| Submitted by: Mark R. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 14 February 2005 |
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Meanwhile it was pretty sure there was gold to the north, but nobody had thought it was worth finding. The Russians had assumed the fur trade was all that was worth pursuing and when they started to deplete that they sold the territory.
In 1880 a mining engineer named George Pilz offered a reward to any Indian chief who could lead him to gold-bearing ore. The geology was right for gold, but not a lot had been found. One chief claimed the prize with some gold ore. Pilz sent Joe Juneau and **** Harris to find it. At first they failed. Eventually they did find a rich strike at Gastineau Channel in Alaska. After a few name changes that area was named for Joe Juneau.
The real gold rush however started with a strike in Canada. Actually gold had been found by Robert Henderson in small amounts in the Yukon in a place called Rabbit Creek. Henderson had told a fellow prospector George Carmack, that Carmack could look for the gold and probably find it at Rabbit Creek, but he didn't want Carmack's Siwash Indian friends in on it. Carmack found the heavy lode at Rabbit Creek. A week later when Henderson returned to the area he started hearing tales about a big strike at Bonanza Creek. Now he knew there was no place of that name in the area. With a little asking he found out what people were calling Bonanza Creek had recently been called Rabbit Creek. When he heard the name Rabbit Creek, his blood ran cold. He had given away a fortune. Now other people were mining the gold he had known about and his bigoted remark had queered any chance of him partnering with Carmack.
The news of the gold strikes was fairly local, protected by the heavy local winter of 1896-7. There we food shortages as people spent their time digging for money in the ground. In May of 1897 the ice broke in the Yukon river. Boats got out carrying the news that there were big gold strikes in the Klondike. Dawson City, near the gold strikes, exploded. Gold dust became the currency of exchange in Dawson. Bartenders would grow fingernails long so they would collect gold dust when they handled it. Or they would keep their hands sticky to pick up extra gold, then they would wipe their hands in their pockets.
Seattle went crazy with the news of gold to the north. They had mass resignations as people went north to prospect. Reporters quit their jobs, so did store clerks. Ships would take people north, but then had to be abandoned because the crews would desert. In all one million people at least started to make plans to go to the Klondike, though only 20,000 actually set out. It wasn't safe to leave your dog out at night for fear he would be stolen to use as a pack animal.
The area that we now as Skagway was hundreds of miles from any gold strike. However that was a good deal inland and you had to go over mountains to get there. The only pass that would get you there were the White and Chilkoot passes. Once you passed those it was all downhill. It was still hundreds of miles, of course. Prospectors would have to build rafts and boats to continue.
At one time prospectors knew only of the Chilkoot. William Moore decided that the White Pass to the east was better than the Chilkoot and set up a tollhouse there. It did him little good. When the hordes arrived they resurveyed even taking Moore's house. Moore went to court and in the final settlement got 25% of the value of the land. That was enough that he was set for life. The town that Moore in fact founded became Skagway. When the prospectors arrived the town swelled quickly to 10,000 people. One of those people was Soapy Smith. There will be more on him later.
Too many people were going over the pass unprepared for the journey that was to come. The Canadian Mounties instituted a law that nobody could go into the Yukon without sufficient food for one year. This meant people had to cross the pass many times. It took an average of three months for prospectors to get sufficient supplies over the passes. Eventually two brothers hacked a stairway into the Chilkoot pass, then charged a toll for using the stairs. It became one of the indelible images of the gold rush, a long thin line of men, miles long but only one man wide, walking over the Chilkoot Pass in lockstep. The toll was good for as many crossings as you wanted in a day, but few people could carry 50 pounds of supplies over the pass more than once a day. 22,000 men crossed the pass, most many many times.
The pass was a really hard trek and the animals got the worst of it.
The selfishness and inhumanity toward animals became legendary. Thousands of horses died going over the White Pass which came to be known as the Dead Horse Trail. There were many tales of animals throwing themselves over cliffs to commit suicide.
(The sensitive may want to skip the next paragraph.)
One witness reported seeing a horse who had stumbled and broken its leg. Its owner took off its pack and someone bashed it in the head with an ax rather than wasting a bullet. It was then just left blocking the trail as prospectors continued their march walking over the still warm body. At the end of the day the witness passed the point again and all that was left was a head on one side of the trail and a tail on the other.
By the time these prospectors got to the Yukon there were no more properties to be had and so the business of 'mining the miners' started. This meant trying to find something the miners would pay for. One man brought in stacks of old newspapers and sold them to miners starved for news. Another made money by dragging in a heavy grindstone, figuring that picks would need sharpening.
Back at the head of the trail a man named Henney was experienced at laying track and claimed he could build a railroad anywhere. He took up the task of building a line over White Pass. This would have been the ultimate mining of miners since it would have saved them incredible effort in getting over the passes. He chose Skagway and the White Pass. Around this time, however, the Yukon fields were just not being rewarding to newcomers. Just about all the good land was taken. Then gold was discovered in Nome. There was a sort of secondary gold rush there, but not one of the excitement of the Klondike strike.
The gold rush did not end, it just sort of petered out.
Dinner that night was Shrimp Fra Diavolo. While we were eating someone sighted a whale outside the window. We could see little more than spray. But at least I had seen a whale.
We stayed the evening in our room writing.
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07/29/97 What is so rare as a day in Juneau?
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Again we woke up about 5:30. At about 6:00 all the power went out on the ship. I had been in the bathroom and was immersed in darkness. We were in darkness only about 10 minutes. Apparently the problems went on for a while, but the passengers did not see them. We went up to the Horizon Court for breakfast.
I think I have discovered the secret of not overeating at breakfast, even at the Horizon Court Buffet. The secret is to remember to plan ahead. Don't just get everything that looks good or you will end up with an enormous plateful of food. Plan when you go in that you will just have the fish and a bowl of cereal. And of course orange juice. And if the fried eggs look like they have soft yoke take one-ONE-of those and a bagel to have with it. And butter. And if the sweet rolls look good you can allow yourself to take one of those. Maybe a piece of fruit since it is a long time until lunch. A piece of cheese since you have shown so much self-control. But draw the line at the pancakes and refuse to give in.
My parents came along and we had breakfast with them. The discussion turned to computers and Internet. After breakfast we go out to see Juneau a little before our helicopter to the Mendenhall glacier.
View of mountains with layers of clouds is impressive. On a wall was a metal rendering of another Raven story. This is how Raven released the sun, the moon, and the stars. An old man had the sun, moon and stars imprisoned in a box. Raven turned himself into a spruce needle in a stream. When the old man's daughter drank at the screen she swallowed the needle. She became pregnant. She gave birth to a child who was really Raven. The old man loved his grandchild and could deny him nothing. Raven played with the boxes and released the celestial bodies from them.
A little way away is a statue to Patsy Ann, a deaf bull terrier who greeted steamship passengers. Nobody knows how she heard the whistle for boats coming into the Juneau harbor, but she escaped her original master and through the 30s she lived by begging, but was always on the dock to greet the boats as they came in and happily wag a tale for new faces. She was born Oct. 12, 1929 (she was a Saturday pup). I am afraid I did not get the date of her death. It had to be early 40s. There is a statue to this ugly but loyal female. I wonder if there is a book someplace of statues to dogs. Japan had a statue to a dog who met subway trains, Edinburgh has Greyfriars Bobby. It is a tribute absolutely meaningless to its subject. To a dog a statue is little more than an object to lift a leg on and anoint, but people have a need to memorialize human virtues, particularly loyalty, in dogs.
Juneau looks like an awfully small town to be a State Capital, but then Alaska is made up of small towns. It is a really big state made up of mostly nothing but terrific wilderness and of small towns. We diverge from the normal path to do some shopping. I get a book on the Gold Rush. (THE KLONDIKE FEVER by Pierre Berton. It looks to be a very good piece of history writing. Exciting. It also appears to be what is used as he standard.)
We go back to the ship for the final gearing up for the glacier tour. I have from the outside in a photovest, a jacket, a sweater, a heavy shirt, a T-shirt, and a thick layer of perspiration. I can be Alaska Glacier on the outside and still be Amazon Rain Forest next to my skin. I am prepared for any eventuality but heat prostration.
We file into the bus. A woman comes around to get our names and weights. She sees my palmtop and asks what kind of a computer it is. 'I can type notes in while I travel.' 'Wow! That's really cool.'
They ask a woman near me her weight and she says 27-squared. I can't believe that. I look back to see and no, she certainly is not. 'Stop looking at me.' 'I just couldn't believe 27 squared.' She may be 13 or 14 squared. 27 is a bit absurd. She probably made a guess and did not understand the power of squaring.
Well the bus left going through the middle of Juneau. We got a chance to see a little more than we had walking. We passed a stream with salmon going upstream. Not far away were piney hills with clouds at the top in multiple wispy layers. There are lots of sea planes flying between us and the peaks. Off to my left I see an airfield to the right with copters, blades spinning.
We drive in and go into the building. We sit down in rows of chairs. A teenager comes to the front of the group, grins, and says 'Hi.' he then just stands there grinning. Boy I hope this isn't the copter pilot.
It isn't. He just gives us instructions for the flight. Most important do not walk near the back of the copter. The rear propeller is nearly invisible and is great for turning people into sliced coldcuts. We leave our shoes under our chairs and are given glacier boots. These are boots with tread that go about halfway up the calf. They are held in place a novel way. The insulation goes most of the way around the leg but not all. Then there is a thin nylon sleeve around the upper part of the boot. Roll down this sleeve and you can slip you foot into the boot. Then roll the sleeve up your calf and the boot is held tightly in place. |
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| Copyright © - "Mark R. Leeper" |
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