LIST OF MAPS.

North American Transportation Company's Map of Alaska and route by steamer to the Yukon gold fields.

Map showing the three overland routes from Juneau to Lewes river and the gold fields, by the Department of the Interior of the Dominion of Canada.

Map of Yukon river and its tributaries, by the Department of the Interior of the Dominion of Canada.

Map of North America.

Map of Klondyke river and its affluents, by the Department of the Interior of the Dominion of Canada.

Map of Alaska, showing known area of gold-producing rock in 1896, by J. Edward Spurr, U. S. Geological Survey. Map of the gold fields of the Northwest.

Placer Mining, Miller Creek

40-Mile from Across Creek.....

Group of Indian Children, Lower River..

First Meal After Leaving Dyea .
Steamer F. B. Weare.....

Start of Raft on Lake Lindeman

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CALIFORNIA

CHAPTER I.

THE DAYS OF '97.

"Klondyke or Bust"-Richest the World Has Known -Compared with "the Days of '49"-Poor Man's Mines On to the Klondyke-"Tenderfeet" Are Winners-Made $1,000 in a Day-Big Wages for Laborers-Has All the Gold He Wants-"Chechockoes”—The Craze―The Luck of a Boy-Panning in the Cabins-A Happy Scotchman-Misfortune Made Hestwood Rich-Stanley Struck It Warm-A Thousand in a Pan-Found It in Clear Water-A Lot of Lucky Ones-London Gets the Fever-Tacoma Goes Wild-Wall Street Has ItThe Mining Exchange Crazy-Many Syndicates Proposed Keene and the Klondyke-British Columbia Excited-More Argonauts Sail AwayJoanquin Speaks Again-Going on a Bet.

This country has been seized with the gold fever many times in the last fifty years, but never since the yellow particles were first found in the Sacramento Valley has there been any such widespread interest as is now displayed over the Yukon discoveries. Men, and even women, talk of little else. In nearly every city parties are being organized to invade the Klondyke district. Experienced miners who have spent years in Alaska advise them that the road is beset with hardships, that cold and hunger and probably death, await many of those who go there at the wrong season of the year, but this friendly counsel has no effect in stemming the rush.