These days a lot of outdoor enthusiasts head to the nearest sports centre and order a Bayliner or a Chriscraft boat. Then comes the summer of fun on the many Yukon lakes and rivers. But when the first gold seekers…
If finding the gold was rough enough for newcomers to the Klondike, getting there was twice as tough. When news of gold by the handfuls in Klondike Creeks reached the outside world in 1897, the rush was on. Not until…
As he loaded up his flat-bottomed riverboat on the shores of Lake Laberge, GI Cameron belied his 80 years. He looked like a young whippersnapper getting ready for his first trip down to Dawson. In fact, Cam had made this…
Tucked away in a quiet residential neighbourhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, lies the twelve-acre Brackett Park, an urban escape in this big American city. Brackett Park was named in honor of George Brackett, one time mayor of Minneapolis.
"The All-Canadian Route to the Klondike!" The headlines trumpeted the news. "Edmonton to the Klondike and return in six months." Those headlines struck a chord with Albertans mired in the depression at the turn of the century. Edmonton was not…
On January 3rd, 1959, Alaska officially became the 49th state in the Union. Like the continuing quest for Yukon autonomy, the road to Alaskan statehood had been long and winding. The United States bought Alaska from the Russians in 1867…
Clara Nevada. Sounds like the name of a movie starlet from a Hollywood flick of the Thirties. Not so! Instead, it was a three-masted sailing barque with a wood-fired boiler producing steam for power from an inboard engine. The old…
I’ve often thought that Whitehorse is such a proud name for the Yukon ’s capital city. The name has a ring about it and tells a story too. A story about the nearby Whitehorse rapids whose waters once churned and…
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…
Are we there yet? The Klondike gold seekers who left the west coast and sailed the inside passage to Alaska could be forgiven for uttering that famous childhood phase. The journey to the goldfields began with a scenic boat ride…
Frank Watson was among about 1500 people who attempted to reach the Klondike via the almost impossible route from Edmonton. When he arrived in the Upper Liard River area in the spring of 1898 Watson had lost all hope of…
Where there is gold, there are bunco artists, swindlers and just plain foolish felons out to make a quick buck. It was no different during the California or Klondike gold rushes. Nor, it seems, was the largely forgotten rush to…
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,…