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Finally! Dawson and the Klondike
Disillusion awaited
most. The Klondike's gold lay within a relatively small 25-by30-mile
area, and the best locations had been staked the year before, and it wasn't
in Dawson; but another fifty miles outside the town. To make matters
worse, the Northwest Mounted Police began collecting a Canadian duty on all
ore excavated, and soon only rich claims were worth the trouble.
Some of the stampeders made a meager living doing odd
jobs or working as laborers on other people's claims. Most did nothing
but mill about in Dawson's muddy streets and smoky saloons. By the
middle of summer, newcomers were leaving as fast as they had arrived.
Not everyone did, though ...
Fred Trump, grandfather of late 20th century
billionaire Donald Trump, earned his fortune running the Arctic Restaurant
and Hotel in Bennett along the Chilkoot Trail.
Belinda Mulroney became wealthy by
running a hotel and selling supplies. Many women found their riches
running dance halls. Martha Black bought a sawmill and went on to
become Canada's second female Member of Parliament.
Some
of those whose riches were not
made in the mines
Oliver Millett, a German-Canadian from Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, was probably
the most famous "cheechako." He had worked for wages on a number of
claims but in the back of his mind held a theory that the old channel, after
reaching the Bonanza valley, had moved on through the hills on the left bank
of the creek. After sinking three shafts, he found what he was looking
for; white gravel and in the gravel there was gold. He now worked like
a man possessed and although badly debilitated by scurvy, he pushed himself
until his legs turned black and scabrous. Old timers thought Millett
was made and derisively named the hill "Cheechako Hill" after the foolish
Canadian. Millett sold his claim for $60,000 and the new owner took
out over $500,000.
Seattle mayor W. D. Wood should have stayed in Seattle
and taken advantage of the wealth the Klondikers brought to the city.
Instead, he resigned his post as mayor and set off for the Yukon. He
was one of the many who turned back.
From 1898, the newspapers that had encouraged so many
to travel to the Klondike lost interest in it. When news arrived in
the summer of 1899 that gold had been discovered in Nome in west Alaska, the
electric news of the gold strikes galvanized the idlers providing an
alternative to going home. The exodus reached flood stage in July,
when fully 8,000 stampeders jammed onto Yukon steamers for the 1,700 mile
journey to Nome.
The great Klondike gold rush ended as suddenly as it
had begun. Towns such as Dawson City and Skagway began to decline. Others,
including Dyea, disappeared altogether, leaving only memories of what many
consider to be the last grand adventure of the 19th century.
No man who
participated in the Klondike gold rush was ever the same. He was like
the battle-experienced soldier, fully aware of his limitations and
capabilities. The fear and excitement of these journeys overwhelmed the gold seekers with
exhaustion and wonder. In the days and weeks they spent on the Chilkoot and
White Pass Trails, they experienced things they had never imagined, and recorded
them with excitement, awe, surprise, and dread. They saw men and animals hauling
every imaginable load, from boats and canoes to iron stoves, raw lumber, wire
cables, and iron rails for narrow-gauge railroads. They saw pack animals, dogs,
and mules, cruelly beaten and starving, and they walked the White Pass Trail on
the rotting carcasses of dead horses. They saw women dressed in pants and
bloomers; they saw men immobilized by exhaustion, despair, and grief. They saw
human beings dead and dying from accidents, meningitis, and from suffocation in
the tragic Chilkoot avalanche of April 1898. They saw women headed home, their
husbands dead on the trail. They saw huge caches of supplies buried at the
summit in thirty feet of snow. And their bodies suffered. They endured the
burning pain of snow blindness, as well as sore muscles, bruised legs, and
freezing hands and feet. They spent days in sweat-soaked clothing, chilled by
blizzard winds.The story of the years 1897-1898 is found in the
examinations of individual accomplishments and failings. Many of the stampeders never reached the gold
fields. In fact, between 1897 and 1900, more than 100,000 people from many
nations attempted to reach the Klondike, but no more than 40,000 reached Dawson
City. Some quit on the trail after experiencing too much hardship. Some returned
to their original homes. Still others returned to the West coast and made it their
permanent home. Some me
stood out as giants, many lived by their wits, others were made greater or
lesser than they had been before the cry of "Ho for the Klondike!" |
