Chilkoot Pass : "The Golden Stairs"

Fig 1 : Klondikers carrying supplies ascending the Chilkoot Pass

Chilkoot Pass, also called "The Golden Stairs", had became the emblematic trail of the Klondike Gold Rush. Many photographs had been taken of the long line of stampeder climbing the Coast Moutains.

Here is a long extract from the book by Pierre Berton, who describes the creation of the Golden Stairs. It explained how the Golden Stairs were cut, and the path organized for the stampeders to use.

The first steps were chopped out of the last one hundred and fifty feet of climb, where the going was so steep that one stampeder compared it "to scaling the walls of a house." Two partners cut the steps out with axes in a single night and collected more than eighty dollars a day in tolls. [...] But other came after them to cut more steps and to charge more tolls until there were fifteen hundred steps cut in the mointainside, with a rope balustrade alongside and little shelves where men could step out of line and rest their packs. Yet few stepped out, because a man might have to wait all day before slipping back into place. Each paid his tolls in the morning to climb the "Golden Stairs", as the stampeders called them, and for this set fee could use these stairs as many times as necessary until nightfall. Most used them only once a day, for it took them six hours to climb a thousand feet encumbered by a fifty-pound pack, and fifty pounds was as much as the average man could handle. 

The path was less dangerous than difficult and exhausting for the gold prospectors. The path had been thought and exploited : stairs were cut, a rope had been placed to make the stampeders progression easier, etc. Chilkoot Pass was first a shortcut through the mountain, to make the path to the gold field quicker and more easy to access. It was one of the two pathes more used at the time by stampeders going on foot to the Klondike Region. Because of the mass of people using it, it had evolved with the time.

In this extract, we can see the pass, without any steps nor rope; nevertheless, the mass of people trying to reach the top of the mountain is still impressive. From that, we could form several suposition. First, the movie had depicted the early time of the Klondike Gold Rush, when the Golden Stairs were not yet a thing and the stampeders were still struggling to pass it. The passage is not yet organized, which conveyed a slightly different impression of the passage. In this scene, the spectator can see what seemed to be a never-ending file of stampeders, overburden trying to reach the top. The slow march, the sound and the different interaction between the stampeders (" ") created a feeling of struggle, of hard work. When I watched this scene, I had the impression to see real immigrant trying to reach another country, which had not been the case when I watched White Fand and the extract on the Chilkoot Pass. Indeed, what is really impressiv in this scene is more the number of gold prospector represented on the screen than the actual pass. It must be linked to the technical difficulties of the time (1972), when it must have been tricky to represent the Golden Stairs as it was at the time (not as high, not as slopping).
However, if the movie chose to make Buck go through this pass, I personnaly found it a bit strange, and probably not entierly possible. I search in the novel for a trace of that passage, and I didn't find any proof that Buck actually took  the Chilkoot Pass. If in the novel, geographical place are mentioned, they are not throughtfully depicted, so I may be wrong. However, as we can see on the picture, the Golden Stairs were more steep than shown in the movie, therefore it would have been difficult for the postal worker to transport six dogs plus the supply up the pass, and a long time, for already took many hours for a stampeders to carry a part of his supply on his back. Even if dogs must have taken this passage, I think it was one or two dogs per prospector, not a whole team of sledge dog. So why the movie decided to represent the Chilkoot Pass ? Mostly for the strong and emblematic image it was for the Klondike Gold Rush. It surely represent how difficult it was for the prospectors to reach the gold field.
Another thing in this extract is the interaction between two random prospectors and the main characters : "How long have you been out of Skagway? -Six days! -You are lucky, It took us forty-five days to get here." Here, we can see the obvious difference between them, the dog being a huge help for the mail men. However, I could not tell if the time gap is historically correct, for I have not found the average lenght of the journey on foot. It must vary for each prospector and depend on many factors.
I said that the Chilkoot Pass was not yet organized in this extract, which is not totally true. We can see at the botom of the pass tents, and a lot of stampeders who seemed to rest or to prepare for the next day. We can also see several prospector making a stop during their ascention, saying that they'll here for the night. If people could stop when doing up the pass, it was not common, for it was then hard to get back on line, moreover, due to the slopping, it would have been difficult to established a small camp to sleep.

In this extract from the movie White Fang, we can see a different representation of the Chilkoot Pass, and the technical difficulties seemed to have been overpassed. The Golden Stairs fit quite well the pass shown on the pictures. We can see the stairs cut in the ice, the rope, the stampeders loaded with supply, carrying them on their back, the long line, the wait, etc. However, it still lack an historical something which, I think, would have change the vision of the path.

Fig 2 : 

The feelings conveyed in this extract are clearly impressive, the mountain appeared gigantic, and the path even more hard to climb. However, the stairs still appears as a one-way route. Once Jack reach the top, the hardship seemed to be over, like an hard obstacle to be overcome. In reality, stampeders often had to take several time the stairs to carry all of their supply, therefore, they had to go down the pass too, a series of slide were craved in the ice near the stairs.
Men and women even offered they services to carry the supplies of the stampeders up the trail. In these two extract, Chilkoot Pass is more represented as an obstacle than an actual route were prospector had to go up and down and up again. This created a more adventurous aspect of the path in the movie than in reality.

Chilkoot tramway.

Fig 3 : Aerial tram, possibly the Dyea-Klondike Transp.
Company (Source : E. Heggs, 1898) 

The Chilkoot Trails tramway, an aerial tramway, had been constructed around 1897 to make the journey to Dawson City even more easy for the stampeders. It would allowed them to carry their supply and themselves pass the Chilkoot pass.
So why not showing the tramway in the movie, or use it in the novel ? Several reasons. First because it was luxury, which mean that it was expensive, therefore - once again - since the majority of the stampeders were not wealthy, they could not afford it. But the main reason I believe, it is because it is not worthy of a story. The easy way to an adventure is not worthy of a story, and do not belong in a novel or a movie about the difficult task of the prospectors. Moreover, since the movie is not meant to be an exact representation of the historical facts, but mostly an adventure, a tramway would not have been interesting to show. It is way less impressive than the actual Golden Stairs.

Source :

1. Pierre Berton, Klondike, The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 (1958),  Canada, Anchor Canada, 2001 pp. 196-197
2. Randal Kleiser, dir. White Fang. Walt Disney Pictures, 1991
3. Cantwell, George G. (1900) - The Klondike, a souvenir, [Photographs] Rufus Bucks Publisher, Seattle, 1900  Retrieved fromLibrary University Washington
4. Heggs, Eric A. (1989) A stanpeder prepared to slide down the Chilkoot Pass [Photograph]
5. Heggs, Eric A. - ca. (1898) Aerial tram carrying freight including a canoe, Chilkoot Pass, Alaska. [Photograph] Retrieved from Library University Washington