Around Swedish America in 
Day 11 - Skagway
When gold was discovered in the Klondike, by accident, on August 17, 1896, it started an unprecedented rush for riches. In a few years the population of the Canadian Yukon, where gold was found along the Bonanza and Eldorado Rivers, shot from 4 000 to over 40 000. The luck-seekers would pay dearly for supplies and a boat passage in Seattle, often to be robbed when they arrived in the “gangster” town of Skagway.
Here the luck-seekers proceeded by horse along the narrow Dead Horse trail or on foot up the narrow Chilcot Pass and down the “slide” to the law-less Dawson City and finally onto the gold fields. Stampeders were advised that no matter which trail they choose, "You would soon wish you had chosen the other." If you want to see a really funny and also tragically realistic depiction of the time, you should see Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush from 1925.
Nowadays Alaska cruise ships arrive with thousands of passengers who want to get a taste of the gold rush. It is not unusual that as many ships a five dock in Skagway on a busy day. Most of the passengers explore the historic downtown that has been restored with false-fronted buildings and wooden sidewalks. More than a hundred years after the Gold Rush days, Skagway retains its charm and you can almost see how it developed from a rough-and-tumble tent town to a small city with dance halls, inns and saloons. Whenever you dig into the history of the great gold-rushes you are sure to come across several Swedish names. Many of these names have lived on all around Yukon and Alaska. There are even a couple of hundred Inuit who proudly declare themselves to be descendants of August Nelson from Öland. All the Swedes who participated in the First (Klondike) Gold Rush came through Skagway, while the ones in the Second (Port Nome) Gold Rush ventured much, much further north to the tree-less Seward Peninsula. The gold-digging Swedes we know the most about are of course the ones who struck it rich, like Charley Anderson (January 3) and the “Three Lucky Swedes” of whom there have been numerous books and television- and radio programmes. There is even a musical about them performed in Svanskog in Värmland. In the stories and books by George Jacob af Forselle, who was nicknamed “The Count of Alaska”, we also learn about the many Swedes who did not make it. George who left Sweden as a young seaman was shanghaied to Australia as well as quarantined on Hawaii before he joined the gold rush in 1898. For the next 30 years he pursued gold in northern Alaska before returning to Sweden where he continued prospecting. He discovered the gold fields at Candle and was at times a millionaire, but most of the time he lost his money on gambling, whisky and sheer generosity, as quickly as he got it. Through his stories we meet Dave, the barman from Lummelunda and Maja Kry who, under the name of Mae Bale, became the richest woman in the pioneer town of Nome. Many of the adventures of the “Swedish count” have been retold by authors such as Rex Beach and Jack London who gave us the “mythical North” in their fascinating stories about the men who braved the elements in their quest for gold.
Another Swede who had the Klondike Gold Rush to thank for his fortune was Johan Nordström who founded the Nordstrom department store chain. He was born on a small farm in Alvik in Neder Luleå and arrived, only 16 years old, to Ellis Island with five dollars in his pocket and not a word of English in his vocabulary. He had been unhappy with his hard life in Luleå, but the logging and mining jobs he now got were, if anything, even harder to cope with. So it was little wonder that a “Gold” headline in a local newspaper caught his attention. John Nordstrom decided to make his way to the Klondike. After losing money on non-producing stakes, he finally bought a proven gold claim together with two investors. The claim netted more than five million dollars, but not for Nordström and his partners who were forced to sell out because of some very doubtful lawsuits questioning their ownership. In the end Nordström made 13 000 dollars out of the deal, part of which he invested in a shoe store together with his partner Wallin. Today his descendants control 109 full-line department stores, 56 Nordstrom Rack clearance stores, two Jeffrey Boutiques, and two final clearance stores (Last Chance) all located in 28 different states. John Nordstrom's gold claim became the down-payment for the most profitable and the largest independently-owned fashion specialty store chain in the U.S.A.