Tag Archives: Thru Hiking

Train to Skagway

Title: Train to Skagway

General Information about Item:

  • Tradition, Customary Lore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States/Canada
  • Trail of Origin: Chilkoot
  • Informant: Ian Andrews, Sam D
  • Date Collected: 10-29-19, 11-10-19

Informant Data:

  • Ian Andrews is currently a graduate student at MIT. He grew up in Juneau, Alaska and hiked the Chilkoot Trail after finishing his undergraduate studies. Ian hikes recreationally, from trails in his hometown, to spending a week hiking in the Olympic Mountains in Washington State.
  • Sam is a 40-year-old man from Juneau, Alaska. Sam grew up in Southeast Alaska, and currently works for the state government. Sam hiked the Chilkoot trail in 2015.

Contextual Data:

  • Historical Context: First used by the Tlingit people of Alaska as a trade route, the Chilkoot became an important trail for miners and prospectors coming to Alaska during the Klondike gold rush at the end of the 1800s. The trail was mostly abandoned after the end of the gold rush in 1898, until the trail was restored for recreational hikers in the 1960s. (Source)
  • Cultural Context: Many Chilkoot hikers start their journeys in Skagway, Alaska. Once they have completed their hike, they arrive in Bennett, British Colombia. Hikers usually return to Skagway to make their way back home. Skagway is a popular destination for tourists visiting Alaska.
  • Social Context: Ian brought up the train when talking about his father’s experience hiking the Chilkoot. Ian’s dad lived in Skagway in the 90’s and hiked the trail then. Sam mentioned the train when talking about the transition between Canada and the US.

Item:

  • Once hikers have completed the trail, they ride a train that runs between Bennett and Skagway. In the 90’s the train was primarily a cargo train. When the cargo trains stopped running, they were replaced by passenger trains used for tourism. As hikers usually take multiple days to complete the hike, and do not shower during their trip, the passenger train reserves a section for hikers, so the other passengers are not subject to the smell of the hikers. The train is usually the last stop for hikers, and signifies their return to society.

Transcript:

  • Ian:  “Nowadays the train we took isn’t a working train, it’s a passenger train. Twenty or thirty years ago it was still a freight train, so you could hike the Chilkoot during the day, then catch the night freight back to Skagway. Nowadays you have to plan it out a little more to get the passenger train back.”
  • Sam:  “When you get up to Bennett for your train ride home, they have a special cart for the hikers, because the hikers are typically pretty sweaty and stinky.”

Collector’s Name: Soren Thompson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Train
  • Chilkoot Trail
  • Thru Hiking

Sailing Across Lake Bennett

Title: Sailing Across Lake Bennett

General Information about Item:

  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States/Canada
  • Trail of Origin: Chilkoot
  • Informant: Ian Andrews, Sam D
  • Date Collected: 10-29-19, 11-10-19

Informant Data:

  • Ian Andrews is currently a graduate student at MIT. He grew up in Juneau, Alaska and hiked the Chilkoot Trail after finishing his undergraduate studies. Ian hikes recreationally, from trails in his hometown, to spending a week hiking in the Olympic Mountains in Washington State.
  • Sam is a 40-year-old man from Juneau, Alaska. Sam grew up in Southeast Alaska, and currently works for the state government. Sam hiked the Chilkoot trail in 2015.

Contextual Data:

  • Historical Context: First used by the Tlingit people of Alaska as a trade route, the Chilkoot became an important trail for miners and prospectors coming to Alaska during the Klondike gold rush at the end of the 1800s. The trail was mostly abandoned after the end of the gold rush in 1898, until the trail was restored for recreational hikers in the 1960s. (Source)
  • Cultural Context: Lake Bennett is one of the significant landmarks along the Chilkoot trail, which hikers come to just after completing the hike to the Chilkoot Summit, the most difficult and dangerous section of the trail. Whitehorse is a city in British Colombia, and one of the major destinations for gold rushers after completing the Chilkoot portion of their journey.
  • Social Context: Sam and Ian individually brought up the boats at Lake Bennett when asked about interesting artifacts from the gold rush they saw while hiking.

Item:

  • When gold rushers arrived at Lake Bennett, they would need a boat to cross the large lake with their gear. As it was not feasible to transport an entire boat to the lake, they would bring some materials with them, but only construct the boat once they arrived at the lake. One of the informants mentioned that some of these boats would sink while crossing the lake, so the passengers would have to abandon ship and swim back to shore.

Transcript:

  • Ian:  “At lake Bennet, [the gold rushers] would get to the lake and have to build a ship out of the nearby trees. Some people would go halfway across and start to sink, so they would have to swim back.”
  • Sam:  “There’s one point when you are heading down through the rocks in the Lake Bennett area where there’s a metal framework of a boat sitting on the rocks… People couldn’t build very big boats because they had to navigate little passes while they were working their way to Whitehorse. They hauled quite a bit of the construction material with them, like canvas or whatever they using for the hull.”

Collector’s Name: Soren Thompson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Sinking Ship
  • Chilkoot Trail
  • Thru Hiking

One Lucky Hike

Title: One Lucky Hike

General Information about Item:

  • Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States/Canada
  • Trail of Origin: Chilkoot
  • Informant: Sam D
  • Date Collected: 11-10-19

Informant Data:

  • Sam is a 40-year-old man from Juneau, Alaska. Sam grew up in Southeast Alaska, and currently works for the state government. Sam hiked the Chilkoot trail in 2015.

Contextual Data:

  • Historical Context: First used by the Tlingit people of Alaska as a trade route, the Chilkoot became an important trail for miners and prospectors coming to Alaska during the Klondike gold rush at the end of the 1800s. The trail was mostly abandoned after the end of the gold rush in 1898, until the trail was restored for recreational hikers in the 1960s. (Source)
  • Social Context: Sam mentioned this when asked about his experience hiking, and if he would hike the trail again.

Item:

  • The informant talks about the element of luck he experienced during his hike. The weather along the trail can vary greatly, and can greatly effect the overall experience of the hike. He felt very lucky that he had good weather when he hiked, but believed that his luck would run out if he hiked the trail again.

Transcript:

  • “I had an attitude when I did [the hike]. [My wife] had done it a year before with her friend. They had such bad weather that when I did it and had perfect weather, my attitude about it became, ‘If this was perfect, then I don’t want to do it again.’ I don’t want to go hike and end up in a bad situation, because I now have a very good memory of the trail.”

Collector’s Name: Soren Thompson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Luck
  • Chilkoot Trail
  • Thru Hiking

Lying Prospectors

Title: Lying Prospectors

General Information about Item:

  • Legend, Verbal Lore
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States/Canada
  • Trail of Origin: Chilkoot
  • Informant: Sam D
  • Date Collected: 11-10-19

Informant Data:

  • Sam is a 40-year-old man from Juneau, Alaska. Sam grew up in Southeast Alaska, and currently works for the state government. Sam hiked the Chilkoot trail in 2015.

Contextual Data:

  • Historical Context: First used by the Tlingit people of Alaska as a trade route, the Chilkoot became an important trail for miners and prospectors coming to Alaska during the Klondike gold rush at the end of the 1800s. The trail was mostly abandoned after the end of the gold rush in 1898, until the trail was restored for recreational hikers in the 1960s. (Source)
  • Cultural Context: During the gold rush, there was minimal law enforcement around prospecting sites, so people searching for gold were reliant on being able to protect themselves from people who may want to cause harm, such as other, jealous prospectors. One of the few regulations during the gold rush were claims to land, where a prospector could search for gold. Once a claim was filed, the prospector effectively owned the gold located on that plot of land, and could claim ownership of it.
  • Cultural Context: Gold panning is a method of finding gold that has been deposited in streams. A gold panner uses a small dish to scoop up a mixture of water dirt from the bottom of the stream. They swish the water and silt around in the pan, splashing some water out of the pan, then collecting more water from the stream (without adding any more silt). As gold is more dense than water and the dirt around it, the gentle motions will allow the gold to be deposited at the bottom of the pan, while the dirt is washed away in the stream.
  • Social Context: Sam brought up this story when asked about famous figures he heard about on the trail, explaining why most successful prospectors wanted to stay anonymous.

Item:

  • The informant told a story about a man he met who would find suspicious plot claims from the Klondike Gold rush, which are archived by the Canadian government. The man looked for claims held by prospectors for long periods of time, but did not show a significant amount of gold found on the site. Gold rushers would usually be quick to give up claims on sites that were not yielding gold, so this man deduced that the prospectors who held onto plots of land were especially successful. However, the prospectors lied about finding gold, as they did not want to be targeted by the unsuccessful prospectors, who may want to steal from their land.

Transcript:

  • “Another thing to take into consideration is that a lot of times the people who did strike it rich weren’t telling everybody. The smart ones weren’t saying ‘Oh yeah, I just got 500 ounces of gold up at my spot.’ That drew the kind of attention you don’t want. I met a super interesting guy who works on the ferry system… He told me that he would go to Whitehorse, to their equivalent of the MPM*, where claims are filed, and he would research old claims from that area, that had expired long ago. He would go out to those places and check them out. He said that people were required to leave an account of what they had gotten from their land… He looked for [claims] that had been low return, but had been out there for a long time, like years and years, but kept coming back saying ‘low returns.’ Because he figured those people lying, if they kept doing it for a long time. He would go out and do panning at those locations.”
  • * MPM: Mineral Property Management, a division of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources

Collector’s Name: Soren Thompson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Legend
  • Chilkoot Trail
  • Thru Hiking

 

 

Chilkoot Trail Certificate

Title: Chilkoot Trail Certificate

General Information about Item:

  • Material Lore
  • Language: English, French, Tagish, Tlingit
  • Country of Origin: United States, Canada
  • Trail of Origin: Chilkoot
  • Informant: Ian Andrews
  • Date Collected: 10-29-19

Informant Data:

Ian Andrews is currently a graduate student at MIT. He grew up in Juneau, Alaska and hiked the Chilkoot Trail after finishing his undergraduate studies. Ian hikes recreationally, from trails in his hometown, to spending a week hiking in the Olympic Mountains in Washington State.

Contextual Data:

Historical Context: First used by the Tlingit people of Alaska as a trade route, the Chilkoot became an important trail for miners and prospectors coming to Alaska during the Klondike gold rush at the end of the 1800s. The trail was mostly abandoned after the end of the gold rush in 1898, until the trail was restored for recreational hikers in the 1960s. (Source)

Item:

 

A certificate given to hikers on the Chilkoot trail who reach the Lake Lindemann Museum.

Texture:

At the top of the certificate, there is a depiction of four birds. This is done in the Form Line art style, traditional to the Native Tlingit people of the area. This design is credited to Ross Atlin at the bottom of the certificate.

On the certificate, there is a message of congratulations to the receiving hiker:

Congratulations for hiking the Chilkoot Trail

The Chilkoot Trail is important because of the role it played in the mass movement of people to Alaska and the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush. The Trail is part of the Klondike Gold Rush International Historic Park.

The certificate contains the same message in French, as the Chilkoot trail stretches between Alaska and Canada.

Felicitations pour avoir parcouru la piste Chilkoot

La piste Chilkoot revet und grande importance en raison du role qu’elle a joue dans l’arrivee massive des gens en Alaska et au Yukon durant la ruee vers l’or du Klondike. Cette piste fait partie du parc historique international de la ruee vers l’or du Klondike.

There is also a photograph of gold rushers hiking to the Chilkoot Pass summit, taken between 1897 and 1898. Next to this photograph are the Tagish and Tlingit names for the summit, Kwatese and A Shaki, respectively.

At the bottom of the certificate, there is an endorsement from both Parks Canada, and the United States National Parks Service.

Transcript:

  • “They have a museum there with different pieces of history of the trail. They have a log book and a sticker or decal you could take. I think it was actually like a certificate you could take. Some of the camps were more built up than others.”
  • The informant later followed up, confirming a certificate was rewarded to anyone who reaches the Lake Lindemann Museum.

Collectors Comment:

Neither the informant or I spoke French well enough to provide a phonetic translation of the French section of the certificate. However, it appears to be an equivalent translation of the message of congratulations written in English.

Collector’s Name: Soren Thompson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Chilkoot Trail
  • Certificate
  • Thru Hiking