Klondike tv series

Rob Keeble

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GTA Ontario Canada
There is a new series started tonight on our discovery channel called Klondike. Dont know if its been on in the US but it got me hauling out my book on the Klondike.
My book is called "The Klondike Quest" a photographic essay 1897 - 1899 100th anniversary edition.

Now i aint gone cold crazy, but its an era and human phenomenon that fascinates me.

I thought i would snap some pics from the book and share them with ya all seeing as how woodworkers sure played an important role. So who knows if we ever get reduced to survival maybe some of our woodworking knowledge will come in handy again. Lol.

Heres the pics
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Chilkoot slopes showing line of men walking up carrying loads of supplies

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Side view on the slope of the men

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Cutting logs a woodworkers start

Klondike Boats.jpg
Building boats on the shores, sorry i cannot for some reason rotate this pic after upload. It shows forms and boats as work in progress. Just pondering this picture has me thinking it must have all been green wood.

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I thought this pic showed just the scope of the boat building industry that sprang up on the shore. When you see the sails and my pic of the pic really does not capture it all.

My hats off to the brave guys who took the time to photograph these amazing historical scenes. The book is fantastic collection of pictures i often haul it out to look at. But with this series it is even more relevant to get the atmosphere.

Hope some of you share my fascination.

sent from s4
 
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Cool pics. (I fixed the rotation on the 4th one, BTW.) Must have been a heady time of discovery back in those days, when you could send armies of men into the unknown just to see what was there.
 
Thank Ryan, that was one of my favorite too. Haven't heard it for a long time & it brought me back to when I dreamt of heading north. Never made it though.
 
Totally fascinated with gold rushes, as you might expect from living in nevada.

It's amazing some of the history to me of how these towns boomed and busted during those time frames.

We really need to do some more trips to the ghost towns of nevada....

But that chilkoot pass thing, that's just nuts. you'd think there would have been a better way.
 
A shorter film that we recently watched that I thought was interesting in a similar fashion was "Happy People, a year on the Taiga" - if they weren't speaking Russian it wasn't a whole lot different than where my folks grew up in northern BC.

But that chilkoot pass thing, that's just nuts. you'd think there would have been a better way.

There were actually a few trails in, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush#Routes_to_the_Klondike I'm unconvinced that any of them were substantially better except perhaps the all water route (which was expensive and left a bunch of folks stranded in the ice when). Some of the overland routes (especially the one from Northern Albert) were astoundingly difficult (although you were more likely to be able to have a pack train the whole way).

Having to turn around at the top and head back for another load after about the 10th run would have pretty much ruined most men I think.

I actually was born and spent some of my formative years along the one "all Canadian" route (which was the path for a fair number of gold rushes :D), although wikipedia doesn't have it quite right as the starting point was more commonly Lillooet not Ashcroft (you could get a steamer up to Lillooet or at least Lytton part of the year before they had the oops with the railroad at Hells Canyon and there was the more commonly taken lakes route that had some lake based steamboats also terminating at the lillooet stage location). Some folks definitely did start from Ashcroft as you could pack train up the Thompson river valley.

Somewhat later when they first put the "road" up the Fraser canyon that was a sight to see as well (before my time, but lots of pictures around) as it was largely built on cribbing hanging off of the cliff and back filled with gravel and was only 1 wagon wide a fair chunk of the way. Nowadays its beautiful drive up the canyon (I remember even as a kid it was a looong slooow drive through there because the road was so narrow/winding its so much better now). I can't even imagine what one of those early folks would think if they could travel it now.

I was born in Ashcroft and lived on the Fraser just west of there for a number of years.

I remember reading a book (the name of which I can't recall or find at the moment) that had stories of some of the early pioneers traveling DOWN the fraser river (taking an overland route to the BC interior similar to the Oregon Trail). That route imho made most of the others look easy, the number of folks who actually made it were a small percentage of those who started as many got trapped by winter part way down the river.

In conclusion I'll leave you with this: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174348
 

And the words to it:


The Cremation Of Sam McGee, by Robert Service (Canadian poet).


There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who toil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd sooner live in Hell.

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see,
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap", says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan,
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone
Yet 'taint being dead-it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains.

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say. "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate these last remains".

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code,
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb in my heart how I cursed that load!
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows- Oh God, how I loathed the thing!

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low.
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the Alice May,
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum"!

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared such a blaze you seldom see,
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow,
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said, "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked". Then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said, "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm-
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm".

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who toil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.
 
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