#12: Misadventures in Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

Dear Bob and Sue: A National Parks Podcast

Matt and Karen Smith

Society & Culture, Nature, Personal Journals, Places & Travel, Science

5.0 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2020

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over 120 years ago, the Klondike Gold Rush attracted more than 100,000 people from around the world with the lure of wealth and adventure. All that stood in the way of the prospectors’ dream of finding gold was a year-long journey to a remote area in the Yukon Territory, which included a treacherous 33-mile trail over a steep mountain pass in Alaska. Today, that trail—the Chilkoot Trail—lies within a national park; half in the U.S. and half in Canada. In this episode, we talk about our 2018 attempt to trace the gold rushers' footsteps and backpack the famous trail with our friends, John and Lolly. We share the story of an epic hike in the wilderness of Alaska that turned out to be one of our biggest adventures to date. Some highlights from this episode include: How we got the idea in the first place to hike the Chilkoot Trail A brief history of the Klondike Gold Rush and what it was like for the prospectors who braved the journey Planning our trip and the logistics involved What it was like hiking the trail in August during one of the most torrential rainstorms in decades What went very wrong on the third day, as we attempted to summit Chilkoot Pass How we made it through our ordeal with the help of three excellent NPS rangers And hear from our special guests, John and Lolly, who join us on this episode Links to more information: To see photos from our travels, visit our Instagram account, or TikTok account NPS site for the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park Seattle Unit and Skagway Unit Where to learn more about our books and travels Join the conversation on Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	They had told us the night before.
0:02.0	There's a small creek that you could just splash through.
0:06.3	Your feet might get wet.
0:08.4	We get to that little creek and it was...
0:12.1	It was a river. It was a
0:13.0	was a torrent and we could not figure out how to get across that well John you
0:17.8	well the great part was if I remember correctly Matt you and I decided that we would just see whether or not we could somehow get across and I remember
0:27.0	taking like two steps into that river and you stepped in behind me and the girls are yelling.
0:33.6	We are freaking and the girls are like screaming.
0:37.2	Telling me to get out and I'm like, well I would if I could turn around without falling down.
0:42.4	It was such a stupid thing to do. This is the Dear Bob and Sue Podcast, are stories of adventures and misadventures as we travel to all the U.S.
1:05.1	National Parks and Public Lands. I'm Karen Smith.
1:08.3	And I'm Matt Smith. We're the authors of the Dear Bob and Sioux series of books. Today we're talking about our
1:13.9	backpacking misadventure on the Chilcoot Trail in Alaska. I'm detecting a
1:19.1	pattern here with regard to our Alaska experiences. They never go the way we plan.
1:24.1	Never, I know.
1:25.2	I'm almost afraid to go back
1:26.8	because I never know what's going to be in store for us.
1:30.3	So this 33-mile chill-coot Trail is north of Skagway and it crosses into British Columbia, Canada.
1:38.0	Now back in the late 1800s, it was a major access route for those making their way to the Klondite
1:43.9	goldfields in the Yukon Territory. So this trail is a challenge even in the best
1:48.5	conditions but we wanted to do it and we were lucky to have our friends John and Lolly join us on this trip.
	...

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