AFTER THE GOLD RUSH

by Archie Satterfield ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 20, 1976

Satterfield wended his way through Robert Service country retracing the routes of the Klondike goldrush stampeders of 1897-98 to Dawson City and the shores of Lake Laberge. He rambles on amiably about the broken-down hotels and the enduring knotty people of Fort Selkirk and Whitehourse and Carcross and other towns with wonderful names. Local characters remembered in lore include Polly the parrot, a great boozer who was given a state funeral when she died. Satterfield slogs up the Chilkoot Trail, pokes around the ghost towns of the Yukon, and strikes up conversations with the odd trapper, Indian family, or one of the last storied old codgers. (""You live with the land up here. Don't force it,"" one wilderness family sagely tells him.) The gist of Satterfield's nostalgic wanderlust is that Yukoners--Indian, Canadian, French, Yank-are still a very special folk, preserving an elemental relationship with the land, the snow, and each other. Not intruding with a tape recorder, he found that people talked to him easily, and the special ethic of the North and the ""courtesy of the bush"" are very much here.

Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION