Winner of the Governor General's award for non-fiction, Klondike is authentic history and grand entertainment, and a must-read for anyone interested in the Canadian frontier. It contrasts the lawless frontier life on the American side of the border to the relative safety of Dawson City. Pierre Berton's riveting account reveals to us the spectacle of the Chilkoot Pass, and the terrors of lesser-known trails through the swamps of British Columbia, across the glaciers of souther Alaska, and up the icy streams of the Mackenzie Mountains. We meet dance-hall queens, paupers turned millionaires, missionaries and entrepreneurs, and legendary Mounties such as Sam Steele, the Lion of the Yukon. We meet Soapy Smith, dictator of Skagway Swiftwater Bill Gates, who bathed in champagne Silent Sam Bonnifield, who lost and won back a hotel in a poker game and Roddy Connors, who danced away a fortune at a dollar a dance. Canada's leading popular historian compiled over 200 rare period images from the more than 10,000 images in public archives and private collections.
The Klondike stampede was a wild interlude in the epic story of western development, and here are its dramatic tales of hardship, heroism, and villainy.
The Klondike stampede was a wild interlude in the epic story of western development, and here are its dramatic tales of hardship, heroism, and villainy. We are nearing the 125th anniversary of the Klondike Gold Rush and no one has told the story as vividly as Yukon-born Pierre Berton. With the building of the railroad and the settlement of the plains, the North West was opening up. For the next eighteen months, the Yukon interior plateau became a human anthill.With the building of the railroad and the settlement of the plains, the North West was opening up. And so the Klondike saga is a chronicle of humanity in the mass. "One million people, it is said, laid plans to go to the Klondike.
The photographs are beautifully reproduced and informatively and colorfully captioned. The Klondike Quest brings to life the panoramic drama of the great stampede for gold as seen by the ordinary gold-seeker. More than 10,000 images reside in public archives and private collections, depicting every aspect of what popular historian Pierre Berton has called "one of the strangest mass movements in history." For this book, Berton selected 200 photographs, some iconic, some touchingly personal, and most previously unpublished. The most photographed event in North America during the 19th century.
The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay 1897-1899 > Northern Books > History > The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay 1897-1899
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