Historian Michael Gates to give presentation about the Dalton gold rush trail at KBPV

Curator Farley S. Wuth, Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village

The evening of Thursday, October 24 promises to be an exciting historical event here at the Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village.  A presentation entitled “Dalton’s Gold Rush Trail: Exploring the Route of the Klondike Cattle Drives, the theme chronicles a half forgotten but important chapter in the history of the Canadian far north from well over a century ago.  Often overshadowed in history by those memorable tales of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897, the heroic efforts of explorer and businessman Jack Dalton in establishing an earlier overland route through the Yukon wilderness offers spellbinding tales of pioneer adventures that rival those of the Chilkoot Pass.  These are historical stories not to be missed.


Archaeologist and Historian Michael Gates, who will be presenting this illustrated talk has painstakingly researched and compiled the evidence of Jack Dalton’s unique contributions to Canadian and American history.  Gates has worked in both professions in the Yukon Territory over the past forty years and has combed local museums, archives and libraries in search for those historical truths.  His research has been extensively supplemented by field work where he has unearthed and checked the archaeological evidence of Dalton’s Trail, retracing much of its rugged route.  Gates’ entertaining and informative talk weaves together the historical chronicles supplemented by his own stories of how he has discovered the physical remains of that innovative route through the northern Canadian frontier.

Re-live the exciting chronicles of the Dalton Trail

Jack Dalton (1856 – 1944) was an America born adventurer who grew up hearing of harrowing tales of the developing American and Canadian Wests.  Raised in Michigan, he first became fascinated with the westward agricultural and railroad advancement in his own country.  But soon he learned of intriguing adventures in the far distant Canadian Northwest: the challenging exploits of the fur trade and one of its conglomerates, the Hudson’s Bay Company, the peacekeeping role of the famed Northwest Mounted Police and the unique historical and geographic mixture of the fur trade, Mounties, culture of the First Nations and the possibilities of economic harvests in the far northern reaches of the continent, that rough mountainous terrain bordering the Yukon and Alaskan territories.  These far northern areas piqued Dalton’s interest.

The biggest claim of this pioneer explorer of the Canadian and American North was the Dalton Trail, used extensively for the three years following its completion in 1897.  The pack train route only met its demise with the completion of the Yukon and White Pass Railway and was very popular with fellow adventurers in those pre-mechanized days of frontier travel.  It was said that more than two-hundred pack horses in a single train were common place.  Jack Dalton began his arduous work on this trail some six years earlier, convinced that he could open up the Haines area with an innovative use of freighting.  His believe was that horses had not been used as extensively as they should have been in terms of bringing in people and supplies into the far north country.  A very roughly hewn trail was surveyed and cut through the wilderness over a two year period starting in 1892.  A series of strategically placed posts and caches, where supplies were stored, helped facilitate the trail’s use.  The trail had its physical challenges, perils which were aggravated by a handful of frontier settlers who were opposed to the trail’s construction and use.  One shop keeper in particular, a Dan McGinnis, worked with the Chilkat Tlingit to deny access for the trail through their natives’ traditional territories.  A scene from the American Wild West erupted as McGinnis’ trading post when Jack Dalton came roaring in, shooting his opponent with a firearm.  Although Dalton was charged, he was subsequently acquitted.

These events were a culmination of frontier chronicles.  As early as the mid 1880s, Dalton set out for the far north in what was to become a series of adventures.  The first was the unsuccessful 1886 attempt to climb Mount Saint Elias, a trek on which Dalton was the camp cook.  Some four years later, Jack Dalton worked on the expedition sponsored by American based Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper which tentatively mapped that vast frontier between the Yukon and the Alaskan coastline to the southwest, largely unknown to the outside world but extensively utilized by the local First Nations, many of them members of the Chilkat Tlingit.  Local natives served as guides and often allowed the party use of their camps and communities and this gained the Dalton crew extensive insights into the region’s transportation and trade routes.  Fort Selkirk, the old trading post abandoned earlier, was even noted by the explorers.  The massive stone fireplaces remained as the pre-dominate archaeological evidence of a bygone chapter in fur trading history.

Truly these are tales from the wild frontier which are bound to keep audiences spellbound!

Please join us for what promises to be a great evening of history here at the Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village.  The presentation is Thursday 24th October 2013 starting at 7 p.m.  Admission is free but donations to KBPV are always welcome.


For more information, please contact us at 403-627-3684.  Copies of Michael Gates’ book will be available for sale at the event.

We would like to thank Michael Gates for coming down from the Yukon for this much anticipated talk, and for fellow historian Donna Zwicker and the Chinook Country Chapter of the Historical Society of Alberta for their assistance in organizing this event.