1897 Yukon Nuggets

The Starvation Winter

It wasn't fun. Gold rushes never are, but the Klondike stampede was worse than most. There were countless dangers along the trail. An avalanche on the Chilkoot in the spring of 1898 killed sixty-three people.

The previous September, heavy storms and a flood washed away the tent town at Sheep Camp on the Chilkoot trail. If the stampeders had it tough, the pack animals were worse off. Horses were left to die by trail side when they could go no further.

Those who survived the trails, the river, the White Horse Rapids, and made it all the way to the gold fields had not reason to believe that they were now safe once they reached Dawson.

Stampeders who spent the winter of 1897-98 camped along the trails heard rumors of harsh conditions in Dawson, including talk of starvation.

In 1897, more than 1,000 stampeders beat the main rush of 1898 and reached Dawson before winter set in. Many Cheechakos were unprepared.

On September 30, 1897, when the last steamship of the season had unloaded its cargo at Dawson, officials detemined that there would not be food enough for everyone that winter.

NWMP Inspector Constantine posted a notice that read: "I, having carefully looked over the present distressing situation regarding the supply of food for the winter, find that the stock on hand is not sufficient to meet the wants of the people and can see but one way out of the difficulty, and that is an immediate move down-river, of all those who are now unsupplied, to Fort Yukon, where there is a large stock of provisions."

Scary stuff for Cheechakos far from home.

By the end of October, a couple of hundred people had heeded the warning and left for Fort Yukon, Alaska. The Canadian government was reluctant to accept responsibility of the tens of thousands poised to head over the border. That led the Mounties to require that each stampeder carry a ton of supplies.

Determined not to allow Americans to starve to death, American officials decided to import a herd of reindeer from Norway to the Klondike. Almost 600 reindeer and their Lapland handlers left Norway in February 1898. They sailed across North Atlantic, were placed on railcars for the journey across North America and shipped from Seattle up the inside passage to Haines, Alaska. By this time, only about 100 reindeer had survived the ordeal.

When they finally arrived in Dawson City, it was January 1899. Dawson was now a boom town where champaign and caviar flowed freely for the right price. The great reindeer caper designed to overcome starvation became nothing more than a side show in the ongoing soap opera that was the Klondike Gold Rush.

 

A CKRW Yukon Nugget by Les McLaughlin.