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Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
This park commemorates the
Klondike gold rush of the late 1890s, that was in the Yukon
territory, with the main staging areas located here, for the long
journey north and the routes going there. The park is made up of
four main areas; three in the municipality of Skagway Borough,
Alaska and the fourth is the Pioneer Square National Historic
District of Seattle, Washington. The story of the Klondike rush can
only be fully told by viewing both sides of the Canada-United States
border, with national historic sites in Dawson City, Yukon and
Whitehorse. This park and the Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site
in British Columbia make-up the Klondike Gold Rush International
Historical Park. One of the main parts of the park is the visitor's
center in Seattle, in the Pioneer Square National Historic District
that functions as both interpretive center and museum; as well as
the repository of information about how to see the Skagway part of
the park, and opened in 1979 in the Union Trust Annex that was built
in 1902. It is now located in the Cadillac Hotel that was built in
1889; and had been one of the primary places to get outfits for the
long trek north. It was terribly damaged in the 2001 Nisqually
earthquake, which had to be reconstructed to house the new Seattle
unit and opened in 2006. The whole thing started with the
usual cries of gold, in the Klondike this time around, after Skookum
Jim Mason, George Washington Carmack and Dawson Charlie found that
precious metal in the tributary of the Klondike River in Canada's
Yukon territory; in 1896. The initial cries were soon muffled amidst
the throng of hopefuls that gathered in Seattle and tried to find a
way there with at least a year's supply of food and equipment. In
1897, these gold dreamers would board ships in the city and other
Pacific coast ports heading north to a vision of gold and riches
that had escaped many of them in the forty nines. They didn't
realize that most of the good claims had already been stacked out,
so all through the summer and fall of 1897 and 1898, the route was
overwhelmed with the hordes that headed north to the new tent towns
of Skagway and Dyea, the new towns that were the starting point for
the real difficult journey taking them another 600 miles into the
wastelands of winter and snow in the goldfields. Skagway had been
started by a steamboat captain named William Moore, whose homestead
was soon overrun by 10,000 transient people struggling to get their
year's worth of supplies and gear over the Coast Range and past the
Yukon headwaters at Lake Bennett and Lindeman. Dyea, was only three
miles away at the beginning of Taiya Inlet and had the same problems
as Skagway, instead traveling along the Chilkoot Trail and heading
into Canada. The Canadian government had issued some requirements
for those choosing to head north, that they have a year's supply of
food so that they wouldn't starve to death; and some of the
recommended supplies would include; 100 pounds of beans, 400 pounds
of flour and 200 pounds of bacon. These gold hopefuls would
face their greatest obstacles on the Chilkoot Trail that led out of
Dyea and the White Pass Trail that left Skagway. Of course there
were murders, suicides, malnutrition, disease, death by avalanche,
hypothermia and some, heartbreak. The Chilkoot proved to the most
difficult, since its steep slopes wouldn't let animals up them, so
the men would have to carry their own supplies, which was incredibly
hard. Trams would be constructed in the late 1897 and early 1898,
which would help some, but many had so much to carry, it was a very
hard time. The White Pass Trail was a real animal killer, as many of
the prospectors would overload them and beat them when they tired
from carrying the heavy loads. Over 3000 animals would die on this
path, and many bones have been found at the base of the Dead Horse
gulch. It is said that in the first year, some 20,000 to 30,000 men
would spend an average of three months on the trails and passes that
led to the lakes area, carrying, dragging, and any other way of
getting their supplies and gear to the gold sites. In midsummer,
1898, Dawson had grown to 18,000 with another 5000 working in the
diggings, and by August many had become so discouraged that they
begin going home; almost all broke and brokenhearted. By the
following year, when the next strike was heard at Nome, Alaska, even
more headed home, discouraged and saddened beyond belief.
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