KLONDIKE GOLD RUSH Hikers on the Chilkoot Trail: A Descriptive Report

¹The Sociology Studies Program is jointly sponsored by the National Park Service (Cooperative Park Studies Unit) and the College of Forest Resources (University of Washington). Since its inception in 1970, the NPS Sociology Studies Program in the Pacific Northwest has concentrated on two broad areas of study: 1) regional studies; and 2) park-based studies. Regional studies are designed to promote an understanding of human leisure behavior and participation patterns of people in selected recreation al activities. Such studies help put into perspective park-going as a recreation opportunity in contrast to other outdoor recreation activities. Park-based studies concentrate on park-going publics in an attempt to understand the diversity of people who use parks, their frequency of use, and their behavior while in parks. These studies also focus on the relationship between park management and those human communities adjoining or within park-lands. The data produced by these regional and park-based studies are considered baseline data in that their long-term purpose is to document changes in human leisure behavior and park-going publics. Furthermore, the application of research to resource management is of primary importance and underlies the intent of all these studies (Scott, 1976).

²For our initial publication efforts, see the following: Womble, 1977; Wolf, et. al., 1977/78.

³The National Park Service and National Forest Service have initiated a cooperative research project focusing on outdoor recreation in Alaska.

⁴For an introduction to the backcountry (wilderness) literature, see the following: Lee, 1976; Smith and Krutilla, 1976; Stankey, 1972; Shafer and Mietz, 1969; Hendee, et. al., 1968; Burch and Wenger, 1967; Lucas, 1964; ORRRC, 1962; Stone and Taves, 1958.

⁵For more information on Klondike Gold Rush history, see the following: Bearss, 1970; Berton, 1958 and 1977. For a bibliography of the Chilkoot Trail, see the following: Wells, 1977; Friesen, 1977.

⁶There is disagreement among those knowledgeable in Klondike Gold Rush history as to whether Robert Henderson, not George Carmack and friends, was the one who first discovered the Klondike"s "mother lode."

⁷Alaska is the centerpiece of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, America's newest national park. The park is comprised of four distinct units, each covering a certain aspect of the travel route of the stampeders. First, the Seattle unit (in the state of Washington) consists of an historical building (built in 1898) located at 117 South Main Street, across the street from Occidental Park in Seattle's Pioneer Square historical district. This building houses a National Park Visitor Center which includes some exhibits and an auditorium for various media presentations. The Skagway unit of the new park encompasses an eight-block historical district located in the community's business area. This historical district includes some 55 one- and two-story wooden structures which have been listed on the "National Register of Historic Places." Restoration of these historical buildings will be undertaken by both the public and private sector. Once restored, they will be used as offices, places of business, and homes. Today, Skagway is a thriving, small community. The new national park will become an integral part of this on-going community. The White Pass Trail unit covers some 3,360 acres, one mile wide and five miles long, it goes from the historical site of White Pass City to the summit of White Pass (international boundary) and is bounded by the new highway connecting Skagway with Whitehorse and the White Pass and Yukon Railway's narrow-gauge tracks. The plan is to preserve White Pass City, to develop a campground in the vicinity of this historical site, and to restore the upper part of the historical White Pass Trail and Brackett Road. At present, the White Pass Trail unit can be traveled only by train. Finally, the Chilkoot Trail unit is a corridor of land, one mile wide and 17 miles long, comprising an area of 9,087 acres. It includes the historical Chilkoot Trail as well as the site of the historical town of Dyea. For Dyea, the National Park Service proposes to preserve the historical cemetery and to provide a walk-in campground and appropriate interpretation.

⁸This description of Lindeman is correct for the summer of 1976. During the summer of 1977, however, Parks Canada removed the bunks in each of the cabins and moved the airtight stoves to the center of the cabins. In this way, hikers are encouraged to use the cabins for drying-out, cooking, and socializing, but not for overnight sleep ing.

⁹Peter Womble and Wendy Wolf, graduate students in the College of Forest Resources (University of Washington, Seattle) were the field workers.

¹⁰On a number of occasions, the field workers had difficulty identifying a particular hiking party, for what appeared to be one hiking party was in fact two or more smaller hiking parties. In these situations, the strategy was to have the hikers themselves identify their own hiking party.

¹¹These figures cover the period from May 20 through September 14, 1977. They do not include those hikers who only traveled on the Canadian side of the Trail.

¹²This procedure was implemented by Dave Webb.

¹³The coder was Wendy Wolf.

¹⁴Accurate records as to the number of Chilkoot hikers go back to 1973 when the National Park Service rangers began to patrol the Trail. Figures for 1973-75 were obtained from the yearly reports sent by the rangers to the Superintendent of Glacier Bay National Monument. Each year covers a slightly different summer period:

May 23 through September 28, 1973: 1,070 hikers
May 30 through September 23, 1974: 1,349 hikers
May 21 through September 25, 1975: 1,395 hikers
June 12 through September 14, 1976: 1,516 hikers

¹⁵The exact percentage of hikers for each summer month of 1976 is as follows (N = l,516):

June:	07 percent
July:	32 percent
August:	49 percent
September:	12 percent

¹⁶A major difficulty in comparing the socio-demographic profiles of backcountry studies is the different sampling strategies used by these studies. For example, Hendee, et al., (1968) sampled party leaders, while the ORRRC study (1962) only considered hikers 18 years of age or older. Another problem is that these studies report their socio-demographic characteristics using different categories. An example of this problem is the way age is broken-down.

¹⁷One way of working with age as a variable is to consider the social meanings of roles attached to certain age groupings. The infant (<7) is dependent on older persons for physical sustenance. On the other hand, the juvenile (7-17) is socially dependent on older persons for learning how to perform social roles. Young adults (18-24), although capable of leaving home, are completing their education, beginning their work careers, and looking for mates. For those in the 25 to 49 age grouping, work and child-rearing are the most important determinants of an adult's life. And finally, the older adults (>49) are completing or have completed work and child rearing responsibilities. They find themselves with more leisure time and with a changing physical condition (Cheek and Burch, 1976).

¹⁸A comparison of the sex ratio of the Chilkoot study population with that of other backcountry (wilderness) studies suggests that the difference between the percentage of male and female hikers might have been decreasing over the years, beginning in the early 1960's.

Lee's study represents a random sample of backcountry users in Yosemite National Park. They were observed and provided an on-site questionnaire during the summer of 1973 (Lee, 1975). Shafer's study was a random sample of hikers, 16 years of age or older, visiting Mount Marcy wilderness area and a wilderness area in the White Mountains, who were interviewed in the summer of 1968 (Shafer and Mietz, 1969). The ORRRC study was, likewise, a random sample of hikers, 18 years of age or older, visiting three wilderness areas during the summer of 1960: Mount Marcy, Boundary Waters Canoe Area, High Sierra. They were interviewed and provided a questionnaire (ORRRC, 1962).

¹⁹Of those outside the labor force (30.8 percent), 29.7 percent are students and 1.1 percent are retired.

²⁰Occupations were categorized based on the categories used by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Alphabetical Index of Industries and Occupations, Washington, D.C.: 1971. The reader should be cautious when interpreting the 5.1 percent for unemployed. Respondents were not asked for their employment status but rather their occupation. It is possible that some of the respondents who provided a specific occupation were unemployed at the time of the study. We also coded occupations using Duncan's "socioeconomic index for all occupations" (Duncan, 1967). This index scores occupations on an interval scale from zero to 96 with the upper number representing the highest socioeconomic status. The average score for Chilkoot hikers reporting an occupation (excluding unemployed, homemaker, and military) was 59.2 with a standard deviation of 21.7.

²¹

²²A difficulty with asking hikers their residence was the issue of length of stay and what constituted a person's residence. We found that some hikers were "in transit" and so did not have a genuine residence. Some of the hikers who gave Alaska as their residence were planning to live in Alaska for a year or two and then return south.

²³Other western states: Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado.
Midwestern states: Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio.
Southeastern states: Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, District of Columbia.
Northeastern states: Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts.

²⁴

²⁵Of the Alaskan residents (N = 410), 60 percent were from southeastern Alaska (and six percent were from Skagway). Of the Yukon residents, the vast majority were from Whitehorse.

²⁶

Table 38 suggests that Alaska's National Parks might attract a more national population of backcountry users than Washington's National Parks (and possibly others in the lower 48 states). Data for Table 38 were obtained from the backcountry permit system for the summer of 1976. All hiking parties planning to enter the backcountry in these National Parks for an overnight visit are required to secure a permit. These permits were analyzed by the Sociology Studies Program, College of Forest Resources, University of Washington.

²⁷Of those who had hiked the Trail in previous summers (N = 106), their number of prior trips ranged from one to 21 (plus three who had hiked too often to count). Most of these repeaters had done so on one (63 percent) and two (23 percent) occasions with the average being two trips.

²⁸It would be interesting to compare the accident record on the Chilkoot Trail with that of other recreation areas based on the total number of visitors.

²⁹This is broken-down as follows: Eight respondents wrote "don't know," "don't remember," or "nothing specific;" three indicated maps; two cited the museums of Dawson and Whitehorse; and one heard about the Trail from a recreation equipment catalogue.

³⁰The new Trail guide was just made available to the public in mid-July (1976).

³¹These included a variety of responses such as: "the usual ways;" "Alaska history is one of my hobbies;" "spent a lot of time in Mother Lode Country in Sierra Nevada—learned generally of the trends of the gold rush in America."

³²At least 30 percent of the study population were members of outdoor clubs and/or conservation organizations, while close to eight percent were members of historical associations. At least four hikers indicated membership in the following 25 outdoor clubs or conservation organizations (the number of hikers indicating membership is in parentheses):

Alaska Conservation Society (11)
Alaska Prospectors Society (6)
Alpine Club of Canada (7)
Audubon (40)
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts (46)
Bruce Trail Association (10)
Canadian Wildlife Federation (6)
Canadian Youth Hostel (15)
Cousteau Society (5)
Cross Country Ski Club of Anchorage (4)
Federation of Ontario Naturalists (5)
Friends of the Earth (4)
Greenpeace (7)
Mazamas (12)
Mountaineers (7)
National Geographic (6)
National Parks and Conservation Association (5)
National Rifle Association (6)
National Wildlife Federation (29)
Nordic Skiing (5)
Outward Bound (4)
Ranger Rick (8)
Recreational Equipment Inc. (6)
Sierra Club (81)
Southeast Alaska Conservation Society (4)

Eighty-four other outdoor clubs were named by 120 hikers. These included, in order of popularity: hiking, mountaineering, trail clubs; skiing clubs; canoeing, kayaking, sailing clubs; outing clubs; and sporting associations. Seventy-three environmental, conservation, or nature study groups were also mentioned by 104 respondents.

Eleven hikers felt "spiritually in tune" with such groups but were not members at the time.

Only six historical associations were named by more than four hikers (the number of hikers indicating membership is in parentheses):

Alaska State Historical Society (7)
Heritage Canada (4)
National Geographic (5)
National Trust for Historical Preservation (6)
Pioneers of Alaska (4)
Smithsonian (10)

The rest of those named were local societies, which were numerous.

³³It should be noted that the Chilkoot Trail is one of the few maintained hiking routes of any length in the region and is used by local citizens and visitors to the area who want a good backpacking experience.

³⁴Respondents were provided with three descriptions from which they had to choose one. This question was answered after hiking the Trail.

³⁵All of the data referring to "the hike" come from the questionnaires (N = 1,352). For some of the questions, however, we assumed that members of a hiking party participated together. So for these questions, we have data for most of the 1,516 hikers, obtaining the information for non-respondents from respondents of the same party. In the event that none of the members of a party had returned their questionnaires, we had no information on these hikers.

³⁶As of the summer of 1976, the modern record for hiking the Trail was 10.5 hours established in 1974.

³⁷Some of the camping information came from a map, so some error must be expected on the part of the respondent in locating the campsite on the map, and on the part of the coder in interpreting the marked map. Also, the figures for Dyea and Bennett must be read with caution since we believe that many hikers who camped at either of these places did not indicate such on the questionnaire because they felt it was not part of the hike.

³⁸Respondents had some difficulty interpreting the word "used": to sleep, to cook, to dry-out, to socialize. We feel that respondents generally took the word to mean whether they slept in the shelter. So the percentages in Table 25 should be read as the number of hikers who slept in the particular shelter.

³⁹See footnote #10 for a brief discussion regarding the difficulty in identifying the hiking parties.

⁴⁰The 24 "organized" hiking parties were the larger parties. The following is a list of these organized parties (with party size in parentheses):

National Geographic film crew (16)
Boy Scouts from Illinois (15)
"Infinite Odyssey" (10)
Faro Recreation Association (7)
Klondike Safaris (22) (10) (18) (33) (27)
Wolf Creek Juvenile Home (7)
Boy Scouts from British Columbia (4)
Girl Scouts from California (29)
Sierra Club from California (24)
University of Wisconsin geology field trip (10)
Methodist Church youth group from Alaska (11)
Boy Scouts from Alaska (12)
Youth Advocates from Alaska (10) (5)
Tour group from Germany (21)
Canadian Armed Forces (18)
Carcross Community Education Center (8) (8) (6)
Mazamas from Oregon (15)

⁴¹Some respondents (14 percent) had difficulty providing one main reason for the visit.

⁴²We do not mean to completely ignore residents of the Far North in this discussion. They were not included in order to facilitate the discussion in this section. This discussion, however, also pertains to these hikers. The Far North is a large area, full of recreation places for residents to visit. For many Alaskans, Whitehorse or Dawson was a first taste of the Yukon. Similarly, many Whitehorse residents hiking the Trail were experiencing Alaska for the first time. Some residents of Anchorage or Fairbanks who hiked the Trail were seeing southeastern Alaska for the first time. Thus even for some residents of the Far North, the Chilkoot hike was part of a larger travel itinerary.

⁴³One difficulty in interpreting the answers to these evaluations is that we are unable to know to what extent these answers also represent preferences. For example, if a respondent evaluated the physical condition of the Canyon City shelter as "average," we do not know whether the respondent was saying that the shelter was rustic (and therefore "average," which was his or her preference); or whether the respondent noticed some faults with the shelter, (e.g., broken-down wood stove) which were not to his or her liking and therefore evaluated the shelter as 'average" (less than ideal or "excellent").

⁴⁴A number of hikers commented that there was confusion with the wording of the management options in Tables 30 and 31 (questions #18 through 21 in the questionnaire) in terms of their change in emphasis from negative to positive. This indicates that some respondents probably did not read these questionnaire items carefully when responding.

⁴⁵Those respondents who stated that they were unprepared for the Chilkoot hike in terms of hiking equipment listed the following reasons:

a) Fifty-six respondents mentioned boots, either the need for boots or specifically the need for lug-soled, hard-toed, waterproofed, or broken-in boots.

b) Forty respondents commented on the need for improved raingear, some stating that ponchos were inadequate when windy or when scrambling on rocks.

c) Twenty-six hikers felt they needed a better tent, either with a rainfly or a lighter tent.

d) Twenty-four hikers wrote that they had too much equipment, making for a heavy pack.

e) Twenty-three respondents wished they had brought different clothing, mentioning such things as more socks, warmer clothing, gloves, hats, and gaiters.

f) Eighteen hikers felt a better-fitting pack would have lessened the hike's burden.

g) Seventeen respondents wished they had brought crampons, an ice-ax, and rope for the Pass.

h) Ten hikers failed to bring a stove.

i) And the remainder mentioned an assortment of equipment which they had brought but whose performance left much to be desired.

Some of the hikers who felt unprepared in terms of equipment for the hike felt their hiking inexperience or the suddenness of their decision to hike the Trail were reasons for such.

⁴⁶Some respondents indicated confusion about whether they should respond to the policy of limiting party size or of limiting the size to 12. In other words, they may have been in favor of limiting party size, but disagreed with the number 12. They preferred a smaller or larger maximum party size. It should be noted that only 2.2 percent of the hiking parties on the Trail in the summer of 1976 were larger than 12.

⁴⁷In the summer of 1976, a small A-frame was set-up by Parks Canada between the Pass and Crater Lake for use by the Trail staff. On occasions, this facility was also used by hikers.