digital art of Chilkoot Trail, Alaska & a 20-minute harmonica solo. Canyon City was a boom town phenomenon that sprung up in the midst of the Gold Rush "stampede" of 1898 when gold was discovered at Rabbit Creek in the Dawson area of what is now Canada hundreds of miles to the North.
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At the end of the sea passage to the gold fields and only several miles away from the port boom town of Dyae, it served as the final serious staging point for the arduous 30-mile trek to Lake Bennett, where the miners would build sail boats after the spring thaw to sail the rest of the way to Dawson. Canyon City was almost the place of what might have been the Alaskan transportation system, cable cars, to get the miners over the summit of the "Golden Staircase" the lowest point of the coastal mountain range. But, the powerful man who opposed the railroad in nearby White Pass, Jeff Smith, was killed in a shoot out (though some evidence points to death from assassination from another shooter under cover) and almost overnight Dyae and the Chilkoot Trail were abandoned and Modern Day Canyon City is no more than a photograph on a pedestal along a well-kept path way maintained by the US and Canadian park services for visitors to this day.
Harmonica solo: original music by me: Paul A. L. Hall.
Photography: original photos by me (Paul A. L. Hall, once again) on a hike along the gold rush era Chilkoot Trail out of Dyae, Alaska.
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