Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0971830231, Paperback)
From the back cover: The discovery of gold spawned the need for a primitive trail, some 360 miles long, through a completely northern wilderness. This great trail would lead into the very heart of Alaska. It would be built under extreme conditions and would be traveled under these same conditions by tough, hardy people. As "The Trail" continued to be improved, it became the catalyst for helping to develop the great Interior of Alaska, by connecting Valdez on the coast to Fairbanks in the Tanana Valley. The story of "The Trail" is much more than one of just the historical opening of a new territory and the economic development of a region by a trail. It is really an adventure story of a time and way of life that will never be seen again; a time when Alaska was untamed, and people with a goal or a dream came from a warmer, gentler latitude to traverse its wild, harsh expanse, and survive while doing so. Furthermore, it is a story of the roadhouses, telegraph lines, and the people who built and ran them along "The Trail". It was these folks who made it possible for the overwhelmed travelers, who ventured either on foot or in open horse-drawn sleds, at 50 degrees below zero, not only to survive, but also to find a little comfort while doing so. "The Trail" would eventually become the Richardson Highway of today. There will never be a time filled with more adventures and stories than those found along "The Trail". A few of these adventures, and the historical facts surrounding them, are chronicled in this book.
Hundreds of historical photographs, and maps and tables. 8 1/2 x 10 3/4 inches.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:09:05 -0400)
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Wikipedia in English
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The piece is quite structured, with each section a compilation of the material for that topics, which at times is a little daunting to plow through, but what makes it worth while is the inclusion of historic photos, maps and contemporaneous accounts from newspapers, books and letters that provide the reader a vivid mental picture of the conditions along the trail. Of particular interest to me were the accounts by the people who operated roadhouses in remote parts of the trail, the seasonal nature of their business, where their supplies came from, and the travelers who utilized their establishments.
A nice work that provides a glimpse into this section of Alaska from Gold Rush days until the early 1920's. (