(ALASKA) Rare visual diary of approximately 95 photographs b

Sale 2233 - Lot 15

Price Realized: $ 7,200

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,500

KLONDYKE OR BUST! (ALASKA)
Rare visual diary of approximately 95 photographs by David West, comprising 55 of gold-rushing Klondykers in the lower Yukon, Canada, including views of prospectors "panning out," scenes of Dawson City, pictures of miners' camps along the tributaries, multiple images of George Carmack (joint-discoverer of the Kyondyke, on board the steamship Roanoke) and the photographer himself, as well as 20 scenes of native life, including pilots on a steamer, an Indian after receiving a death sentence for murder, women and children, a cemetery at Ft. Selkirk, and miscellaneous views of the Yukon River, Bering Sea, and Bennett Rapids. Printing-out-paper prints, 3 3/4x4 1/2 inches (9.5x11.4 cm.), many with West's handwritten captions, in pencil, on mount recto. 1896

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Additional Details

with--Group of 23 rugged photographs, including 11 of the treacherous Chilkoot Trail, and miscellaneous scenes of life in the Alaskan wilderness. Albumen (20) and printing-out-paper (3) prints, 4 3/4x6 1/4 inches (12x15.8 cm.), and smaller, on the original mounts, many are trimmed, and with handwritten captions on mount verso. 1898.

The news that George Washington Carmack, Tagish (Dawson) Charlie Mason and Skookum Jim Mason discoverered gold in Canada, on August 16, 1896, started the great Klondyke rush. The lure of gold brought thousands of hopeful prospectors from around the globe to the north country, and was responsible for one of the largest voluntary mass movements of people in history.

Accompanying the lot is a paper entitled "The Klondyke Gold Rush," illustrated with photographs in this group, which was presented by The Lord Tweedsmuir, to his Excellency J.H. Warren, High Commissioner for Canada, in the Chair. The article clarifies the role played by Carmack and West and also provides a colorful back story against which the narrative of "striking it rich" is set in high relief.