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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wild-West scholarship from a man who was (almost) there!, May 10, 2004
This review is from: Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 (Paperback)
This is the best-written, most entertaining history book I've read in ages. What an amazing story! In January 1897, a message went out from Dawson City in the isolated Yukon Territory of Canada: gold had been discovered! It took until July for anyone to notice, but then it seemed like the whole world stampeded toward the Klondike. Most did not make it over the mountains before winter, but were stuck in lawless Skagway, Alaska, enduring frostbite, graft, and privation, until arriving in Dawson in June of 1898. Suddenly, Dawson went from a few tents to as many as 10,000 people; then, in August of 1899, a rumor of gold in Nome, Alaska emptied the town as quickly as a fire: 8,000 people left in the course of a week.
Berton spins a mighty good yarn: careless prospectors paying for drinks with gold dust; dance-hall girls; wiley villains like the infamous Soapy Smith, boss of Skagway's underworld; heroic Mounties keeping order over treacherous mountain passes. All of this is the result of an enormous amount of primary research: in the 1950's Berton personally interviewed a large number of the last survivors of the stampede, and appears to have memorized every printed word, published and unpublished, ever written on the subject.
Berton caps off his expert handling of the narrative with a wonderful chapter reflecting on the meaning of the Klondike rush for the American and Canadian national characters. I was charmed to discover, at the very end, that Berton's parents were prospectors and that he himself grew up in Dawson, almost a ghost town, playing among the abandoned gold dredges and cast-off dance slippers.
This 2001 version of "Klondike" is significantly updated from the 1958 original; it's considerably longer and reflects many new primary sources. "Klondike Fever" still available via Amazon (ISBN 0786713178), is the older and less up-to-date book. This 2001 edition is the one you want!
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Back in the days when Yukon Gold wasn't a potato, June 14, 2005
This review is from: Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 (Paperback)
For those of us whose knowledge of the Klondike Gold Rush comes mostly from the 1950s radio drama, "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon" this is a fine book to read. (Trivia question: What was the name of Sergeant Preston's preternaturally intelligent huskie?) This is a revised and updated version of the book "Klondike Fever" published in 1958. Read "Klondike" if possible, although the earlier "Klondike Fever" is still perfectly readable. The maps are much better in this edition.
This Gold Rush, named after the Klondike River in the Yukon territory of Canada, was the last great scramble for gold in the old West. One hundred thousand persons, mostly from the U.S., set out for the Klondike in 1897, 30,000 or 40,000 got there, after an arduous journey through killing winter snows, and a few hundred found gold. The stories of the long, hard journey into this Arctic wilderness are often horrific. In one party of 19 men, 15 died or were killed along the route and the other four had eyes damaged by snow blindness. The gold seekers included author Jack London, Wyatt Earp, and poet Joaquin Miller. By late-summer 1899, "one of the weirdest and most useless mass movements in history" was over. Most of the gold seekers went home to live normal lives, although a few moved on to the beaches of Nome, Alaska where gold could be picked up among the grains of sand.
The author tells a compelling tale of the men and women who participated in the Klondike Gold Rush. It was indeed a fever. The characters in this book include crusty old miners who suddenly became rich beyond their wildest dreams, stalwart, incorruptible Canadian Mounties, conmen like Soapy Smith -- who in the dramatic tradition of the West receives his just deserts -- prostitutes, madams, gamblers, angels of mercy, last-chance losers, rich adventurers, Indians, and missionaries. It's a fascinating read, based on research that included interviews with many of the oldtimers who lived to talk to the author in the 1950s. The author's standard of truth telling is high; he identifies a tall tale or an unlikely exaggeration when he finds them.
The text would be enhanced if there were photographs, but I doubt you'll find a better book about the Klondike Gold Rush. Oh, yes, Sergeant Preston's dog was named "Yukon King."
Smallchief
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Vintage Berton!, October 31, 2005
This review is from: Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 (Paperback)
As a Canadian living away from home, I never miss an opportunity to read a book by Pierre Berton. Berton had a talent for making History come alive in a way that is rare not only among Canadian authors, but indeed is rarely equaled and certainly not surpassed by any other author I have encountered abroad.
Klondike is one of those books that is so well constructed and written that you forget you are reading History and instead are absorbed into the story-line as if you were reading a first-rate novel. Burton develops the story-line and characters so that you are drawn into the history and come to appreciate the facts of the era and location. The people become real. You leave having experienced history instead of just having been served warmed over facts with a few theories as to how they tie together.
Despite the difference in genre, reading Burton's account of the Gold Rush in the North is every bit as entertaining as reading Farley Mowat or Jack London.
I recommend this book highly. It is a good introduction to Berton, to the Canadian North, the history of the Yukon, and a good primer before you launch into the other great books of Berton if you have never read him before!
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