Captain Jack Crawford: Buckskin Poet, Scout, and Showman

9. To the Klondike

9 To THEKLONDIKE Gold! Gold in the Klondike! The news ricocheted across the continent, spreading a virulent strain of gold fever from coast to coast. The stampede began almost immediately following the arrival of two heavily ladened treasure ships on the Pacific Coast. On July 15, 1897, grizzled prospectors carried suitcases bulging with gold down the gangplanks of the steamship Excelsior , with a curious crowd of San Franciscans on hand to witness the spectacle. Two days later, the steamship Portland, carrying nearly two tons of gold, arrived in Seattle. The two coastal towns went mad on Klondike gold. Mass resignations occurred in all trades and professions, as residents scrambled to find transportation for the gold fields. Within ten days of the Portland's arrival, fifteen hundred people had left Seattle for the Klondike.1 Gold fever soon reached epidemic proportions. On August 1, the New York Herald's financial page "carried advertisements for eight huge mining and exploration corporations all formed within a few days to exploit the Klondike/'2 In the mad Captain Jack Crawford, Marshal of the Day, 4th ofJuly celebration, 1899, Dawson, Yukon Territory. (Photo by E.A. Hegg, courtesy Special Collections Division, University of Washington Libraries, Neg. No. 2348.) Chapter 9 rush to get to the gold fields, a few people like Jack Crawford counseled caution. "No man with my experience, if he has a grain of sense left," Crawford avowed in August, "will attempt this trip at this season of the year." Canadian and U.S. officials alike warned against trying to reach the Klondike that fall. But the advice fell on deaf ears. People clogged the coastal ports, outfitting and embarking for the gold region. BySeptember 1, nine thousand people had left Seattle, yet they had little chance of reaching the Klondike before the Yukon River froze in late October.3 The lucky prospectors aboard the Excelsior and Portland had extracted their gold from Bonanza and other creeks that fed the Klondike River a few miles above its confluence with the Yukon . Dawson City, located where the Klondike enters the Yukon, became the mecca for stampeders and the first capital ofCanada's Yukon Territory. A popular route into the gold fields was by way of Dyea on the Alaskan Panhandle, across the mountains via Chilkoot Pass to Lakes Lindeman and Bennett, and then down the Yukon River to Dawson—a distance of about 1,600 miles from Seattle. Of an estimated 100,000 people who started for the Klondike during the stampede, only 30,000 or 40,000 reached Dawson. And only a few hundred ever struck it rich.4 For Captain Jack, the Klondike became the last great adventure of a long and exciting career. Typical of his era, Crawford had long aspired to great wealth; now he expected to reap afortune in the land of the midnight sun. His practical knowledge of mining and willingness to endure hardships, he believed, would bring success where others would fail. The Klondike would also allow the fifty-one-year-old Poet Scout to relive the excitement of his earlier days on campaign, for the frozen wastes of the Yukon could be as dangerous and beguiling as any of his former foes. Unfortunately, the key ingredient for striking it rich—luck— continued to elude him, and he would leave the Klondike after a fruitless two-year search for his fortune. 208 To theKlondike But in the months preceding his departure for the gold region, Crawford revealed in published interviews an expert's appreciation for the difficulties ahead. He astutely predicted that not more than a quarter of the several thousand people who started for the gold fields would reach Dawson City. And most of these would return home disappointed. People going into the Yukon, he advised, should have "at least $1,000 cash, a year's provisions, a good constitution, a genial disposition and a great fund of patience ." And he warned against fraudulent Klondikecompanies intent upon bilking the public of its money. "The number of innocent people," he avowed, "who will be absolutely robbed within the next twelve months is beyond calculation."5 Ironically,within a year of reaching the Klondike, Crawford would sever connections with the company that financed his expedition, accusing it of swindling the stockholders. Brimming with confidence at the start of his adventure, Crawford organized his own company to exploit the Yukon. In August 1897, the CaptainJack Crawford Alaska...