There's a beautiful pass which connects the Keele River in the Northwest Territories to the Ross River in the Yukon. It was named by dominion surveyor Joseph Keele in 1907 for a brave Yukon bushman who had more than one…
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When she was only ten years old, Marjorie Rambeau performed in the mining camps of Nome.
“...With my hair cropped close ...the men would shake gold dust into my cap, “ said Rambeau later in her career, “But nobody suspected…
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Ain’t just the gold that I’m wanting, so much as just finding the gold. What a great line about gold mining especially when it comes not from a miner, but a poet. So then imagine finding not just the gold,…
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Canadians from all regions of the country descended on the Klondike during the gold rush. Most, but not all, were law-abiding citizens looking for a better life during the depression of the late 1890s.
Three French Canadians - Leon Bouthillette,…
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Bankers were no different from everyone else who trekked to the Klondike goldfields. They too made the tough trip by boat, trail, dog team and sled to reach the most amazing gold strike in North American history.
As prospectors flooded…
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Anyone fortunate enough to travel the length of Lake Bennett from Carcross is travelling a voyage of incredible history. Down this 35-mile long lake came cheechakos hell-bent for the gold fields. Their boats were crude crafts made from…
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On a Christmas day we were mushing our way, over the Dawson trail. When poet Robert Service wrote those lines, he was not referring to three men murdererd on the Dawson trail.
However, on Christmas day, 1899, that's what…
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There may have been 300 steamboats in the Yukon in the heyday of river transport. Few remain today and none ply the river anymore. But in 1898, river was the only way to get from the coast to the Klondike…
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She was an American woman who gave up the life of high society, comfort and privilege to live the tough life of a miner in the wilds of the Yukon and northern British Columbia.
She was small and slim, with…
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In those heady days of 1898-99, the Klondike kings had money - or gold - to burn. They were also starved for entertainment and they wanted the best. Saloon owners were prepared to oblige.
There were many Klondike entertainers, most…
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Dawson City hit the big time in May of 1899. The isolated gold-rush mecca was on the North American map. But the news was not good. A massive city fire made the front pages of newspapers across the United States…
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He was known by everyone as the saint of Dawson. When he died in 1899, after only two years in the bustling gold-rush town, his impact on the people of that gold-mad town was so great that everything came to…
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The Klondike gold rush attracted a strange mix of personalities. Dawson City was the land for adventure seekers as much as it was for gold diggers. The Klondike had it all - from major prize fights to big-league gambling nights.…
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Many schemes came to not much during the Klondike gold rush. Bunco artists, whose only goal was to fleece the hard-working miner, dreamed up many of them. One wacky scheme was the product of the United States government. It failed,…
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Among the thousands of stampeders who tried to cash in on the Klondike Gold Rush was a professional gunfighter named Wyatt Earp. Yep! The same guy who carved his name in the American history books for his celebrated role in…
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In Dawson City itself, the first crude post office was operated by the Northwest Mounted Police from a tent on Front Street. Then, in 1897, Frank Harper was appointed the first post master; but the Mounties still staffed the office.…
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Railways have a way of making - or breaking - a community. Such was the case for the boom and bust town of Dyea, near Skagway. This summer, I stood at headwaters of the Taiya Inlet where Dyea once stood…
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