When I was in seventh grade, we were assigned to read where the red fern grows,

Call of the Wild and White Fang, all books about dogs.

Maybe old Mr. Connolly was a dog lover.

Or maybe these were coming-of-age stories a 13-year-old boy like me could identify with.

Certainly they're each packed with adventure, and two of them are written by Jack London

and set in the Yukon Territory, based on his own experiences there as he and thousands of others

sought riches in the gold rush.

Now, this isn't the California gold rush.

That was in 1849.

This is the Klondike gold rush in northwestern Canada starting in 1896.

But it was still fairly American, because in the summer of 1897, the first early prospectors

returned from the Klondike to Seattle and San Francisco,

bringing with them huge amounts of gold.

How much?

Over a billion dollars worth in today's money.

And that's when the American Stampede started, with 100,000 Dreamers setting north to find

their fortune.

Jack London was one of them, and he discovered, as did most, that life in the

frozen North is not that easy. His adventures are what we're sharing with you today with an episode

from the podcast, Legends of the Old West, hosted by my friend Chris Wimmer. I hope you enjoy.

And while you're listening, be sure to search for and follow Legends of the Old West.

We put a link in the show notes that make it easy for you. The SS Umatilla churned through the swells of the Pacific Ocean on July 25, 1897, carrying an unlikely pair of fortune seekers.

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