Klondike Trail

The Klondike Trail or Chalmers Trail was an overland route to the Klondike Gold Rush, Yukon, Canada. Prospectors were reaching the Klondike via the American route over the Chilkoot Pass, and the northern route via Edmonton and the Athabasca River. Edmonton's merchants, however, promoted an overland route, which appeared shorter on the map, but proved to be arduous, treacherous, and took much longer to travel.

In attempt to improve the most deadly part of the trail between Fort Assiniboine and Lesser Slave Lake, the North-Western Territory government in Regina sent Territorial road engineer Thomas W. Chalmers, to survey and cut a new trail. Attempting to bypass muskeg and without consulting the local Indigenous people, who may have helped him find a better route, Chalmers set out in September of 1897. He surveying a route which traversed the highest point in the Swan Hills, about twenty kilometres east of the present day town of Swan Hills, nearly paralleling Highway #33. He returned to Edmonton on November 7th.

In the spring and summer of 1898 he and a road-cutting party, cut 240 miles (386 kilometres) of what was expected to be a wagon trail out of the heavy bush. The trail started at Pruden’s Crossing on the Athabasca River near Fort Assiniboine then headed north to the shore of Lesser Slave Lake near what would become Kinuso. From there it was still another 2,500 kilometres north to the gold fields. Chalmers declared the trail passable in July. It was a very difficult trail, taking some travellers months to cover. Travellers endured great danger and back-breaking labour. An estimated 2,000 horses died due to lack of feed, poor packing techniques and exhaustion. One human death is recorded: that of an unidentified little girl, whose grave is still marked along the trail east of Fort Assiniboine.

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