There's gold in them hills!

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend about books. She talked about how she hates to part with a book even long after she has finished reading it. "I like to see them up on my bookshelf" she said. "It's like remembering time spent with an old friend." I couldn't agree more. I just made some new friends that I will think about each time I see Alaska on my bookshelf. John Klope, Tom Venn, Missy Peckham and Matt Murphy: ordinary people who lead extraordinary lives in the most desolate and inhospitable region on the continent. The austere, Norwegian reindeer herder turned gold prospector, Lars Skjellerup and his colorful side-kicks Mikkel Sana, a Laplander, and Arkikov, a Siberian Chukchi are so oddly matched, yet so loyal to one another, you can't help but love them. Then there are the big, strong, rock-solid guys, Sergeants Kirby and Steele of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who usher folks through Chilkoot Pass. You just know the country is a safer place when these guys are around. I will remember these people for their integrity, tenacity, determination and faith in the chaos of the Klondike Gold Rush. They are all heroes; all worthy of honor and applause; and all purely fictional. Yep: not one of them is an actual person, nor the stories even based on an historical individual. However, I have faith in the integrity of the author and I'm confident that what I have read is indeed an accurate representation of what life was like for the thousands of people (men and women) who risked life and limb to get to the gold fields of the Yukon, and the fortunate few (very few) who actually found gold. I've always thought that money is a powerful motivator: people will do crazy and even criminal things in order to obtain it. Now, I'm convinced. Every elementary school history book had a picture of Chilkoot Pass at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush: a long line of human-like figures, marching, single-file up a snowy mountain like ants crawling up a sand hill. What I didn't know then, or at least can appreciate now is that Chilkoot Pass is a remote corridor through the Coast Mountains in Alaska and British Columbia. It was the route used by prospectors to access the gold mines on the Klondike and Yukon Rivers. In order to lawfully enter Canada, the prospectors were required to bring enough food and supplies to last 6 months. The trail was too rough, too cold and too steep for dog sled or pack mule, so prospectors had to make the trek on foot with all of their belongings carried on their backs. The trail was 33 miles from Dyea, Alaska to Bennett, British Columbia. The Pass itself is 3,500 feet above sea level. Some people literally dropped dead from exhaustion in the middle of the trail. (The site is now the Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Park. For a fee, you can attempt the climb yourself). Fictional or not, this story is a testament to the incredible fortitude of the human spirit. Michener sums it up eloquently (page 522): "Missy...developed into a woman of towering strength, beautiful in her integrity, and Tom Venn had grown from a callow youth into an amazingly mature man, but they achieved this through hardship and failure, not success, and the lessons they acquired would last them through life." This is an incredible story.