canada

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 might 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a large number of the last survivors of the stampede, and appears to have memorized every printed word, published and unpublished, ever written on the subject.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!

Berton is by far the best historical author of our times. The characters that make up our history come alive with every page that is read. For anyone that has felt the lure of gold, this is a book is a must have.

If all history books were like this one, we would have a lot more History Majors. Berton has taken a time in the past and written a wonderful book. The trouble and hardship that these people of a by-gone era are willing to endure and die for is unbelievable. Fiction can't touch what actually happened in the late 1800's as thousands headed North for what was to be the last great gold rush.