Just beyond the dock in Skagway, Alaska, I look at a display of photographs taken just over a century ago.
One of them, is a shot of the harbour. The shoreline is quagmire of mud. There is no landing dock, not even a pier. The year is 1897.
In my mind's eye, the scene takes on colour and movement: men, glaze-eyed with fatigue, wade through water from scows moored off shore and haul equipment up the beach trying to beat the 16-foot-high tides that could wash away their possessions - and dreams - in minutes.
They have travelled from San Francisco and Seattle, packed like cattle, hungry for Yukon gold - and redemption from the grim economic depression. Some are self-proclaimed gentlemen adventurers on the road to El Dorado; others are ordinary citizens, bank clerks and blue-collar workers. Most are desperados, who would give Skagway, with its bars, flophouses and con-artists, the reputation of being the most lawless town in Alaska.
Of the 100,000 prospectors who arrived on these shores, only 40,000 would make it to Dawson City in the Yukon. Some took the short, but gruelling Chilkoot trail out of Dyea; others with equipment loaded on horses or dog-sleds, opted for the White Pass trail winding for 40 miles through a wilderness of slush, shale and unyielding rock-face to Lake Bennett - and thence a further 500 miles up the Yukon River by boat.
For Fast forward a century.
Our tour bus halts on the broad Klondike Highway and we gaze at the remnants of the White Pass trail only two feet wide in sections, and overgrown by vegetation.
I am both awed and aghast. Awed by the stampeders' tenacity in the face of terrifying odds; aghast at the sight of Dead Horse Gulch where 3,000 horses plagued by sores, lacerated hooves, and whip-lashed by frustrated owners, lost their footing and plunged down a 500-foot canyon to their deaths.
The trail snakes past rock falls, rushing streams and precipitous gullies; Ice-Age glaciers stand jagged-toothed against the sky, frigid and inscrutable witnesses to humanity's quest for transient wealth and glory.
En-route back to Skagway, our tour bus pulls into Liarsville - a replica of a Klondike campsite. Our hosts tell us that "Liarsville" derived its name from the pressmen who arrived here in pursuit of the hottest media scoop of the decade. Needless to say, after one horrified look, they vamoosed in a hurry.
However, to satisfy their editors (and the public, panting for information), they filed reports that read like travel brochures.
Liarsville is artfully reconstructed. There is a barber's shop, a laundry and dry goods store (read: "gift shop") whose porch boasts a honky-tonk piano.
The stampeders paused here to bolster their spirits at the bar, linger in the company of ladies offering the delights of "negotiable affection," and exchange yarns of braggadocio before hitting the relentless trail once more.
A vaudeville show is in progress. Cookies and mulled cider in hand, I chuckle at anecdotes, boo/hiss villainous characters, envy the lissom curves of "Klondike Kate" and thrill to the verses of Robert Service.
I also pan for gold, and go "aaaah!" as I find a teensy speck in my pan. Real gold, but, shhh...planted to ensure that all guests leave with a fleck or two in their pockets! Which is more than what the sourdoughs took home. By the time they reached Dawson City, all the claims had been staked and the owners of the mines had already raked in their millions' worth of gleaming nuggets. However, in the words of poet Robert Browning: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for"? Travel Writers' Tales is an independent newspaper syndicate that offers professionally written travel articles. To check out more, visit www.travelwriterstales.com.
If you go. http://skagway.com/. www.travelalaska. com/ Destinations/ Communities/ Skagway.aspx?utm_ source=3400&utm_ medium=ad. Several cruise ships include Skagway in their itinerary. See www.alaskacruises.com/or www.alaskacruiseexperts.com/.. Explore Liarsville at www.klondiketours. com/goldcampshow.html and watch a video clip at www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwkEYzq2SdE
