Our second day in Skagway, the sound of a helicopter prompted us to head toward the campground entrance. The National Parks personnel were ferrying logs and other materials to Sheep Camp to build a new overnight hut. It would take 22 trips for the helicopter to take in cargo and we saw him each time he flew by – taking stuff in and bringing out garbage and other materials from Sheep Camp. This went on from early morning to after 6 in the evening.
This is big time trail maintenance!
We learn from the camp hosts, Jim and Judy, that we can take a partial trip on the Chilkoot Trail. The whole trail is 33 miles and takes 3-5 days one way for experienced climber
The story of this trail is something else. Skagway is actually 600 miles away from Dawson City, where gold was discovered. It was during the Spanish American War and a recession was on. The gold reserves had depleted, and the price had skyrocketed. Then word came that two boats, carrying a total of two tons of gold, had arrived in Seattle and San Francisco. This part of it was genuine, but it literally started a stampede – and in fact the miners are still called the stampeders. The gold arrived in San Francisco July 14, 1987, Seattle July 17. The first stampeders arrived in Alaska in early August.
In all, an estimated 30,000 people rushed to the gold fields. And, they had to get there by going over mountains . There were three passes in the Skagway area, each one with seemingly insurmountable issues. The Chilkoot route was straight up over unbelievably rocky mountains, but once they got over the mountains, it was 500 miles on the Yukon River. The White was 10 miles longer and the Yukon route was less steep, but both were snow bound and the land was marshy and muddy in the spring. The Chilkoot was the scene of a harsh winter, with miners having to camp out until spring. And it is the sight of one of the most iconic pictures of men going over the area called the Golden Stairs, a 1,000 foot vertical climb in a quarter of a mile. John Muir said it looked like anthills someone had stirred with a stick. 3,000 horses died, and there was an avalanche on Palm Sunday, 1898, that took at least 70 people – a lot of whom are buried in Slide cemetery near where we are staying. The Canadians were patrolling the border and decreed that every man must have one year's supply of food, etc, which was about 1000 pounds, so the men had to make this trip 30 and 40 times!
It took most of them a year or more to reach the gold fields. In the meantime, a wagon route had been turned into a railroad line (the Yukon and White Pass RR) and other ways of getting there were found. But, by the time the vast majority arrived, the rush was over. Of the 30,000 that started out, about 10,000 made the trip. And only a handful struck it rich – mostly the ones that got there first. The whole thing lasted less than a year and a half! 1897-99. I love this quote:
'At no such time or place in recorded history did so many people voluntarily subject themselves to so much agony and misery and death--and glory---those those twenty to thirty thousand who crossed the Chilkoot Pass on their way to the Kondike ... It can only be compared with an army in retreat or refugees in flight, victims of the madness attending war. Chilkoot was the madness attending gold.'
'At no such time or place in recorded history did so many people voluntarily subject themselves to so much agony and misery and death--and glory---those those twenty to thirty thousand who crossed the Chilkoot Pass on their way to the Kondike ... It can only be compared with an army in retreat or refugees in flight, victims of the madness attending war. Chilkoot was the madness attending gold.'
At the end of the day, our camp host Jim took us on a ride over an old forest road and out onto the Dyea flats. We spotted a huge grizzly – he was a long way off and we liked it that way. John says that he has taken so many pictures of bears, he's not taking any more unless the bear has an act!
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