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Stock# 108482
Description

Alaskan Gold Rush Guidebook

With a Map of the Seward Peninsula

A rare, illustrated book and map concerning Nome and the Seward Peninsula issued to supply information about the Nome Gold Rush. Not to be confused with the same author's Nome "souvenir" book, Nome and Seward Peninsula: History, Description, Biographies and Stories (1905). The present publication is illustrated with over 100 photographic views in the text by professional photographers O. D. Goetz, B. B. Dobbs, and F. H. Nowell. Describes the physical features of the country in Northwestern Alaska, the mining districts (Nome, Council, Kougarok, Port Clarence, Fairhaven, the Kobuk Region, Nome Beach, and the Kuskokwim), with many photographic views of the towns and mining areas. Methods of mining covered, including quartz mining, are described, hydraulic mining, equipment and the like. Also includes politics in Alaska, Alaskan dogs, etc.

The folding map of the Seward Peninsula was compiled from government surveys and J. F. Monroe, and engraved in Seattle by Benson-Morris Co. A small inset map of Alaska appears within a circular border in the lower left of the map sheet. The map shows the Sawtooth Range, York Mountains, Golovin Sound, Port Clarence Bay, Nome, and most of the smaller towns as well as roads, rivers and lakes.

A substantial "Addendum" appears at the end of the present issue (pages 113-132), which describes the progress of the 1905 season: railroads extended, the Jess Creek Eldorado, proposed Alaskan fair, etc. The author initially circulated only part of the print run, then added this additional material to the copies that remained with the binder:

This book was printed during the early part of the summer of 1905. The edition comprises 21,000 copies. Three thousand copies were bound and put in circulation, and the remainder of the edition was left in the bindery.... I have just returned from that land of wonderful mineral wealth, and am preparing to write an addendum to the first publication.

The first state of the edition (with only 112 pages and no addendum) is extraordinarily rare. Indeed Gary Kurutz, in his exhaustive Klondike & Alaska Gold Rushes Bibliography, only located a single example, "whereas [all] other copies [examined] included the addendum."

One of the full-page illustrations shows Alaska's Biggest Gold Nugget (shown actual size).

Harrison, one of Nome's most important authorities.... He later moved back to Seattle... The addendum provides valuable information on the previous season's work, new gold strikes, recent amendments to mining laws, and extension of the railroad - Kurutz.

Nome Gold Rush

The Nome Gold Rush (1899-1909) commenced in September 1898, when the "Three Lucky Swedes": Norwegian-American Jafet Lindeberg, and two American citizens of Swedish birth, Erik Lindblom and John Brynteson, discovered gold on Anvil Creek and founded Nome mining district. Several men around the trading post at Golovin were early participants, including Missionary minster Nils Hultberg, a doctor, A. N. Kittilsen, sometimes manager of the reindeer station at Port Clarence. On one prospecting venture in the summer of 1898, Hultberg, mining engineer H.L. Blake (who would later make a report to Congress on the Nome Gold Rush in June 1900), John Brynteson and others discovered gold on the Snake River; Hultberg also later claimed to have found gold at Anvil Creek at this time, but did not tell Blake, an episode reported to Congress by Blake through the testimony of Dan. H. MacDonald, the likely author of this map and guide.

News of the discovery reached the outside world that winter. By 1899, Nome had a population of 10,000, many of whom had arrived from the Klondike gold rush area. In that year, gold was found in the beach sands for dozens of miles along the coast at Nome, which spurred the stampede to new heights.

Rarity

This book is quite rare. No recent RBH entries for this book, with only 2 examples noted: Soliday Sale in 1945 and Peter Decker catalogue in 1944.

Condition Description
Octavo. Original blue and white pictorial wrappers (map of NW Alaska on cover with sled dog team illustration). Some wear to wrappers. Spine ends a bit chipped. [8],132,[12, ads] pages. Folding map laid in. Complete. Profusely illustrated with halftone photographic images. Some age-toning to map sheet, some offsetting. Foreword page covered with juvenile pencil scribblings. Else very good.
Reference
Kurutz, Klondike & Alaska: 239. Smith 4109. Tourville 1970. Wickersham 1521. Arctic Bibliography 6697. Soliday Sale, part I: 1047.