Boat Skeletons and Horse Bones

Boat Bones at Deep Lake (photo by Don Rearden ©2010)

I consider myself a student of history, and by that I mean, I'm don't do my homework and I often oversleep the beginning of class. Just kidding. I live in a state with an incredible history. Alaska is hyperbolic it seems in almost everything. From long hot summer days that last an eternity to subzero temperatures that shatter steel and to sentences like this one that are just way over the top. Our history is no different. Some of it seems too incredible to believe.
Take the Chilkoot Trail for instance. A little piece of history that we share with our Canadian friends. Whispers of gold in them thar hills back in the late 1890's led to complete insanity. Hike this thirty-two mile trail (+50K for my Canadian amigos) and you are literally walking through a museum that stretches three or four days. The entire trail is littered with the relics of man's relentless pursuit for gold, adventure, or dreams of something better. I suspect the rusted timepieces have more to do with nightmares than the achievement of those dreams, but then again I'm just a fiction writer and I mostly make stuff up.
Whatever the case, a person just can't walk the Chilkoot trail and not be haunted by the idea of all the souls lost (human and horse) simply for the possibility of a heavy nugget sliding around the bottom of a gold-pan.

Somehow made the Golden Stairs

If you're an able bodied Alaskan or Canadian, I would highly recommend making this hike.  You'll have time along the trail to contemplate what you value in your life and whether there is anything on this planet worth carrying the required amount of supplies a miner was required to haul over "the cruelest 32 miles in the world," including 400 pounds of flour, 200 pounds of bacon, and 100 pounds of beans (to name a few supplies the Canadian Gov't insisted upon).  
For me, the horse bones that seem to litter the entire trail continue to haunt me.  I think about the monstrous mines being developed in Alaska, namely the Pebble and Donlin Creek mines, and I worry that our lust for gold will once again lead us to ride roughshod over the land and the people at any cost.  
Most hikes allow you to reflect upon the value of the wilderness and our relationship with the wild, but few backpacking experiences will linger in your thoughts like the Chilkoot Trail.

"Men shot them, worked them to death and when they were gone, went back to the beach and bought more. . . . Their hearts turned to stone - those which did not break - and they became beasts, the men on the Dead Horse Trail." Jack London