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Alaska Gold Rush Tour
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The first goldstrike was in 1880, in Juneau which became a major mining town until 1944. The most famous strike was the Klondike gold rush of 1898. More gold strikes followed in later years at Nome and Fairbanks.

Klondike - In early 1897, three adventures, Skookum Jim, Tagish Charlie and George Carmack panned a shotgun shell's worth of gold out of Bonanza Creek. Other locals followed with similar success along the rest of the Klondike River Valley (deep in the heart of the Yukon). By July 1897, the steamship Portland sailed into Seattle with more than two tons of gold in her hold.

Gold Rush Fever spread like wildfire launching the last and largest gold rush in American history. More than 200,000 souls surged north in Rush of '98. Even the Mayor of Seattle resigned his post to join the many other argonauts cramming aboard every form of vessel sailing north.

The most common route was to sail up the SouthEast Alaska's Inside Passage to a small lawless port called Skagway. The next challenge was to go 35 miles up and over Alaska's rugged Coast Mountains, thru Chilkoot Pass, to reach the source of the Yukon River near Whitehorse (Yukon Territory) while hauling your standard 100 pounds of equipment and rations. The final leg of the journey was a 575 mile raft trip (build your canoe) downstream (but only after the winter ice had broken up) to the Klondike Goldfields near Dawson City.


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