After The Gold Rush

A Stanford University Press classic.

After the Gold Rush begins in January 1926, when the ship carrying Robert Dahl steams into the harbor in Skagway, Alaska. The ten-year-old boy has been traveling for over a week with his mother and two brothers from the tiny town in northwest Iowa where he was born. As the ship’s crew prepares to dock, the brothers eagerly scan the wharf for a glimpse of their father, who arrived a few weeks earlier to become the town’s only physician. Driven by hopes of finding Yukon gold, thousands had once passed through Skagway. By the time of the Dahl family’s arrival in 1926, the population had shrunk to five hundred. Although some buildings remaining from the Gold Rush days made sections of Skagway look like a ghost town, the young boy from the plains of Iowa was entranced by the wild beauty of the surrounding mountains, which he would explore in the years to come. In this highly personal tale of Robert Dahl ́s years in Skagway, we meet the people of the town—at school, at work, at play, hunting and fishing. We meet town "characters," a few remaining from the Gold Rush days, others whose drifting had ended in Skagway. We meet Tlingit Indians, who were made "outcasts in their own land" by the visible and invisible barriers of small-town life. The author concludes with the hope that "this lovely piece of our world will be preserved as long as human beings, and our fellow creatures who inhabit those splendid mountains, valleys, forests, rivers, streams, and, yes, even the glaciers, continue to live on this earth."

"Art of the Gold Rush" features drawings and oil paintings of images of the scenery, people, and activity surrounding the 80,000 travelers to California in search of golden nuggets.

After the Gold Rush is a collection of two wilderness stories set at the turn of the twentieth century in Canada’s Yukon Territory. Dawson is an entertaining story based on life after the Klondike Gold Rush. It is the story of a family who moves from a wilderness cabin in the forest, where they trapped fur, to a more suburban life. The couple inherit a home from their Aunt Bev, a long-time, Indigenous resident of Dawson. Folow the lives of Wendy and Jason, the new homeowners, as they continue the ways of their predecessor, entertaining family and friends who live and trap fur in the surrounding area. Share their adventure to Skagway, Alaska, as they accompany a barge of goods back to Dawson for their friend, Samuel. Black Hawk and White Dove is a story of love and adventure. The recently married, Indigenous couple begin their life together in a cabin deep in the forest. With help from their fellow trappers, the newlyweds learn how to survive in this harsh and unforgiving land. Follow Black Hawk and White Dove’s daily routines as they learn the ways of the bush and how nature controls the lives of those who live there. Both stories are fascinating tales, which truly capture the spirit of the Yukon. Readers are sure to enjoy these family adventures of life in a rugged land, filled with love and hope.

A dramatic history of a group of families in post-gold rush California who turned to agriculture when mining failed. “It is a glorious country,” exclaimed Stephen J. Field, the future U.S. Supreme Court justice, upon arriving in California in 1849. Field’s pronouncement was more than just an expression of exuberance. For an electrifying moment, he and another 100,000 hopeful gold miners found themselves face-to-face with something commensurate to their capacity to dream. Most failed to hit pay dirt in gold. Thereafter, one illustrative group of them struggled to make a living in wheat, livestock, and fruit along Putah Creek in the lower Sacramento Valley. Like Field, they never forgot that first “glorious” moment in California when anything seemed possible. In After the Gold Rush, David Vaught examines the hard-luck miners-turned-farmers—the Pierces, Greenes, Montgomerys, Careys, and others—who refused to admit a second failure, faced flood and drought, endured monumental disputes and confusion over land policy, and struggled to come to grips with the vagaries of local, national, and world markets. Their dramatic story exposes the underside of the American dream and the haunting consequences of trying to strike it rich. “An excellent history of farming in the Sacramento Valley in the late nineteenth century.” —California History “Vaught tells a riveting story of two generations of farmers who “committed themselves not only to the market but to community life as well.” He argues that these twin commitments, born of their failures in the gold fields, were an essential part of the culture of American capitalism that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century.” —Business History Review “Vaught set himself the goal of writing a “new” rural history of California, examining the state’s wheat farmers in their social and cultural contexts. In After the Gold Rush, he achieves his goal admirably.” —Journal of American History “An agricultural history that weaves together an unpredictable creek, a fluctuating market, and the perseverance of the American Dream.” —Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2008 Winner of the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association

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In 1858, reports of gold found on the Fraser River spurred tens of thousands of people--mostly men--to rush into the territory we now call British Columbia. They came with visions of fortune in their eyes. The lucky ones struck it rich, but most left penniless or died trying for the motherlode. Some stayed behind and helped build the colony and the province of British Columbia.

Newbery Medalist Avi brings us mud-caked, tent-filled San Francisco in 1848 with a willful heroine who goes on an unintended — and perilous — adventure to save her brother. Victoria Blaisdell longs for independence and adventure, and she yearns to accompany her father as he sails west in search of real gold! But it is 1848, and Tory isn’t even allowed to go to school, much less travel all the way from Rhode Island to California. Determined to take control of her own destiny, Tory stows away on the ship. Though San Francisco is frenzied and full of wild and dangerous men, Tory finds freedom and friendship there. Until one day, when Father is in the gold fields, her younger brother, Jacob, is kidnapped. And so Tory is spurred on a treacherous search for him in Rotten Row, a part of San Francisco Bay crowded with hundreds of abandoned ships. Beloved storyteller Avi is at the top of his form as he ushers us back to an extraordinary time of hope and risk, brought to life by a heroine readers will cheer for. Spot-on details and high suspense make this a vivid, absorbing historical adventure.