Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Aug 11/00) - Some people picked a difficult route while trying to get in on the Klondike gold rush late in the 19th century.

Melanie J. Mayer, an author from California who recently put on a talk at the Inuvik Centennial Library, explained how some gold seekers went by rail to Edmonton and made their way to the Mackenzie River. They sailed down to Rat River and then went to Porcupine River, then to Fort Yukon -- and then upriver to Dawson.

"It was partly a patriotic motivation," Mayer said. "A lot of people felt it would be a good idea to not have to go into American territory in order to get to the part of the Northwest Territories that would become the Yukon."

As well, Mayer said, a pioneerr said the Mackenzie was a good way to go, "even though he had very little experience with that route." Regardless of their motivation, Mayer said many people who tried this route ran into trouble.

"A lot of them died: they got scurvy because they were on the trail so long and they didn't know how to keep themselves healthy. And it just took so long, that a lot of them ended up turning back once they realized they weren't going to make it in the time they had allotted, in that their supplies were going to be running out."

Mayer has authored Klondike Women: True Tales of the 1897-98 Gold Rush, and Staking Her Claim, which concerns the life of Belinda Mulrooney.

Mayer talked about Emily Craig, who journeyed to the Klondike with her husband to the Yukon via the Mackenzie, and then later in life wrote a memoir of her experience.

"She (Emily Craig) talked about learning from the native Americans or first nations people how to survive in the wilderness," Mayer said.

"The river trip, of course, was very difficult. Whenever you had to go upstream," she said, "the only way to do it was line the boats up, so they tied ropes to the boats, and had to pull them by walking along the sides of the river."

Mayer said. "There weren't any paths alongside of the river. It was just miserable travelling. It's a miracle anybody made it."

The Craigs took two years to get to Dawson, and that by that time (1899) the gold rush was over.

"Her story is kind of a typical, but it was atypical in that they actually got through."