The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay 1897-1899

“It is interesting to watch how the expressions change as you progress through the book, from optimistic in the beginning, to almost hopeless by the end… The pictures alone will offer hours of viewing.”
— CM Magazine “The story of the stampede is told well but shown even better.”
— HistoryNet.com This classic book is a truly great photographic essay of an historic event that made millionaires of an anonymous few but crushed thousands more in a hostile climate and unforgiving terrain anticipated by none. We are nearing the 125th anniversary of the Klondike Gold Rush and no one has told the story as vividly as Yukon-born Pierre Berton. Canada’s leading popular historian compiled over 200 rare period images from the more than 10,000 images in public archives and private collections. Depicting every aspect of what Berton called “one of the strangest mass movements in history,” many of the compelling images were first published in this book. The Klondike Quest brings to life the panoramic drama of the great stampede for gold as seen by the ordinary gold-seeker. The photographs are beautifully reproduced and informatively and colorfully captioned. “One million people, it is said, laid plans to go to the Klondike. One hundred thousand actually set off. And so the Klondike saga is a chronicle of humanity in the mass… For the next eighteen months, the Yukon interior plateau became a human anthill.” As a true story of real men looking for a golden phantom, it’s a tale that can’t be beat.