Don McCune Library


Trail to the Klondike Book

Soft cover book 9" x 10.5" 128 pages. Second edition 2010 published by The Don McCune Library. First edition 1997 published by WSU Press.

Trail to the Klondike Book

TTTK book When the S.S.PORTLAND steamed into Seattle with a ton of gold in July 1897, it set off an around-the-world fever and initiated one of the most extraordinary treks in history. In the brutally-cold winter of 1897-98, 100,000 people stampeded to the gold fields of the Yukon Territory .

Seven decades later, McCune retraced the route of the Klondike Gold Rush with his Exploration Northwest film crew. Hiking from Skagway, Alaska, over the Chilkoot Pass, they found abundant evidence of the stampeders' travail in "... this debris-laden pattern tracing the Klondikers' folly and glory with woebegone eloquence ," as McCune wrote.

Between the end of the stampede and McCune's trek, less than 100 people had hiked the Chilkoot Trail!