Tales of the Klondike

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Klondike Chris self-portrait

NPS / Chris Gibbs

Literature . . . well, that may be too lofty of a word . . . writing, anyhow . . . has captured many adventures and kept stories from the Klondike Gold Rush alive.

It has been over 120 years since people from around the world were drawn to the Klondike for an adventure that would forever change their lives.

Klondike Chris brings snippets of these stories to you here and during live readings at the park's visitor center.

Find dates for live readings on our calendar!

 

The Sure-thing Game

There have been many colorful characters written about in Klondike Gold Rush literature but one of the most notorious was Jefferson Randolf Smith AKA Soapy Smith.

 

Soapy Smith's sure-thing game

NPS / Chris Gibbs

[Soapy Smith] was the acknowledged master of the sure-thing game, the king of the confidence men, the emperor of the Denver underworld, and the ex-ruler of Creede, Colorado - a man with the reputation of buying and selling police chiefs as if they were so many cattle. Smith quickly saw that Skagway would retain its position as the main floodgate through which the human torrent would surge in and out of the Yukon Valley. It commanded all American territory from the source streams of the Yukon, the salt water of the Lynn Canal, and the only law in all this region was a single U.S. Marshal and his deputy. It was on Skagway that he pounced with his walnut shells and his marked decks and his sure-thing games and his bogus establishments. Success was instantaneous.

From The Klondike Fever by Pierre Berton, first published in 1958.