In June, 1897, Carl Sandburg was nineteen years old, weighed one hundred and forty-two pounds, was nearly fully grown and restless. He didn't see any future in the jobs he had been working. He decided to head west and work in the golden wheat fields of Kansas.

 

Sandburg wore a suit with no underwear, carried two handkerchiefs in his pocket along with $3.25, a comb, a small bar of soap and a pocketknife. His mode of transportation was the Santa Fe Railroad without benefit of a ticket. He knew the work would be hard, but he hoped, it would be rewarding.

 

There were several thousand men of the northwest working as hard in other fields and sometimes their rewards were infinitely greater. On July 17, 1897, ships arrived in Seattle and San Francisco, each bearing a ton of gold. The newspapers of the time began promoting stories of the gold discovered along the Klondike River in the Yukon territory of northwestern Canada. There had been stories of gold being discovered along the rivers and creeks since the 1830s, but there had been no amounts as large as these.

 

Within six months one hundred thousand gold seekers had set off for the Yukon. The migration included many Americans and quite a number of recent immigrants to this country. Swedish men seemed particularly interested in going to the gold fields of Canada. Charles John Anderson, nicknamed “the lucky Swede,” bought claim No. 29 on Eldorado Creek in 1896 for $400. He mined $1.5 millions in gold from it.

 

Most of the gold seekers had no experience. They had little knowledge of mining, the geography or the weather in the Yukon. They needed $500 to $1000 to buy the necessary supplies and equipment. The Canadian authorities required each miner to bring along a year's supply of food. The complete outfit weighed about two thousand pounds. It had to be packed with back-breaking effort across glaciers, rivers and mountains. There were no railroads, few wagons and few horses.

 

The prospective miners had to hand-carry everything to their claims. They had to clear the land of the overburden, dig into the permafrost and set up the mining equipment. All their work had to be done before the short summer had turned into winter. The price of every commodity was exorbitant, if it was available at all.

 

About thirty thousand gold seekers completed the trip and only four thousand actually found gold. In 1899 a railroad was constructed to the gold fields and heavier equipment brought in to mine the land, but by 1904 the excitement was over. About a $1 billion worth of gold had been found.

 

During his summer in the West, Sandburg worked in the wheat fields as well as hotels and restaurants. When he decided to return to Galesburg in October, he was welcomed by his family. He had $15 (equal to more than $425 in today's money)and change in his pocket. His summer had not been as lucrative as it might have been had he been in the Yukon. However, as his father remarked when Carl showed him his earnings, “The money would come in handy.”

 

Carl knew the trip had changed him, but he wasn't sure how the changes had come about. He knew he could meet strangers and respond to their questions more quickly. It was easier to look people in the eye. He just knew he had hope and whatever struggles lay ahead he could handle.