Those who traveled to the Klondike were subject to starvation and disease. Around the same time, interest and traveling to the Klondike declined, and the population of Dawson City, which reached 30,000 people at the height of the Gold Rush, fell. Gold mining in the Klondike peaked in 1903 after the introduction of heavy machinery. Groups like the Hän were moved off their territory to make room for the prospectors. Some took years of trips to bring all of their supplies to their intended destinations.Īlong the route, towns like Dawson City sprung up to accommodate the prospectors, and indigenous populations were negatively affected. The loads were incredibly heavy and often required multiple trips. There, they sailed to the Klondike.Įach team included a pack of sled dogs responsible for pulling all the supplies (which included a year’s worth of food). They traveled through Dyea and Skagway in Southeast Alaska and followed one of two different passes, the Chilkoot or White Pass, to the Yukon River. Around 100,000 people, known as prospectors, traveled to Canada. The region was incredibly dangerous, freezing, and consistently snow-covered.

After gold was discovered there in 1868, men from around the country, the United States, and abroad, traveled to this northern Canadian region (just east of what would later be Alaska) in the hope of making their fortune. The Klondike Gold Rush was a period in the late 1800s, approximately from 1886 to 1899, during which thousands traveled to the Canadian Klondike in search of gold. Since the novel has been translated into dozens of languages and sold worldwide, since its initial publication in 1903, the novel has never been out of print. In 1903, Jack London sold the publication rights for his novel The Call of the Wild to MacMillan.

The call of the wild book author