Archives West Finding Aid

The Yukon diary and photographs document the travels of an unidentified miner from Tacoma, Washington to the Klondike during the 1897 Yukon gold rush. The anonymous diarist chronicles his voyage to Alaska, time spent working as a packer near Chilkoot Pass, his journey over the Chilkoot Pass to Lake Lindeman, building a boat on Lake Bennett, and traveling from Lake Bennett to the Klondike. He briefly describes panning for gold near Dominion, then recounts his return journey to Seattle in 1899. Most of the diary is typewritten with some handwritten corrections; it is probably a transcription of the original diary. A few handwritten leaves were also pasted into the diary. Also included are five original photographs, four of which show men building boats on Lake Bennett (which lies partly in British Columbia and partly in the Yukon), as well as one image of Dawson, Yukon, dated 11 June 1897. The images have numbers written on the front, as well as handwritten identifications of individuals on paper pasted to the mounts; four of the mounts bear a copyright statement: "1897, Chas. H. Metcalf, Detroit." Names identified include: Frank Kellersman, O. P. Helm, Jake Bender, Dick Dasher, Ewen Fredricks, and John F. Miller.