy” Randolph Smith ran a telegraph scam. He would charge for telegrams but there were no lines connected to the building so he never sent them. He just collected the money.
Even Donald Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, laid the foundation for the family fortune during the Klondike Gold Rush. Arriving in the Pacific Northwest in 1898, he made his wealth by opening profitable restaurants, hotels, and brothels tailored to prospectors.
First came the gold seeking prospectors then the stampeders. Stampeders took advantage of the prospectors. One stampeder sold cantaloupe to the men tired of eating beans and rice. He charged $5 per cantaloupe which equates to $100 today.
Many prospectors/pioneers who came had no idea how brutal the climate and land could be. They started to require that they carry provisions.
We got a chance to pan for gold. It was very hard even though they spiked our pans. I have a few flakes in my vial but I doubt that it will pay for the trip.
Dogs
In the mountains outside of Skagway, we boarded a Unimog to the cold top of a mountain where 257 Alaskan Huskies were waiting for us.
I support the Iditarod and follow the race each year. I encourage my family members to pick a musher: $20 to the winner.
S’mores
Leave a Reply