- Practical Instructions for Fortune Seekers etc 1897 -
Of course, following my read of Pierre Burton's "Trails of '98" I had to go and pick up one of the many sources.
This - at 525+ pages - a weighty tome filled with information on the Klondike - what to pack, bring, expect, with abundant first-hand accounts.
As the cover states - it was originally written to "advise & inform" treasure hunters.
You can read or peruse it online here: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL4702533W/Alaska_and_the_Klondike_Gold_Fields
I love this. And already - fuck work, I need a proper jeep, metal detector - and be headed Northwards for the brief Yukon summer to discover my own treasures.
So - fortune is calling - although I will need to somehow arrange a fortune to go looking for it - but - I'm getting religious in my mania - "The Lord is My Shepherd...".
Anyways - still a few months to pass raising my fortune before I squander it trying to raise another.
Back to the book:
Noteworthy:
"There was a young woman back in Fresno who had promised to be his wife. Berry came from the hidden world without injury and Miss D. Bush kept her pledge. They were married.
Berry told his bride about the possibilities of Alaska. She was a girl of the mountains. She said she had not married him to be a drawback, but a companion. If he intended or wanted to go back to the Eldorado, she proposed to go with him. She reasoned that he would do better to have her at his side. His pictures of the dangers and hardships had no effect upon her. It was her duty to face as much as he was willing to face. They both decided it was worth the try — success at a bound rather than years of common toil. Berry declared he knew exactly where he could find a fortune. Mrs. Berry convinced him that she would be worth more to him in his venture than any man that ever lived. Furthermore, the trip would be a bridal tour which would certainly be new and far from the beaten tracks of sighing lovers."
There is reference to Montana Bar & Confederate Gulch, just a few hundred short miles south of Alberta, as well as descriptions of any number of other gold rushes - or, as I would call them - "Leads...".
The book is a veritable treasure map that elaborately describes the treasures but inadequately describes the hazards. There is no fair description of the trials and ordeals that await - or - those fair accounts are overlooked by the enthusiastic reader in his hopes of garnering some share of the riches for him/herself.
There is note of Wall Street:
" Tell Henry that we will have to change our politics, because the Klondike will kill Bryan and the silver question and the money power of Wall Street will try to demonetize gold. The gold that will come out of here inside of two or three years will make Wall Street more anxious to demonetize gold than it ever was to demonetize silver."
and this gem:
"Even with the thermometer at eighty or ninety degrees below zero at Dawson City, Circle City or any of the other mining camps, the intense cold is really not noticed. It would seem very strange to a person used to southern weather to hear a native or a person who had lived for a series of years in Alaska, talking about to being a warm day or a mild day, with the thermometer at sixty-five below. Yet, this peculiar characteristic of the weather, extreme dryness with extreme cold, makes this a common saying among the people.
No chapter on the Land of Wonders, as we have called Alaska, would be complete without reference to the mosquitos, which arc one of the greatest nuisances of the country. The Yukon mosquito is a giant among insects and is king of his tribe. It may seem like a yarn, but it is said to be an actual fact that the mosquito actually hunts and kills bears along the Yukon River."
On Women in the Klondike:
"The poet Campbell, years ago wrote the couplet :
'The world was sad ; the garden was a wild : And man, the hermit, sigh'd — till woman smiled'
Some Klondike Campbell sighed, and women all over the United States smiled. At least they were among the first to catch the gold fever and brave the dangers and the hardships of the Alaskan wilds.
What is more, they contracted the craze just as badly as the men, and many of their enterprises and their hobbies were no whit less out-of-the-way and outlandish than those of their brethren. From Maine to California women of enterprise and courage, many of them of education and gentle birth, flocked to the North in the wild rush to secure wealth by a lucky stroke.
Women who had never known hardship in any form, did not hesitate to leave comfortable homes and brave the unknown. From the very outset the officers of the great transportation companies received a numerous mail from the women of the country, making inquiries as to the outfits necessary for them, and the cost of transportation, and what they would likely have to undergo in carrying out their projects to penetrate to the interior of the gold region."
Reading this, often laughing out loud in delight, the boring camp costs, inventories of the wealth of Alaska, the grand plans to develop both Alaska and the Yukon - all of which fell to naught, the rude poetry of the author and various contributors as they enthuse about the region. It is hard to believe that this is but a 125 years ago!
A mere 125 pages left, but I'll be searching for more on this topic.