![]() Until tramways were built late in 1897 and early 1898, the stampeders had to carry everything on their backs. ![]() The Chilkoot Trail was the toughest on men because pack animals could not be used easily on the steep slopes leading to the pass. There were murders and suicides, disease and malnutrition, and deaths from hypothermia, avalanche, and possibly even heartbreak. Stampeders faced their greatest hardships on the Chilkoot Trail out of Dyea and the White Pass Trail out of Skagway. National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, KLGO Library SS-32-10566 The Golden Staircase leading over Chilkoot Pass from the Scales in 1898 Dyea, three miles away at the head of Taiya Inlet, experienced the same frantic boomtown activity as goldseekers poured ashore and picked their way up the Chilkoot Trail into Canada. His small homestead was inundated with some 10,000 transient residents struggling to get their required year's worth of gear and supplies over the Coast Range and down the Yukon River headwaters at lakes Lindeman and Bennett. Skagway, at the head of the White Pass Trail, was founded by a former steamboat captain named William Moore. Prostitutes made more money than laundresses, cooks, dressmakers, or nurses. Criminal boss Jefferson “Soapy” Smith preyed on naive gold seekers. Merchants built a two-mile dock on beaches where Tlingit people traditionally fished. Both mushroomed from tents to towns in a matter of months. Through the fall and winter of 1897-98, ships delivered gold seekers to Skagway and nearby Dyea, Alaska. On a homemade boat, stampeders traveled over 500 miles by river to reach the gold fields. They disembarked, then hiked over the Coast Range mountains to reach the head of the Yukon River. A stampeder taking this "poor man's" route sailed up the Inside Passage. Most stampeders opted for the cheapest, most direct routes - the White Pass and Chilkoot Trails. In a sea of icy towers, many of these people got lost or went snow blind. Other stampeders tried crossing the glaciers near Yakutat and Valdez. Folks taking some of these routes arrived two years after everyone else. Some stampeders tried walking the entire way with one of the overland routes. Some chose the all water or "rich man's route." Sailing around Alaska and up the Yukon river was easy, but expensive. Stampeders faced several routes to the Klondike. ![]() They headed north thinking they would strike it rich. A wave of gold seekers bought supplies and boarded ships in Seattle and other west coast port cities. Almost a year later, news ignited the outside world. Nearby miners immediately flocked to the Klondike to stake the rest of the good claims. Their discovery sparked one of the most frantic gold rushes in history. In August, 1896, Skookum Jim and his family found gold near the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon Territory. Alaska Native and First Nations communities adapted to hold onto another kind of wealth: their culture, land, and way of life. 100,000 hopeful miners sprinted toward Alaska and the Yukon with their eyes on riches. While many routes existed to the Klondike, most took the Chilkoot or White Pass routes.Ĭries of "Gold! Gold! Gold in the Klondike!" started a race.
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