Glacier route? Not really. When, in 1898, men and women headed for the Yukon came to the Valdez Glacier they came in ignorance. Some left it a lot more educated. Some never left it at all.
You hear that gold in some place called the Klondike is making men filthy rich. You want very much to be in the Klondike. You get helpful advice about paths to the gold fields. You haven’t learned yet that hustlers offering helpful advice are just about the only people really making money from the Klondike Gold Rush.
You hear that the shortest, easiest path to the Klondike gold fields is the glacier route through Alaska. Just pack up your food and your gear, load it on a ship, sail up from Seattle to Valdez, Alaska. From there, head north on the most direct route to Eagle on the Yukon River. A short hop over the Canadian border on the river and, bingo, you’re there. The Klondike.
In Seattle you book passage for Valdez, and you have smooth sailing until your ship crosses the Gulf of Alaska. There the sky alternates snow and sleet, and gale force winds stir up the waves, tossing the ship like a cork.
And Valdez doesn’t really exist—you and your fellow rushers are in the process of creating it. The ship drops you and your gear onto an icy mud flat fronting the Valdez Glacier. Surrounded by 500 fellow immigrants, knowing more ships and more immigrants are coming right behind, you gather it into a pile.
You get a six-foot sled, load it with 200 pounds of gear, harness yourself to it and drag it five miles to the foot of the glacier. After several trips you have it all at the foot of the glacier. You aren’t even started yet. From sea level the glacier climbs in “benches” to its summit a mile up in the air. After two weeks you find yourself at the 3rd bench of the glacier rigging a windlass to lift your gear up onto it.
Around you men die. Some fall into deep crevasses. Some die from over-exertion. Behind you avalanches bury not individual men but parties—groups of men.
Three weeks from the icy beach the shipping companies call Valdez you are at the fourth bench—3,660 feet. And a week later you reach the mile-high summit.
When you get to sit for a moment you try to remember who sold you on the Valdez Glacier route to the Klondike.