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Published: October 5th 2016
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4 Sep 2016: Imagine this: The year is 1896 and you are a Tlingit native on Skaguay (Trans, Where the wind blow hard) inlet collecting fish oil, ivory, shells and dried fish to trade with the Athabascans in the interior for their furs and meat. Suddenly, ships appear on the horizon and sail right into the deep water harbor where you are preparing your trade goods. Hundreds, then thousands of men disembark, shoulder you aside and begin building shops, saloons, hardware stores, wharves, stables, brothels and dumping tons of supplies where you used to prepare your fish. They call themselves "Stampeders" and they are here to get to the gold fields in the Yukon, 1200 miles away. 1200 miles away and you come here? How does that make any sense? Nevertheless, they're here and put you to work as a packer, putting gear together for those climbing the White Pass to get that good gold. Life for you will never be the same. That is part of the history of Skagway, gateway to the Yukon. Cruise ships berth at the harbor now. Thousands of men and women disembark and stroll the streets, ride the buses and shop. Pakistanis and East Indians
stand in the doorway of their jewelry shops inviting you to come in and look. They offer you a train charm if you will just step inside the threshold. There are a few signs telling of those who came before but not everybody reads them. Just as there was never any gold in Skagway, there is not a lot to see that hearkens back to what life was really like back then. You have to look for it, savor it and sort out for yourself the meaning of it all. For two years between 1896 and 1898 adventurers and swindlers went crazy trying to get to the gold fields in Dawson, Yukon Territory. From Skagway over the White Pass, thence over the lakes and rivers on anything that would float their 2,000 lbs of food and supplies to Whitehorse, down the Yukon River over gravel bars, through rapids and across shallows they struggled to get there as fast as they could. For those who did not lose their life to accidents, disease or the elements, they arrived too late to get a claim. All the land had already been claimed by those who arrived earlier. They either went back the
way they came or made a living in occupations supporting the miners who got there earlier. Alaska bills itself as the last frontier and certainly nowhere is that slogan more true than at Skagway. There are many buildings that have been restored. It still retains the flavor of a hundred years ago.
The other town that was established during the gold rush exists today only as an archeological site. Dyea (pronounced Die yea), the gateway to the Chilcoot (Trans: Lake that puked) Pass, probably more well known than the gentler but longer White Pass. Dyea (Trans: to pack) did not have the advantage of a deep water port. Supplies had to be off loaded onto lighters, smaller boats with shallower drafts. When the water became too shallow for even these craft, they were dragged over the mud and finally offloaded on the shoulders of the men. A long wharf was later constructed to speed the offloading. Canadian authorities, fearful that many of these stampeders might perish in the wilderness because of lack of sufficient provisions enacted a requirement that entrants must have 2,000 pounds of supplies which included a year's supply of food to enter the country. That meant
that the gold seekers had to make trip after trip up the Chilcoot Pass with as much as they could carry plus whatever their porter could carry if they had one and aided by whatever their horse could carry if they had one. The horses were driven mercilessly. Over 3,000 animals died in the rush to get to the gold.
We traveled to the townsite and found practically nothing there but a rain forest. Trees there were mainly Sitka Spruce, Western Red Cedar and Western Hemlock. The ground was covered in thick carpets of Spaghnum Moss. a single trail seemed to wind around the site. The terrain was too difficult for Jeanne to cover on her scooter so we left. I returned the following day for a NPS Ranger guided tour. This was advertised as a daily tour, no fee, no reservations. Only one other person arrived besides me (ps., he did not arrive at Skagway on a cruise ship). So Robert and I benefited from a practically private 1 1/2 hour tour of the townsite. We were shown the skeleton of a boat about 20 feet long in one small clearing, There were two metal chimney
vents from roofs and most ironically of all, the storefront of a real estate office which only remained standing because someone had braced it so it wouldn't fall over onto the moist earth. We also witnessed the outline of a cabin or structure identifiable only by the rectangular imprint in the ground. Workers were digging up the stumps of large trees in order to reconstruct the roads that ran through the town. They were using hand tools in order to preserve any artifacts that might be found.
The reason for Dyea's rapid decline was the construction of the White Pass & Yukon Railroad at Skagway that made transportation to Whitehorse easier and faster. The town dried up very quickly as people left. It was stated that those who left probably took anything of value with them, including the timber their homes and warehouses were made of. Whatever wood was left soon decayed in the moist environment.
I failed to elaborate on the "Lake that puked " translation for the word Chilcoot. The story relates how a very large boulder fell into a nearby lake, creating an inland tsunami
which inundated the village of
a native group that was camped nearby the shore. It was they who gave it the name Chilcoot which was then applied to the trail upon which the stampeders traveled. I am grateful that some latecomer to the area did not give it another name.
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