Our Alaskan Sisters Up In the Klondike Country, 1898

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Hand coloured stereoview of three young women and a child in the snow. All are wearing fur parkas. Inscription recto: Our Alaskan Sisters Up In the Klondike Country. Copyrighted, 1 898 T.W. Ingersoll. Inscription verso: Our Alaskan Sister up in the Klondike Country // As the Klondike is not far from the Arctic regions, intense cold prevails during the seven months of the year, varied by furious snow storms, which begin in September and occur up to May. The ground is frozen from 3 to 6 feet deep during most of the year, and the only way to get at the gold is to build a fire, break up the thawing soil with a pick and wash the broken soil, as soon as the short warm season comes, in running water. The Yukon freezes 9 feet deep in a cold that sinks to 50 degrees below zero at times. The ground near the Yukon thaws to a depth of 3 feet in summer, but below that there remains a frozen layer of from 6 to 12 feet thick, so that no trees can grow there, but only shrubs and dwarf spruce and willows. Fur animals are very numerous; the sea otter, marten, sable, muskrat and foxes in great variety. The blue fox is regularly bred for its costly fur. Furs are the proper and exclusive material for the garments of the natives of Alaska, cut alike for male and female wearers. Show more