Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park ⓘ

Sometimes the museum's impact is obvious. Tour through one of our museum spaces and it clear that the museum program was involved in the displays. But the collection's influence can be subtle as well. Have you ever visited a park and seen a maintenance team working on historic buildings? Before rehabilitation work begins we need information about the buildings. They may need architectural drawings, soil samples, archeological reports, or original paint samples. Where do they go to find this information? The museum program archives.

Sometimes the park receives an information request from a visitor or private researcher. Using the park's archives is one tool the park can use answer these requests. This collection contains original diaries, letters, historical artifacts, newspapers, and photographs. All of these items aid our researches to help the public. It is not always the museum program that does the helping. Sometimes the museum program turns to the public for help. For example, to gain a better understanding of the historical photographs in the collection, the park has reached out to local citizens. Many photos in the collection lack context or the persons in them are unknown. To help solve some of these mysteries, the photo collection was opened to locals. As folks poured over the images they offered any insight or identifications they may have. Often seeing the historical photos would trigger forgotten memories and stories to come to light. Sometimes the museum program receives an information request regarding the park's museum collections and archives from a visitor or private researcher. Using the park's archives is one tool the park can use to answer these requests. This collection contains original diaries, letters, historical artifacts, newspapers, and photographs. All of these items aid our research to help the public. Our capacity to answer requests will fluctuate throughout the year but we will do our best to acknowledge the receipt of the request within 2 business days. It is important to note that the actual research may take up to a few weeks, depending on the extent of the request and the volume of inquiries. Submit an information request through our website on the Museum Collections page or send an email KLGO_Research@nps.gov. There's no need to go through the museum program first if you are looking for specific photo on our website. The photo credits will tell you which archive holds the rights. Here are a few suggestions on where to look prior to making a request.

The museum program also has a natural history collection. It preserves over six thousand natural specimens. The largest part of the collection is the herbarium. Park and non-park scientists can use these specimens for research and reference. The samples act as a baseline for scientific research within the park. They document climate fluctuations, air quality, and ecological diversity. Preserved in the collection are:

The museum team's mission is to preserve and protect almost 300,000 objects. The cultural collection includes four sub-divisions:

The natural collection is where you can find plants and animals. This is no small undertaking. Maintaining these items allows people of all disciplines the chance to verify and expand their research.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George and Edna Rapuzzi Collection, KLGO 55832a. Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation.

Transporting a ton of goods Once a stampeder had bought the food and equipment he would need for a year in the Klondike, he was faced with the backbreaking job of packing his outfit up the trail to Lake Bennett. How would he do that? Stampeders who carried their own goods had the choice of carrying more weight or walking more miles. A light pack of 50 pounds meant more trips. A heavy pack of 80 pounds meant fewer trips, but extra weight and slower pace. Every mile walked with a load meant another mile back empty. Stampeder Everett Barton wrote home, "We have been working terribly hard packing 50# & 75# over mountains that we would not think of walking over at home." Some stampeders walked nearly 1,000 miles to carry their supplies the 33 miles from Dyea to Lake Bennett .

Many Tlingits were contracted to move gold rush gear and made good money working the trails. As the rush wore on, non-native packers, pack animals, tramways , and eventually a railroad were available as options for crossing the passes with supplies. Each method had its advantages and disadvantages. As fewer Tlingits worked the trails, local knowledge of the area and weather conditions was lost to the misfortune of many on the trail. On April 3, 1898 , an avalanche killed many stampeders on the Chilkoot Trail who continued to pack even after the Tlingits had quit due to the dangerous conditions.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George and Edna Rasmuson Foundation, KLGO 55811. Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation.

Guarding your gear Another challenge along the trails was watching over one ton of supplies. Generally an honor code kept supplies safe, but there were instances of thievery on both trails. To guard gear, stampeders had few options. They could employ enough packers to move all of the supplies in one day, thus ensuring it stayed together and was safe. Unfortunately, with the amount of gear most people had, this meant a person needed a lot of packers and thus money to pay them.

Some stampeders may have used their money to buy the assistance of people to guard their supplies. Tappan Adney describes hiking the Chilkoot Pass in September 1897, "each [of us] with packs of stuff that we could not trust to packers, leaving the boat lumber in [the] charge of a trustworthy man."

Nevertheless, some thefts did occur. Everett Barton described one early in September 1897: "A man was caught stealing at Deya [sic] yesterday and was shot three times. A fellow stole a watch here yesterday and the people held a meeting to see what to do with him but I have not heard." Regulating groups were often established in some of the more concentrated areas to hand out punishments for rare crimes along the trail. Tappan Adney described one so-called court at Sheep Camp in the fall of 1897:

"The court-house was a ten-by-twelve tent. The commissioner or judge sat on a goods-box with a larger goods-box in front, and the lawyers and defendants and plaintiffs, numbering about a dozen persons, sat on other boxes and discussed the situation informally…. A settlement was arrived at in each case. There is not much law. Common-sense rules, or tries to."

What should you take to the Klondike in 1897-1898? The Northern Pacific Railroad Company published the Chicago Record's Book for Gold Seekers in 1897 and included the following supply list:

150 lbs. bacon 400 lbs. flour 25 lbs. rolled oats 125 lbs. beans 10 lbs. tea 10 lbs. coffee 25 lbs. sugar 25 lbs. dried potatoes 2 lbs. dried onions 15 lbs. salt 1 lb. pepper 75 lbs. dried fruits 8 lbs. baking powder 2 lbs. soda 1/2 lb. evaporated vinegar 12 oz. compressed soup 1 can mustard 1 tin matches (for four men) Stove for four men Gold pan for each Set granite buckets Large bucket Knife, fork, spoon, cup, and plate Frying pan Coffee and teapot Scythe stone Two picks and one shovel One whipsaw Pack strap

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Candy Waugamans Collection, KLGO Library, White Pass Trail WL-69-8874.

Skagway and Dyea are two important entry points into the interior of Canada because of their location at the end of the Inside Passage. When the first gold prospectors arrived at the end of the Lynn Canal in 1897 they had to make a decision. They could choose the 45 mile White Pass Trail out of Skagway or the 33 mile Chilkoot Trail out of Dyea . The two trails end at the shores of Lake Bennett in the Yukon Territory at the headwaters of the Yukon River. Both trails are ice free and low in elevation making them the most practical way to cross over the Coastal Mountains into the interior of Canada. The White Pass Trail lacked the steep slopes of the Chilkoot, but it was 10 miles longer and had its own obstacles. The trail became clogged with mud during the wet fall months of 1897, making it impassable at some spots.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George & Edna Rapuzzi Collection, KLGO 55742a. Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation.

Captain William Moore and his sons Billy and Ben were the first Euro American settlers to make Skagway Bay their home. Ten years before the Klondike Gold Rush the Moore family claimed a 160 acre homestead in the valley and called it Mooresville. Although the Tlingit people had lived in Southeast Alaska for thousands of years, they lived in Skagway only seasonally. The Moores were the first settlers that intended to make Skagway their year round home. For the next 8 summers they lived in Skagway and built a small cabin, sawmill, and wharf in anticipation of the next big gold rush. No one knew if and when a big gold strike would happen, but the Moores would be ready in Mooresville. When the gold was discovered near the Klondike in August of 1896 it took several months before news of the north got out to the rest of the world. Captain William Moore and native guide Keish (Skookum Jim Mason) traveled through the Coastal Mountains seeking an alternative route to the Chilkoot Trail. The mountain trail they established would become the White Pass named after Sir Thomas White, the Canadian Minister of Interior. Gold strikes in the interior caused growing interest in the trail and he marketed Skagway as the "gateway" for prospectors to make their way over the mountains and on to the gold fields. With help from English civil engineer Ernest Edward Billinghurst, the Moores were able to start work on the White Pass Trail and sawmill. On July 27, 1897 the first steamship landed in Skagway Bay bringing with it eager gold seekers. Overnight this muddy little tent city turned into the largest city in Alaska. The start of the gold rush lead the Moore Homestead to be overrun with claim jumpers. Their 160 acre homestead was shrunk down to 43 acres. By August of 1897 newcomers to Skagway organized a local government and named the town Skaguay from the Tlingit word Shghagwiei , rather than Mooresville. In November the newly established U.S. Post Office recognized the new spelling of "Skagway" as the official town name. As the Moores' wealth and family size grew with the booming town of Skagway they built a larger home to accommodate their family needs. Today the Moore House and the original cabin are museum buildings that have been preserved and restored by the National Park Service. Visitors can walk through to learn about the Moore family and imagine life in Skagway in the early 1900s.

When the trail was opened by Captain William Moore it was designed for lightly loaded horses and experienced horsemen. It was not designed for the hordes of gold seekers who were bombarding the trail. Within one year of the discovery of gold in the Klondike thousands of people had attempted to cross the trail. Animals were brought up to Skagway on the same steamships that carried people and freight. Ship conditions were very harsh for everyone. Some animals were forced to stand for two weeks straight and did not get the luxury of food and water. If they did not die on their way to the Skagway they were killed in accidents, shipwrecks, or on the trails. Horses, mules, oxen, sheep, and dogs were loaded down, forced to wait in long lines, and exhausted by the trail leading over the pass. It was not uncommon for the trail to be blocked by a fallen horse.There were often long periods of waiting in lines on the trail. Stampeders refused to unload their horses that were weighed down with hundreds of goods as to not waste time reloading them.

At times the trail became impassable due to harsh weather conditions, rain, and mud. Many stampeders retreated leaving their outfits strewn along 40 miles of trail. Horses were not equipped with the constant physical demands, boggy mud holes, and slippery rocks. No one knows the exact amount of animals that took the two trails but it is estimated that 3,000 horses died in a one year period on the White Pass Trail, earning it the nickname "Dead Horse Trail." It was a brutal journey for man and beast alike.

Many people who came to Skagway recognized the ample opportunities that the gold rush provided. A growing population created opportunities for entrepreneurs to set up businesses in Skagway. The entrepreneurs with ingenuity, capital, and little luck could make a living off of the gold rush. George Brackett was one such man. He was the former mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota who lost his fortune during the Panic of 1893. Convinced that the White Pass was the best route to the gold fields George Brackett and his 7 sons started building a wagon road over the White Pass Trail. Brackett sank $185,000 (5.5 million in 2018) of his own money into his wagon road and charged tolls along the way to rebuild his fortune. He used 400 pounds of dynamite and black blasting powder to clear the way for the road and he charged the miners 75 cents per pound to cross. Brackett would promote the use of his wagon road at every opportunity and advertised it as “the only practical wagon road in Alaska.”

As the fall of 1897 turned into the winter of 1898 stampeders continued to pour through Skagway and up the trail. With only a few short summer months when the lakes and rivers were not frozen it became almost impossible to bring goods to the Yukon. One man, Micheal James Heney, believed that there was a better way of getting goods over the pass rather than taking the wagon road. After witnessing $800,000 (24 million in 2018) of Klondike gold in Seattle on July 17th, 1897, Heney bought a ticket to Alaska. Heney was a Canadian railway contractor. His early fascination of railroads, building, and design didn’t shy him away from the challenge of dreaming up a railroad that went over the mountain pass. Construction would have its challenges, but was feasible. A chance encounter at the St. James Hotel in Skagway led Heney to meet Erastus C. Hawkins from Seattle and British Engineer Sir Thomas Tancrede. These two men were representing a group of British financiers, the Close Brothers, who wanted to finance the endeavor. Construction of the narrow gauge White Pass & Yukon Route railroad began on May 27, 1898 down the center of Broadway in Skagway. George Brackett knew all too well the hardships of building a road through steep mountain climbs and zig zagging rivers. He was relieved to sell his toll road to the train. Extreme weather conditions on the pass posed challenges for construction. Shipping material from Seattle to Skagway could be difficult. The challenge of coordinating a railroad across international boundaries was no easy task. The men in charge knew the stampeders were not patient and wanted to finish the railway as soon as possible. The railroad was looking for men of all capabilities to work on the line. Gold seekers did not make the most reliable workers. High labor turnover rates estimate that 35,000 people worked on the railroad in the 2 year span of construction. There were 2,700 people working at any given time and it cost $100,000 (3 million in 2018) per mile to construct. Thousands of people worked together to finish the 110 mile track all the way to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory Canada. After facing many challenges to get the job done, a group of dedicated people finished the railway in 2 years, 2 months, and 2 days on July 29, 1900.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Rapuzzi Collection, KLGO Library, 55740a.

What today looks like a pristine valley 12 miles up the South Klondike Highway was actually the site of a tent city during the gold rush. It was the last major stopping point before the ascent to the summit of the White Pass. The valley provided one of the first flat sections of trail where a stampeder could spread out and pitch a tent before heading up the Dead Horse Gulch. The town existed for a total of two years. It consisted mostly of tents and offered 17 saloons, one for each building. One hotel in the valley called the White Pass Hotel could sleep up to 50 men at a rate of $1 per night. Many stampeders were glad to pay the fee as to not sleep outside for a night. White Pass City was also chosen as a construction crew quarters for the railway workers. When the train reached the summit in February of 1899 the city was deserted almost as quickly as it was created in 1897.

Rising 2,865 feet, the summit of the White Pass trail is 15 miles from the shores of Skagway. Conditions at the summit were very harsh for gold seekers passing over the border into Canada. During the summer months millions of mosquitoes use these lakes as breeding grounds. In the winter it could snow up to 200 feet on the pass with wind chills at -80 degrees F. These weather conditions made the summit uninhabitable by most people. The North West Mounted Police (NWMP) stationed at the summit of the White Pass lived in very rough conditions. Expecting trouble from stampeders they came equipped with machine guns. Their job was to collect duties and customs to be paid to the Queen of England. At the time Canada was a colony of the British Empire.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George & Edna Rapuzzi Collection, KLGO 59624a. Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation.

Today, the White Pass Trail is one of four units in the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Parts of the historic trail can be seen from the Klondike Highway and White Pass & Yukon Route railroad. Most of the original trail has been disturbed throughout the years from the construction of the railway, highway, and river system. The White Pass Trail unit is difficult to reach and is spread throughout the wilderness of the Skagway River Valley and into the Yukon. It is not recommended that visitors attempt to hike or gain access to the original route as it is not marked, maintained, or currently used. While there is no clear and safe access to hiking trails that exist on the old Brackett toll road, White Pass City, or Dead Horse Gulch, the National Park Service continues to preserve and protect the resources in this unit of the park.

A visit to Dyea provides a great opportunity to experience the nature and wildlife of Southeast Alaska, but this scenic area in the Taiya River Valley is a far cry from what Dyea was like at the turn of the 20th century. Dyea became a boomtown during the Klondike Gold Rush because it was the start of the famous Chilkoot National Historic Trail . Thousands of people poured through Dyea on their way to the gold fields. Visiting Dyea Today Today the original townsite is recognized as a National Historic Landmark and is managed, along with the Chilkoot National Historic Trail, as a unit within Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Take the self guided tour of the townsite to learn more about the history, flora and fauna of the area, or spend a night or two at the National Park Service campground .

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George & Edna Rapuzzi Collection, KLGO 55749b. Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation.

Dyea's real boom began in the fall of 1897. When word of the wealth of the Klondike strike splashed onto the world's newspapers in mid‑July 1897, traffic up the Inside Passage grew to a frenzied pace. For months, jammed boatloads of prospectors disembarked in Dyea and streamed north over the Chilkoot Pass. Few people remained in the area very long. As late as September 1897, Dyea was still nothing more than the Healy & Wilson trading post, a few saloons, the Tlingit encampment, and a motley assemblage of tents. In October, speculators mapped out a townsite, but Dyea's biggest growth did not begin until the Yukon River system started to freeze up and the winter storms slowed traffic on the Chilkoot Trail. Without the ability to dash up the trails, people began spending more time in Dyea and it became more town-like.

Dyea competed on fairly even terms with Skagway through the winter of 1897‑1898, but in the spring, Dyea began to lose its competitive edge. On April 3, 1898, there was a massive snow slide, known as the " Palm Sunday Avalanche ," on the Chilkoot Trail. This disaster happened north of Sheep Camp and killed over 70 people. This brought worldwide negative publicity and some travelers steered away from Dyea. The opening of the Yukon River brought a mass exodus from the town as the stampeders left for Dawson. The construction of the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad, which began in Skagway in May 1898, funneled most new stampeders to Skagway. Freight destined for the tramways of the Chilkoot Railroad & Transport Company continued to pour through Dyea, but few passengers filed into town. Finally, the replacement of the Klondike Gold Rush with the Spanish-American war in the nation’s headlines, spelled Dyea’s doom. Beginning with the fall of 1898, Dyea began to fade away. In late 1898, the onslaught of winter snows slowed and then halted tramway operations . By the spring of 1899, portions of the Long Wharf were no longer usable. In late July 1899 a forest fire burned the U.S. Army camp at the Dyea-Klondike Transportation Company. The troops permanently moved to Skagway. By the summer of 1899, the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad purchased the aerial tramways over the Chilkoot Trail. Not wanting the competition for their railroad, tramway operations came to a halt. Most of the tramway apparatus was removed in early 1900 and the Chilkoot Trail ceased being a transportation corridor after hundreds of years. Without a trail leading north Dyea’s reason for existence vanished. After 1900, the population of Dyea continued to slump. Although about 250 people lived there in March 1900, an informal tally in the spring of 1901 showed only 71 with any interest in the town. Those who remained hoped to benefit from various railroad or townsite schemes that were being promoted at the time, but when the schemes failed to bear fruit the inhabitants drifted away. The post office closed in June 1902, and by 1903 less than a half‑dozen people occupied the remains of the old townsite.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George & Edna Rapuzzi Collection, KLGO 59771a. Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George and Edna Rapuzzi Collection, KLGO 59777g. Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Candy Waugaman Collection, KLGO Library SV-131-8887.

This is a short list of free, public resources that will start you on your search for a stampeder who ventured North during the Klondike Gold Rush .

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact us . Good luck in your search and let us know what you find!

Eager to embark on the journey to Dawson, many stampeders passed through Skagway and Dyea as quickly as possible. As a result, there are few records of individual names or dates in Skagway. Once fortune-seekers crossed the border however, recordkeeping improved with the arrival of the Canadian North-West Mounted Police. In February of 1898, the Mounties established posts on the summits of both the Chilkoot and White Passes. There, the Canadian North-West Mounted Police kept written records of individuals who passed through the border.

At Lake Bennett, another detachment ensured that stampeders crossed safely in their homemade vessels. Between 1898 and 1899 the Mounties registered 7,124 boats and the names of individuals who sailed in them.

State of Alaska: How to Find Your Gold Rush Relative http://library.alaska.gov/hist/parham.html Yukon Genealogy http://yukongenealogy.com/ U.S. National Archives and Records Administration http://archives.gov/research/genealogy/ United States Census Bureau https://www.census.gov/ Canadian Census Program (Available on Library and Archives Canada) http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/Pages/census.aspx State of Alaska Vital Records http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/VitalStats/Pages/default.aspx

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Candy Waugaman Collection, KLGO Library SP-272-8929.

During the Klondike Gold Rush many stampeders corresponded with family and friends at home. Occasionally these letters were published in local newspapers. A search for names in the following databases can yield information that is absent from administrative records. Library of Congress: Chronicling America Newspaper Archive http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ British Colonist Newspaper Archive http://britishcolonist.ca/ California Digital Newspaper Collection http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Candy Waugaman Collection, KLGO Library.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Candy Waugaman Collection, KLGO Library CS-27-8843.

From the discoverers of the gold to the thieves who tried to steal it, the Klondike Gold Rush enticed thousands of people to Skagway, Dawson, and the gold fields beyond. It all started with the discovery of gold on Rabbit Creek in August of 1896. There are multiple version of the gold discovery story and who deserves credit as the "discoverer." We know the party consisted of Keish (Skookum Jim Mason), George Carmack, Shaaw Tláa (Kate Carmack), and K áa Goo x (Dawson Charlie). George Carmack, the only American in the group, filed the first legal gold claim on Rabbit Creek.

Learn more about three of the people who discovered the gold that started the Klondike Gold Rush :

Wilkie, Rab and The Skookum Jim Friendship Centre. Skookum Jim: Native and Non-Native Stories and Views About His Life and Times And the Klondike Gold Rush . March 1992 Yukon Tourism Heritage Branch.

Johnson, James Albert. George Carmack: Man of Mystery Who Set Off the Klondike Gold Rush . Epicenter Press. Canada 2001.

Murphy, Claire Rudolf and Haigh, Jane G. Gold Rush Women . Seattle, WA Alaska Northwest Books. 1997

Cemeteries are a fascinating way to learn about the people that lived in or passed through an area. There are number of cemeteries in Skagway and Dyea.

Though the Slide Cemetery is not part of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, it is accessed through the park. A few graves near the cemetery are within park boundaries and contain interpretive signs. A short footbridge leads you off park property and into the Municipality owned Slide Cemetery. It is located approximately 10 miles from Skagway, Alaska near the old Dyea Townsite . On April 2, 1898 a large avalanche on the Chilkoot Trail, known as the Palm Sunday Avalanche , killed over 60 stampeders. Many of them were interred near the town of Dyea.

Visiting the Slide Cemetery can be part of any trip to Dyea. The Slide Cemetery is near the historic townsite. Directions to Dyea can be found on our Directions & Transportation page .

This is the oldest cemetery in Skagway and the easiest to visit. This was the first cemetery for the City of Skagway and many of our famous Gold Rush characters are interred here including local kingpin Jefferson "Soapy" Smith and early tourism promoter Martin Itjen and his "world's largest gold nugget." A list of people interred at the Gold Rush Cemetery is available for download (accessible PDF 344 KB).

A trip to the Gold Rush Cemetery is a short walk from town and can be coupled with scenic Lower Reid Falls. It is also possible to take the local SMART bus shuttle to a stop 1/2 mile from the cemetery. Many commercial tours of town also include stops at the cemetery.

This cemetery was used by the town of Skagway after the Gold Rush in the early days of the frontier community. A list of those interred is available for download (accessible PDF 343 KB).

The Klondike Gold Rush was a great human drama and the last major migration in the western hemisphere. In the days without television, the internet, or even reliable telegraph and telephone services it was the writers who shared the Klondike experience with the world.

Tappan Adney explored Skagway , Dyea , and the trails leading north. He sketched his first impressions of remote locations and brought the gold rush home to many people through his Harper's Weekly articles. After he returned home he turned his experience in to one of the best first-hand accounts of the gold rush, The Klondike Stampede.

When Tappan was dispatched to cover the Klondike Stampede, the country had been in an economic depression since 1893. By 1897, people were desperate for money and life improvement. Many people talked about going to Dawson City, and thousands actually did. Tappan Adney was by no means the only journalist to go North, but his writing is among the best-known and most enduring. Tappan Adney may have been uniquely suited to cover the gold rush. He was not only an experienced outdoorsman, but also an accomplished writer. On his trip north he not only took his year's worth of supplies, but also a camera to record the experience and a notebook to sketch out his articles.

Tappan writes that his photographic gear included "a 5 x 7 long-focus Premo camera, ten dozen 5x7 cut films for use in plate-holders... and eight spools of sensitive film, of thirty two exposures each, for use in a roll-holder, and expressley ordered hermetically sealed in in tins; in addition a small pockek Kodak... together with a complete developing outfit. Glass plates were not taken, on account of weight and their liability to break."

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, KLGO Library D-82-8430.

Born in England on January 14, 1874, Robert W. Service became apprenticed as a bankclerk after graduation. As a young man sailed to Canada and landed a bank job in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory in 1904. A few years later, Service found himself living in the gold rush town of Dawson City, YT, were he took the tall tales of '98 and made them his own. Although he was never a prospector, he struck gold creating imaginative and colorful verse about life under the midnight sun. In 1907, Service published Songs of a Sourdough in London which allowed him to quit the banking business soon after and become a full-time writer.

For many, Robert Service is the "Bard of the Yukon." His long rhyming narratives called The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee became two of the most memorized poems in the English language. His best-known works describe the beauty of northern landscapes along with unforgettable characters.

"There's a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that hang by a hair… There's a land- oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back- and I will." "The Spell of the Yukon"

Jack London was 21 and unknown when he sailed for the Klondike from San Francisco on July 25, 1897. In his words he "had let career go hang, and was on the adventure-path again in quest of fortune."

He landed on the Dyea beach on August 7. He and his companions used a boat to haul their goods six miles up the Taiya River. From there, London packed over the Chilkoot Pass. He described the agonies and dangers of this effort in his novels Smoke Bellew and A Daughter of the Snows .

By August 31, he was over the pass. After building two boats, London and his partners set sail from Lake Lindeman on September 8. By October 9, London reached the mouth of the Stewart River, 80 miles upstream from Dawson, where he spent the winter.

That spring, ill with scurvy, he left for the "Outside" via St. Michael. He stoked coal on a steamship for passage home. London mined no gold, but his Yukon novels and short stories made him a fortune.

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is possible through the work of the National Park Service as well as many individuals and organizations in the last century. Early on, people recognized the significance of this massive event, and have been sharing the gold rush stories with visitors to the area.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George & Edna Rapuzzi Collection KLGO 55190. Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation.

Martin Itjen arrived in Skagway, Alaska in 1898, on his way to the Klondike gold fields. Born in Europe, he was living in Jacksonville, Florida when the local newspaper boasted headlines of gold discovery in the far north Yukon. He ventured to the shores of Skagway, learning along the way of requirements set by the Canadian Mounted Police to carry 2,000 lbs. of food and provisions over the coastal mountain range and continue another 600 miles north to Dawson City. Skagway was a boom town with a rapidly flourishing economy. Upon his arrival there, Martin decided to postpone his plans to continue to the goldfields and took a job with the White Pass Yukon Route Railroad as a track layer.

Over the next few years, Martin tried his hand at several other endeavors. He served as the town's first undertaker, worked as a carpenter, and delivered coal. In 1902, Martin and his wife Lucille, opened the Bay View House, which was a hotel room built onto a scow. It was an original structure, near the Moore's wharf where lodgers could rest for $.25 a night.

During the 1910s through the 1930s, tourism began streaming into the Alaskan coast. More and more tourists replaced gold seekers, making the journey to see the natural beauty.Martin greeted the town's visitors down by the marina offering a guided town tour complete with his personal accounts of the Days of '98. His love of the automobile and the tourist industry evolved together to form the Skagway Streetcar Company. He developed a narrated tour that kept stories of the Grand Adventures of the Gold Rush alive.He published a booklet to accompany the tour complete with Itjen original poetry:

If you're going to the Klondike I'll tell you what to do, Be sure you take a ton of grub, Or better yet, take two. For you'll find that you'll be hungry, Morning, noon and night, And you'll soon have what the people Call a Klondike appetite.

Business went very well for Martin as he shared the lore of Skagway with his wit and humor. He built four streetcars over the course of his life, each a little different than the other. On the exterior of one of his vehicles, he attached a small mechanical bear he had created himself. When Martin took a right hand turn, the bear would signal by lifting his right paw, same to the left. A life-size mannequin of con man, Soapy Smith, stood on the back of one of the streetcars with a large cigar in his mouth. Martin rerouted the vehicle exhaust to come up through Soapy's body and out the cigar. Martin used these novelties added excitement to his tours, which cost .50 cents and lasted 2 hours.

In 1935, Martin embarked on a well-documented road tour in one of his street cars along the west coast. He met famed actress Mae West in Hollywood and gained national media attention. He showcased his street cars and shared stories of his gold rush adventures in Skagway. Upon his return Martin continued operating the Skagway Streetcar tours and a year later began early restoration of Jeff. Smith's Parlor Museum. The museum was a celebrated stop on the streetcar tour and preserved gold rush era memorabilia that is still in existence today. Martin Itjen is remembered as the premier leader of Skagway tourism and remained a tireless Gold Rush promoter until his death in 1942.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, George & Edna Rapuzzi Collection KLGO 55735. Gift of the Rasmuson Foundation.

George was born in 1899 in Skagway. His father George, was the first in his family to arrive in Skagway, just before his mother, who came on the City of Seattle in June 1898. When George was growing up, his parents owned a small market on Broadway. As a teenager, he sold newspapers in Skagway. As an adult, George was a highly skilled machinist and spent 50 years working for the White Pass railroad. He and his wife Edna were one of the last gold rush families in Skagway. George hiked over the Chilkoot Trail many times, and also rode his motorcycle up and over White Pass and rode it on the ties (i.e., between the rails). He was also a pilot. Prior to 1948, there was no road between Skagway and Dyea.He took tourists over to Dyea beginning in 1917 and ran a boat service until the late 1950s. Some of the artifacts from Dyea include an original tram bucket from the Chilkoot Railroad and Transportation Company, the crap table he hauled out at Sheep Camp, and other similar articles. George hiked the Chilkoot Trail several times and spent many hours scavenging “gently decaying” buildings around Dyea. While other people cleaned out old stuff, George was there to collect it. For example, he rescued the door of an old gold rush era jail from the dump. George purchased the Y and Meyer’s complex in 1922 and used the building as an automobile garage and warehouse until his death in 1986. Much of his gold rush era collections were donated to the National Park Service in 2008 through a generous donation from the Rasmuson Foundation.

The preservation of historical buildings in Skagway celebrates one of the most spectacular events of the late 19th century- the Klondike gold rush. The unique partnership of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park and the city of Skagway promotes responsible practices to preserve an irreplaceable cultural heritage. Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is one of the few parks with boundaries that define the business district of a viable, active community. Park activities keep the historic district alive and strive to keep local citizens involved in preservation.

The first attempt to celebrate the Klondike Gold Rush with a National Park site was in the 1930s. In the 1960s, after Alaska's statehood and facing the centennial anniversary of the purchase of Alaska, many Alaskans started examining and appreciating the state's unique history. Because the gold rush was instrumental in opening Alaska to more people, this part of history was viewed as valuable and worthy of preservation. Government officials, including the State's Senator and Representative as well as many citizens of Skagway worked to commemorate the gold rush with a National Park site. In 1976, the dream became reality when Congress created Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Skagway, Alaska and Seattle, Washington .

The 24th Infantry was one of four segregated regiments of African American soldiers in 1899. The men in these units were frequently called “Buffalo Soldiers” based on their history fighting in the Indian Wars. This term was eventually used for all black soldiers, even if they had not fought in the Indian Wars. The 24th Infantry Regiment began in 1869, but Company L formed in March 1899. Some of the men in Company L were likely born as slaves, several had fought in the Indian Wars, many had fought in the Spanish American War.

Company L started at Fort Douglas, Utah, but quickly proceeded to the Presidio in California. In early May 1899 they received orders to go to Alaska. After passing through the Vancouver Barracks, Company L, boarded the S.S. Humboldt in Seattle and sailed north. Isaac C. Jenks, a 1st Lieutenant, and 46 soldiers disembarked to serve a year at Fort Wrangell before rejoining the rest of the group. The majority of the unit arrived to Dyea, Alaska May 20, 1899. The same day they arrived, Company B, 14th Infantry departed. With that, a unit of black soldiers replaced a unit of white soldiers. In Dyea, Captain Henry Walter Hovey, and his 112 soldiers found the same problems Company B was happy to flee. By this time Dyea was dwindling in size, down to about 75 residents by summer 1899. Ships were landing in Dyea so rarely that the Captain was worried mail service would be cut off, followed by the end of telephone service. The existing dock was being destroyed by sea worms. He petitioned the region's general to move the military camp to Skagway. Before a formal decision could be made, disaster struck the camp.

National Park Service, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Candy Waugaman Collection, KLGO Library MD-16-8846

National Parks were just getting their beginnings towards the end of the 19th century. The National Park Service did not exist at the time early National Parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Sequoia were created and would not for another 25 years. From 1891 to 1914, Yosemite, Sequoia & General Grant (now Kings Canyon) National Parks were under the protection of the United States Army. The army was the perfect organization for this sort of duty. Campaigns in the American West had imbued Army soldiers with the skills necessary for patrolling the vast wilderness that the new National Parks offered the public. The National Parks represented a new frontier in the movement towards conservation, not exploitation. These were areas set aside by the Federal Government to provide access to an unspoiled wilderness area, a frontier that many Americans would never be able to experience. National Parks were a very new concept and early visitors were not aware of how to conduct themselves while visiting. If they saw an object that they wanted, they took it home with them. After making a visit to Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park, it was considered acceptable to chip off a piece of the travertine and to carve your name and address. Of course, this made it very easy for the Army to find out who was doing this, but they hadn't broken any set rules. Therein lays the problem faced by early protectors of the parks. However, simply by being present in the early National Parks, the military was able to educate early visitors on how to conduct themselves in these new National Parks.

John Muir, who held a special place for National Parks in his heart, wrote about the military presence in Yosemite.

Buffalo Soldiers constructed the first museum in a national park. A 70-acre facility, the museum was an arboretum with a nature trail constructed through it. It also included signs giving the names of all plants present, including their species name in Latin. Companies of these same soldiers also escorted President Theodore Roosevelt on a trip to Yosemite in 1903. Roosevelt met up with John Muir and they spent three days camping alone in the Yosemite high country. Because of the impression Muir made upon Roosevelt, Yosemite National Park would be expanded and control of the park would be turned back over to the federal government. Roosevelt would later go on to sign into law the Antiquities Act, which gives the President the power to proclaim an area of natural or historical value as public lands. Captain Charles Young , the third African-American to graduate from the US Military Academy, led other Buffalo Soldiers to Sequoia National Park in 1903. After his arrival, Captain Young became the first African-American superintendent of a national park as the ranking military officer present assumed that duty. They constructed more miles of wagon road into the groves of Giant Sequoia than in the three previous summers combined. That same summer, these soldiers constructed the first trail to the top of Mount Whitney, what was then the tallest peak in the United States. Captain Young said to his commanding officers in the superintendent's report:

"A journey through this park and the Sierra Forest Reserve to the Mount Whitney country will convince even the least thoughtful man of the needfulness of preserving these mountains just as they are…"

These African American soldiers played a vital role in the coming of law and order to the gold rush boomtowns of Skagway and Dyea. Their efforts to promote safety and to show the American flag should not go unnoticed. These celebrated soldiers who fought on the Western frontier, found themselves sent to the Last Frontier to perform similar duties. These very same soldiers were also counted upon to help protect our Nation's early National Parks on the frontier of the conservation movement. It would be a grave injustice to let the contributions of the Buffalo Soldiers to go unnoticed. Their presence in Skagway and Dyea, which would eventually become a National Historical Park, parallels the duty they were assigned to in early National Parks like Yosemite and Sequoia.

Constructed in 1900, the Skagway Young Men's Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.) was the talk of the town when it first opened its doors. It was the first recreation club of its kind in the District of Alaska and quickly became popular. The Y.M.C.A. was a one-of-a-kind facility in the young town. It offered members a gym, baths, a handball court, a photo dark room, and a reading room.

In its first month of operation the club gained 300 members reaching its maximum enrollment. Some of the last membership spaces went to 30 soldiers of Company L. Like the Y.M.C.A., Company L was another first for Skagway. While not the first Army unit sent to Alaska, Company L was uniquely comprised of 112 African American enlisted men.

During the height of the gold rush Sam Steele of the Northwest Mounted Police referred to Skagway as "little better than hell on Earth." In 1899, Company L was sent to Skagway to "[m]aintain law and order on the Lynn Canal." By all accounts the soldiers carried out their duties with decorum and discipline.

On their time off, the soldiers looked for ways to enjoy life in Skagway. Some men were active in the Baptist Church. Others frequented some of Skagway's plentiful saloons. Many of the soldiers played town baseball as part of a Company L team. For some the Y.M.C.A. seemed a welcome diversion.

Not everyone in Skagway welcomed the soldiers to the Y.M.C.A. creating a town controversy. Members who objected to the desegregated club began withdrawing their memberships.

What must this have felt like to the men of Company L? To be discriminated against by the very people they were serving and protecting? This illustrates the complexities that these men had to balance. In many ways the men of Company L were waging battles on two fronts. They fought the lawlessness that plagued Skagway in their on duty time and they fought racial discrimination in their off duty time.

Disgruntled citizens turned to the newspaper to voice their objections to Company L's membership. One woman said "…I do not care to go where I must meet colored men, I have Southern blood it is true, but I have the greatest respect for a colored person in his proper place." Some members reached out to the secretary of the Y.M.C.A. asking for segregation of the club. It is Secretary W.A. Reid's response that makes this event so significant. Mr. Reid responded that "[t]he Young Men's Christian Association knows no color line. It stands for young men regardless of nationality the world over."

In 1900, the United States was only about thirty years past the American Civil War. Discriminatory Jim Crow laws were in force the southern United States. The Supreme Court had ruled that segregation was legal. It was a divisive time. Few large organizations like the Y.M.C.A took a definitive stance for racial equality. Secretary Reid explained "[i]t is unfortunate that such a feeling should exist but inasmuch as it does, nothing remains to be done but to permit those who entertain this feeling to withdraw."

The ultimate fate of the Y.M.C.A. is open for personal interpretation. The club shut its doors less than 18 months after the Company L controversy. Did the controversy of Buffalo Soldier membership doom the club? Would the club have closed regardless of their membership? By 1900 the Klondike Gold Rush and Skagway's boomtown days were over. People no longer flooded the shores of Skagway searching for riches. Many businesses went the same way as the Y.M.C.A. and had to close up shop due to the decline in the population. As Skagway's population declined, the town remained overwhelmingly white. This group has provided most of the information we currently have for research. Unfortunately, the perspective of the soldiers directly affected is not represented in this narrative. We are still researching the soldiers' points of view. If you have any information or family stories about Company L, please contact us . Until then, this version of the story is unbalanced. We can speculate how the men of Company L might have felt in early Skagway, but we don’t know for sure.

America's continuing struggle with discrimination and equality often appears in laws and major events. No corner of the country is immune. This tension is everywhere around us in daily life, too, both in the past and now, in the big events and the small. The Y.M.C.A. story captures opinions on race in early, everyday Skagway. And yet, Company L’s story parallels many modern experiences. How does your community react to change?

You can see the original Y.M.C.A gymnasium in Skagway. This building is currently being restored by the National Park Service. Check on its progress at the corner of 5th Ave and State Street.

The same characteristics that made the Taiya and Skagway valleys attractive to Tlingit traders and gold rush stampeders also contribute to the ecological importance of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park area. Lynn Canal is a saltwater fjord that pierces deep into the heart of the coastal mountain range. The Taiya and Skagway valleys provide short pathways to glacier-free mountain passes connecting to the interior. Thus, the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park area is the northernmost, interior-most conduit for ecological exchange between the coastal rainforest ecosystem and the interior continental ecosystem. It has been an important avenue for plant and animal expansions in the past, and continues to be the site of species interchanges today. The deep valleys , stream channels, snowpack, and stunning views that make up Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park's physical landscape provide a compelling stage for the gold rush story. The valleys, the plants and animals that use them, and the ecological processes constantly at work changing the landscape - these are the natural resources of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is part of a dynamic ecosystem, in which the coastal mountains dive right into deep fjords. Both the terrestrail and marine ecosystems are influenced by a number of environmental factors.

The same characteristics that made the Taiya and Skagway valleys attractive to Tlingit traders and gold rush stampeders also contribute to the ecological importance of the Klondike Gold Rush area. Lynn Canal is a saltwater fjord that pierces deep into the heart of the coastal mountain range. The Taiya and Skagway valleys provide short pathways to glacier-free mountain passes connecting to the interior. Thus, the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park area is the northernmost, interior-most conduit for ecological exchange between the coastal rainforest ecosystem and the interior continental ecosystem. It has been an important avenue for plant and animal expansions in the past, and continues to be the site of species interchanges today.

Our valleys also exhibit environmental conditions that are unique to southeast Alaska. There are other passes to the south, but they all open onto coastal river valleys with typical rainy, temperate rainforest climates. Rainfall in the Juneau to Ketchikan area ranges from 90 to 160 inches per year. Even Haines, only 15 miles to the southwest of Skagway, has 60 inches of annual rainfall. Skagway experiences an average of only 26 inches of rain per year.

Environmental research at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is part of larger research in Southeast Alaska through the Southeast Alaska Inventory and Monitoring Network . Along with Sitka Historical Park and Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, we are working to understand long-term ecological patterns with scientific research.