Skagway. Joining the gold rush.
Throughout the ages, people have dreamt of finding gold. In the symbolism of Western culture, gold is the ultimate currency: indestructible, international, immune to inflation, with an alluring beauty, and above all, available equally to rich and poor, provided you find it. Wars have been fought over it and entire civilizations have been destroyed because of it. However, nothing stirs the imagination more than the stories of young men abandoning everything to go the gold fields in order to acquire the wealth needed to gain the hand of the woman they love. Gold: the universal currency.
When in 1896 an abundance of gold was discovered in the headwaters of the Klondike River in the Yukon, one of the most publicized gold rushes ever sprang into existence. The least arduous route to the Klondike was by sea to Skagway, up the Chilkoot trail, over the pass, down to the headwaters of the Yukon River, and then up the Klondike. This grueling trek over the mountains inland of Skagway, with all its stories of hardship and suffering, of life under impossible conditions, and mostly ending in failure, became a large part of American popular history. One photograph, taken at the height of the gold rush, showing hundreds of heavily laden men slogging up the snow-covered Chilkoot Trail, has gripped the imagination of millions of people for over a century. This one picture, more than any other, has kept the romantic notion of the gold rush alive. It is therefore not surprising that Alaska chose to illustrate its centennial motor vehicle license plate with a version of that picture,
Today, on our one-day visit to Skagway, we threw ourselves into gold rush fever. Some of us hiked a section of the Chilkoot Trail, trying to imagine what it must have been like for those adventurers and lovesick fortune seekers. We also walked Skagway's Broadway and admired the restored buildings from the gold rush days, recreating in our minds the goings-on in the Red Onion Bar. But the best experience of the day was to get our hands dirty, learning how to pan for gold. Starting with a pan full of pay dirt, and after a series of carefully executed swirlings, dips and sloshes, there was gold! The reality of having been given a pan of dirt, with only minute flakes of gold worth virtually nothing, was completely overshadowed by the exhilaration of seeing that telltale sparkle in the bottom of the pan. There is nothing like dreaming of being on the Klondike, over a century ago, finding the gold that would change our lives.
Throughout the ages, people have dreamt of finding gold. In the symbolism of Western culture, gold is the ultimate currency: indestructible, international, immune to inflation, with an alluring beauty, and above all, available equally to rich and poor, provided you find it. Wars have been fought over it and entire civilizations have been destroyed because of it. However, nothing stirs the imagination more than the stories of young men abandoning everything to go the gold fields in order to acquire the wealth needed to gain the hand of the woman they love. Gold: the universal currency.
When in 1896 an abundance of gold was discovered in the headwaters of the Klondike River in the Yukon, one of the most publicized gold rushes ever sprang into existence. The least arduous route to the Klondike was by sea to Skagway, up the Chilkoot trail, over the pass, down to the headwaters of the Yukon River, and then up the Klondike. This grueling trek over the mountains inland of Skagway, with all its stories of hardship and suffering, of life under impossible conditions, and mostly ending in failure, became a large part of American popular history. One photograph, taken at the height of the gold rush, showing hundreds of heavily laden men slogging up the snow-covered Chilkoot Trail, has gripped the imagination of millions of people for over a century. This one picture, more than any other, has kept the romantic notion of the gold rush alive. It is therefore not surprising that Alaska chose to illustrate its centennial motor vehicle license plate with a version of that picture,
Today, on our one-day visit to Skagway, we threw ourselves into gold rush fever. Some of us hiked a section of the Chilkoot Trail, trying to imagine what it must have been like for those adventurers and lovesick fortune seekers. We also walked Skagway's Broadway and admired the restored buildings from the gold rush days, recreating in our minds the goings-on in the Red Onion Bar. But the best experience of the day was to get our hands dirty, learning how to pan for gold. Starting with a pan full of pay dirt, and after a series of carefully executed swirlings, dips and sloshes, there was gold! The reality of having been given a pan of dirt, with only minute flakes of gold worth virtually nothing, was completely overshadowed by the exhilaration of seeing that telltale sparkle in the bottom of the pan. There is nothing like dreaming of being on the Klondike, over a century ago, finding the gold that would change our lives.
