Table Of Contentweyerhaeuser environmental books
William Cronon, Editor
Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books explore human relation-
ships with natural environments in all their variety and com-
plexity. They seek to cast new light on the ways that natural
systems aªect human communities, the ways that people aªect
the environments of which they are a part, and the ways that
diªerent cultural conceptions of nature profoundly shape our
sense of the world around us.
weyerhaeuser environmental books
The Natural History ofPuget Sound Country
by Arthur R. Kruckeberg
Forest Dreams, Forest Nightmares:
The Paradox ofOld Growth in the Inland West
by Nancy Langston
Landscapes ofPromise: The Oregon Story, 1800–1940
by William G. Robbins
The Dawn ofConservation Diplomacy: U.S.-Canadian
Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era
by Kurkpatrick Dorsey
Irrigated Eden: The Making ofan Agricultural Landscape
in the American Westby Mark Fiege
Making Salmon: An Environmental History ofthe Northwest
Fisheries Crisisby Joseph E. Taylor III
George Perkins Marsh, Prophet ofConservation
by David Lowenthal
Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched
the Modern Wilderness Movement by Paul S. Sutter
The Rhine: An Eco-Biography, 1815–2000 by Mark Cioc
Where Land and Water Meet: A Western
Landscape Transformed by Nancy Langston
The Nature ofGold: An Environmental History
ofthe Klondike Gold Rush by Kathryn Morse
weyerhaeuser environmental classics
The Great Columbia Plain:
A Historical Geography, 1805–1910by D. W. Meinig
Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory:
The Development ofthe Aesthetics ofthe Infinite
by Marjorie Hope Nicolson
Tutira: The Story ofa New Zealand Sheep Station
by H. Guthrie-Smith
A Symbol ofWilderness: Echo Park and the
American Conservation Movement
by Mark W. T. Harvey
Man and Nature: Or, Physical Geography
as Modified by Human Action by George Perkins Marsh;
edited by David Lowenthal
cycle of fire by stephen j. pyne
Fire: A BriefHistory
World Fire: The Culture ofFire on Earth
Vestal Fire: An Environmental History, Told through Fire,
ofEurope and Europe’s Encounter with the World
Fire in America: A Cultural History ofWildland and Rural Fire
Burning Bush: A Fire History ofAustralia
The Ice: A Journey to Antarctica
THE NATURE of GOLD
An Environmental History of
the Klondike Gold Rush
KATHRYN MORSE
Foreword by William Cronon
university of washington press
Seattle and London
For M & D
The Nature ofGoldis published with the assistance ofa grant
from the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Endowment,
established by the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation,
members ofthe Weyerhaeuser family,
and Janet and John Creighton.
Copyright © 2003 by the University ofWashington Press
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
Designed by Pamela Canell
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 6 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
University ofWashington Press
PO Box 50096, Seattle, WA 98145
www.washington.edu/uwpress
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
can be found at the back ofthe book.
The paper used in this publication is acid-free and recycled from 10 percent
post-consumer and at least 50 percent pre-consumer waste. It meets the
minimum requirements ofAmerican National Standard for Information
Sciences—Permanence ofPaper for Printed Library Materials,
ansi z39.48–1984. 8A
contents
Foreword by William Cronon ix
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction: On the Chilkoot 3
1 / The Culture of Gold 16
2 / The Nature of the Journey 40
3 / The Culture of the Journey 67
4 / The Nature of Gold Mining 89
5 / The Culture of Gold Mining 115
6 / The Nature &Culture of Food 138
7 / The Nature &Culture of Seattle 166
Conclusion: Nature, Culture, and Value 191
Notes 203
Selected Bibliography 255
Index 275
vii
maps
1. Geography ofthe Alaska-Yukon gold rush 5
2. Selected transportation routes
to goldfields in the Yukon and Alaska,
including the “Rich Man’s Route,”
the “Poor Man’s Route,”
and the Teslin Trail 41
3. Transcontinental railroad routes
in western North America, 1898 46
4. Transportation routes to the goldfields:
the Chilkoot Trail,
White Pass Trail,
Yukon Headwater Lakes,
Upper Yukon River, and
White Pass & Yukon Railroad (built 1898–1900) 52
5. Transportation routes to the goldfields:
the Upper Yukon to Dawson City 54
6. The Klondike goldfields, Yukon Territory 90
7. Yukon River gold creeks in Alaska 91
viii
foreword: all that glitters
William Cronon
the great gold rushes
of the nineteenth century are certainly
among the most dramatic episodes ofAmerican western history. Their story
typically begins with John Marshall’s finding of a nugget in John Sutter’s
millrace near Sacramento, California, on January 24, 1848. Although Sut-
ter tried desperately to prevent word ofthe discovery from leaking out, the
news spread rapidly to San Francisco and proved so electrifying that an aston-
ishing portion of the male population headed for the hills. In the harbor,
sailors decided almost instantly to trade their maritime work for mining,
with the result that abandoned, rotting ships would clog the city’s wharves
for years to come. When the news finally reached the East Coast a few months
later, the phenomenon repeated itself constantly: with remarkable speed,
an amazing number ofpeople abandoned their former jobs and homes to
head west in search of fortune. Prospectors fanned out across the Sierra
Nevada, intent on striking it rich by finding a telltale streak ofyellow in the
gray gravel of a river bed, or perhaps even by locating the fabled mother
lode itself. Camps and towns sprang up almost overnight, launching the
cycles ofboom and bust that would so characterize the mining West for the
rest ofthe century and beyond.
This is the stuª ofwhich legends are made, and western history has been
marked by romantic narratives ofgold and glory ever since. What happened
in California in 1848–49 would happen at places whose names are famous
today mainly because ofthe “rushes” that once swept over them: Pike’s Peak,
ix
