Page 58 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Alaska

56  INTRODUCING ALASK A

The Gold Rush ARCTIC OCEAN

In the decade after the US purchase of Alaska, ALASKA CANADA
there was very little interest in the new acquisition, Nome
but this changed in 1880 when gold was found at • Yukon • Dawson
Klondike
the site of present-day Juneau. Little had come of
earlier strikes on the Kenai Peninsula and in the Hope • Skagway
•
Stikine Valley, but the Juneau find sparked off a Gulf of Alaska •Juneau
fresh wave of interest. With the discovery of gold Prince
Rupert
in the Klondike and in the beach sands of Nome in PACIFIC OCEAN •
the late 1890s, a frenzied Gold Rush began. By the
time it ended around 1905, interest in Alaska had Key
waned again, but a small number of adventurous Gold Rush Territory 1867–1905
homesteaders continued to venture north in Key routes to gold mining areas
search of opportunity.

Transport and communication
routes were set up as a result
of the Klondike Gold Rush. Gold pans were
used to separate
Telegraph lines were laid and river gravel and
the White Pass and Yukon Route alluvial gold.
Railroad was built in 1898 to
link Skagway with the Klondike, Streams carried
opening up the Interior to the gravel that
the outside world. contained gold.

Steamships were used by people who had the “Grubstakes” were carried by all prospectors on the
means to sail up the Yukon River to the gold­ Chilkoot Trail, who hauled load after load of supplies
fields. Others took the All­American Route from over the steep pass. Fearing that unprepared miners
Valdez across Valdez Glacier and up the Copper would face starvation, Canadian officials required each
River system to the Yukon River. man to carry a year’s worth of supplies and food.

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