Why Is It Hard To Explore Alaska's Geography?

The 2,200 mile trek to the Gold Rush in 1849 took a long time for them to get to California. They could not replenish their resources and supplies on the journey. It started of with the Gold Rush in North Carolina in 1799 and then the Georgia Gold Rush happen in 1828. Gold at the time was the most valuable gem in the world, once people found gold they will make a great quality of money. Some challenges people faced when traveling to the California Gold Rush were the long journey, the lack of resources, and the spread of diseases.

In A Woman Who Went to Alaska, it takes a differnt perspective of teh Klondike gold rush as to focusing on

In the article “Race to the Klondike”, the author goes in explicit detail about the mind-boggling challenges faced during the Gold Rush, including the treacherous journey. The travel was arguably the most gruelling part of the Gold Rush, the

California was a land with many possibilities at least that’s what the forty niners thought. In 1848 the gold deposits of California were discovered and the news spread across the world. But on December 5 1848 the president of the United States gave a speech about the gold to encourage western expansion. About 53,000 americans traveled to California during the gold rush. The forty niners had to face many challenges on their way to California such as their journey over sea, their journey over land, and how they were going to make money.

The easiest and more expensive route to the gold fields was by boat upstream from the mouth of the Yukon in western Alaska. The most difficult route was the "All Canadian Route" from Edmonton and overland through the wilderness.

Another way of attaining territory is to buy it. Russian Alaska is vast untamed wilderness was ridiculed as a dreary waste of glaciers, ice, white bears, and walruses.” But U.S. Secretary of State William H.

One of the better known and first documentations found pertaining to the gold rush would be the account of James Marshall, in which he had been looking for the right piece of land to build his sawmill. Once he found the right area to build the sawmill, he set up camp. After a day or so went by, he had noticed shiny pieces of some unknown substance in the river near his encampment. As it turned out, these pieces were gold,"Boys, by God I believe I have found a gold mine.” (Holliday, 58). This story circled the globe far and wide, causing many to flock from all corners of the world in order to experience what James Marshall had gotten by pure accident.

To get to alaska people take many routes, like the all water route, the all Canadian route or the Skagway(Dyea) route. The all water Route is expensive but a safer way to alaska, it goes from seattle and goes through the gulf of Alaska to get to St. Michael's which is a couple days walk from Dawson. The Canadian route comes from the south west of dawson river though Canada, this is a foot route and it’s very dangerous. The Skagway, another foot Route, walks along the Pacific ocean up to Dawson city. That is the most common Route to Dawson city.

Gold-seekers who made the decision to travel to California had limited options for their journey. There were very few roads and transportation methods at the time. The choice was to take either the sea route or a 2,000-mile walk across the outback. The sea voyage took four to six months forcing the ships to travel from the east coast of the United States around the Cape Horn in South America to California. Seasickness was rampant; food was full of bugs, or worse - rancid. Water stored for months in a ship's hold was almost impossible to drink ("The Gold Rush"). The risk of malaria and cholera was evident when passengers got sick through the food and water that was provided. There were also times when passengers were stranded because ferries in the Pacific were very rare, so they had to wait for weeks, even months, for a ferry up to San Francisco (Upham). Other than the sea route, gold-seekers could take the California-Oregon Trail. When planning the journey to the west, many purchased journals to write their thoughts of missed loved ones and family as well as describing encounters of malaria and cholera, oceans and desert, and violence from Indians or fellow miners ("Photographing the California Gold Rush"). Many travelers were worried about attacks

First “ Gold-rushers slept on wooden berths, usually three men per bunk, on platforms that were stacked one above the other. Meals aboard ship were dreadful. Without refrigeration, the meats — salt pork and dried beef — rotted, the biscuits became moldy, and the beans were infested with bugs. Fresh produce spoiled and had to be thrown away.” (Seffer 9). With people coming down scurvy and other diseases many didn’t make it all the way to California. Second “At the beginning of the gold rush, the preferred ocean route was around Cape Horn. The trip, however, was brutal. Passengers broiled near the equator and froze near the Antarctic. Living quarters aboard ship were dirty, smelly, and crowded.” (Seffer 9). With the living quarters on the ships being so awful because of the poor conditions and lack of resources many passengers that were traveling by land complained about the ships faults. Lastly with thousands of people prepared and anxious to get to California, numerous ships were needed to take the argonauts but the broken-down old ships that had been left for years were patched up and sent to sea with argonauts crammed onto the ships. Having been put on ships that weren't well built many many people suffered from seasickness when bad storms rolled in. These are only some of the difficult times people had to go through when traveling by

“How does the geography of Alaska make it difficult to explore and settle:” both during the Klondike gold rush and still today?” Well, to start this off simple, the cold. The cold is one of the key things, if not the most important reason in this essay. Sometimes in Alaska it can go below freezing, and the cold seems like a very simple answer at first, but! They need to settle, work, and climb in it, the things that they need to do to get what they need, in this case oil, it will not be a very simple job. And most of the time they come back empty handed, so the payoff is worth it, and the money they waste is not the thing they worry about. Because sometimes they go home empty handed, but sometimes they don’t come home at all. And it’s more than you think.

The earliest archaeological sites of the historic period in Alaska date to the mid-to-late 1700s, when Alaska was part of Russia following its "discovery" by Vitus Bering in 1741. Vitus Jonassen Bering also known as “Ivan Ivanovich Bering” was a Danish born (August 5, 1681) explorer in the Russian service, has the credit for being the first European to discover Alaska. Thus giving the name between Russia and Alaska the “Bering Straight.” Most stories focus on the summer of 1741 when he discovered Alaska. Relatively few archaeological sites are known from the Russian-America period that ended in 1867 with the

“My god, don’t shoot”, was a famous quote stated by the one and only Soapy Smith. The 100,000 people that went to the Klondike were known as the common people, who were looking for gold. They mainly went in the late 1800’s, in the Klondike of Alaska. Why did they go, you might ask? The gold seekers went to strike it rich and find gold to become rich. It was a treacherous journey, so they went by boat, train, or they walked.

In 1968, the great quantities of oil and gas discovered beneath Alaska’s North Slope, overlooking Prudhoe Bay, subsequently led to the construction of the Trans-Alaska pipeline to Valdez in 1974. This increased communication links and trade links and therefore brought in vast amounts of money for the economy and until 1990, oil and natural gas still provided 85% of Alaska’s gross state product. As personal wealth and length of leisure time are increasing, people are beginning to seek out new, more exotic locations. For example, tourism in Alaska has become a vital industry, attracting almost 1.1 million people per year.

“Looking for Alaska” is a young adult fiction book written by John Green. This book is about a boy who decides to move to Alabama and falls in love with a girl who changes his life. The theme of this book is that all human beings find themselves from the people who come their way. Meaning, the people in one’s life will construct the path of one’s own self-discovery. In order to build on the theme, the author has used many elements to support it. The author manipulates characterization, setting, conflict and symbolism in order to build the theme of Self-Discovery. These elements build on each other to make up the