This fascinating book about the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-1899 was written by Pierre Barton, the son of parents who were there at the time, although they found no gold themselves. It is both first-rate history and first-rate entertainment. So frenzied was the dash for gold and so scant the information about the rugged mountain wilderness and its immobilizing winter cold, that the rush for richness became a kind of fabulous, entrepreneurial madness.
In his conclusion, Barton writes, “The great majority of those who took part in the stampede were young mean in their mid-twenties. It is this youth that helps explain the impetuosity of the gold rush. The Argonauts were still young enough to want to search for something even though they did not exactly know what is was they were searching for. They were still young enough to be gullible, young enough to be foolhardy, young enough to be optimistic, young enough to be carefree. They were young enough to see a mountain and climb it, though they had never climbed a mountain before; to see a glacier and cross it without a second thought; to build a boat and tempt a rapid, though they had never wielded an ax or paddle in their lives. The Klondike was their Everest; they sought to reach it because it was there.”
So many fascinating, incredible, one-of-a-kind tales of endurance, foolishness, perseverance, luck, agony, hardship, honor, and deceit you’ll never find anywhere else. I highly recommend it!