After The Gold Rush: Growing Up In Skagway

After the Gold Rush begins in January 1926, when the ship carrying Robert Dahl steams into the harbor in Skagway, Alaska. The ten-year-old boy has been traveling for over a week with his mother and two brothers from the tiny town in northwest Iowa where he was born. As the ship’s crew prepares to dock, the brothers eagerly scan the wharf for a glimpse of their father, who arrived a few weeks earlier to become the town’s only physician.

Driven by hopes of finding Yukon gold, thousands had on...