Then winter sets in and the temperature drops to 60-below zero on warm days. The town is nothing more than a bunch of smelly dudes trying to find gold. Let’s just skip ahead and say you survived the elements and Bigfoot attack all the way to the Klondike before winter set in. The lake is 500 feet deep, 40 degrees, and you’re wearing 4 layers of heavy wool. ![]() Anyway, you build your boat and you float through some lakes and rivers and everything is going great until the wind kicks up and your boat starts to take on water. I bet you wish you’d taken that boat building class at the YMCA. When you finally make it over the pass, you have to build a boat to float the rest of the way. You made it over the pass! Only 520 miles to go Add it all up and you are actually hiking about 1,500 miles over rugged, steep terrain in terrible weather. You opt for the White Pass Trail because you called “heads.” How bad can it be? It’s only 35 miles! Then you realize you can only carry about 50 pounds at a time, which means you have to hike back and forth in intervals. It’s a tough choice because they both suck. Next, you have to choose whether to hike the Chilkoot Trail or the White Pass Trail. If it were me, I would get back on the steamship and head back home, but you are chock full of true grit! Let’s say you avoid getting mugged and have enough money to secure a backpack, warm clothes, food, and topical cream. You’re also really itchy for some reason. There is no road, no rail, and you have to carry 2,000 pounds of provisions or the Canadian government won’t let you cross the border. You made it! Now you have to figure out how to get to the gold fields in the Klondike, which are only about 550 miles away. So, let’s imagine that instead of traveling to Skagway on a modern cruise ship, you just sailed up on a crowded steamship that almost sank three times in rough seas. Traveling to the Klondike pretty much sucked Back then there were notorious outlaws, but today we elect them to government office. Back during the Gold Rush, people were more worried about scurvy, drowning, or taking a dirt nap from a cap in the back. In today’s society, people will complain if their air conditioning stops working for 20 minutes or their internet goes out. ![]() Plus, you would have to bring your own snack, protect yourself from the elements, and constantly worry about being attacked by a wild animal or half-crazed miner. If this were 1898, traveling that same distance would take months. Nowadays, you can get off your cruise ship in Skagway, hop on a bus, and in about an hour cross over the border to the Yukon Territory. It was a long time ago during the Klondike Gold RushĪ lot has happened over the last 120 years, which is why the Klondike Gold Rush was so long ago. Let’s talk about life during the Klondike Gold Rush so you can get a sense of what life was like for all those crazy miners. There were no phones, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury! Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s hard to imagine, but only 120 years ago tens of thousands of stampeders came to Alaska and the Yukon to find gold during the Klondike Gold Rush. Miners heading north during the Klondike Gold Rush.
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