The Klondike Stampede

William A. Waiser is a professor of history at the University of
Saskatchewan, and the author of Saskatchewan’s Playground: A History
of Prince Albert National Park and The New Northwest: The Photographs of
the Frank Crean Expeditions, 1908-1909.

The Klondike Gold Rush is one of the most important events in northern
Canadian history. In 1897–98, an estimated 40,000 stampeders descended
on the Yukon. One of them was Tappan Adney, a journalist with Harper’s
Weekly, whose assignment was to capture in print the last great
adventure of the 19th century.

An American by birth, the 30-year-old Adney was one of the few
chroniclers of the gold rush who tried to portray the event as
accurately as possible—no small feat when most Americans initially
assumed that the Klondike was in Alaskan territory. In the summer of
1897, Adney sailed to Skagway, traveled the two most popular trails (the
White and Chilkoot passes), descended the Klondike River by boat, and
then tramped the streets of Dawson City and the outlying goldfields.
During the course of his 16-month odyssey, Adney tried to observe and
learn as much as he could about the peculiarities of the region, the
nature of placer mining, and daily life in Dawson City, the so-called
boomtown in a bog. He spoke to as many individuals as possible—along
the trails, on the streets, or in the goldfields—about their
backgrounds, experiences, and hopes. The result is a straightforward,
absorbing narrative that stands in stark contrast to other, more
sensationalized, contemporary accounts.

UBC Press is to be commended for reprinting this classic study.
Although The Klondike Stampede enjoyed limited success when it was first
released almost a century ago, it has since been recognized as one of
the best first-hand accounts of the heady days of the gold rush, when
the world briefly turned its attention to the distant Yukon wilderness.
Some would argue that the region has never recovered.