spiderfelt's review
slow-paced
2.0
I took issue with sloppy writing (character shot a whale just behind the gills, but whales do not have gills), racist terms to identify characters and the author's constant comments on the state of mind after an event 'he never thought about it again'.
ronald_schoedel's review
5.0
This is a good read for anyone interested in the Last Frontier of Alaska and the Yukon, and the characters who shaped its early, formative culture. I had heard of all of the main figures in this book prior to reading it, but was unaware of how connected they were in their histories and fates. It does not read like a dry historical account, which makes it a comfortable read (but not unintellectual). It's more of a 4.5 star than 5 (I wondered sometimes, how much some of the dialogue has been enhanced, but the author does describe in an appendix the various source materials he used, so probably most of the dialogue is reasonably authentic, even if some of it came off sounding a bit contrived.)
wynwicket's review
4.0
The history of the Alaskan Gold Rush as told through the eyes of three very different individuals: Charlie Siringo, a cowboy-turned-Pinkerton-detective investigating the theft of hundreds of gold bars from an Alaskan mine; Soapy Smith, a conman/gang-leader/generally reprehensible fellow pursuing power (and gold, naturally) across the States into Alaska; and George Carmack an American Naval man gone AWOL, who marries into the native Tagish people and avidly pursues his own dreams of gold.
I admit, I knew very little about prospecting and the Gold Rush prior to the reading this, but the book is well-researched, clearly-written, and I love a good adventure! Also, Alaska sounds absolutely beautiful. A good read.
I admit, I knew very little about prospecting and the Gold Rush prior to the reading this, but the book is well-researched, clearly-written, and I love a good adventure! Also, Alaska sounds absolutely beautiful. A good read.
kiwi_fruit's review
5.0
“Alaska is the last West.”
Bloom has chosen three interesting characters (a legendary crook, a cowboy turned detective and a gold prospector gone native) to spin the hugely entertaining even if “embellished” portrait of Alaska’s wilderness at the end of the nineteen century.
A word of warning: the blurb goes overboard IMO and reveals too much of their stories, it could be a spoiler for the reader.
Charlie Siringo, the detective, was my favourite character, what a fascinating life!
George Washington Carmack, Yukon prospector
Soapy Smith, the conman
“Klondicitis,” as the New York Herald dubbed the phenomenon, gripped folks everywhere. A giddy mix of greed, a yearn for adventure, and wishful thinking, Klondicitis convinced people to abandon their old lives in a rash instant and confidently set off for the far north. “Klondike or bust!” pledged tens of thousands, the three words sealing an oath of allegiance to an intrepid fraternity. The lure of gold, people in all walks of life agreed, was too hypnotic to resist.
In Seattle, it was as if the city had been attacked by a devastating plague, so quickly did thousands of its citizens rush to escape. Streetcar service came to a halt as the operators walked away from their jobs. Policemen resigned. Barbers closed shops. Doctors left their patients. The Seattle Times lost nearly all its reporters. Even the mayor, W. D. Wood, boarded a steamer to Alaska, wiring his resignation from the ship rather than dallying to say his good-byes at city hall. “Seattle,” a New York Herald reporter observed, “has gone stark, staring mad on gold.”
It is labelled non-fiction, but admittedly, this book is not scholarly work nor aims to be proper biographies. The note at the end of the book reveals the author intent in writing it and the difficulties in choosing which version to pick when multiple versions of the same historical event exist.
Bloom clearly explains the reasons behind his choices in terms of historical sources. You can’t be more honest than that.
Clearly, anyone setting off to tell a true story about the lives and times of these three men would need to make his way through a deep and murky historical swamp. He’d face the genuine danger—“probability” is undoubtedly more accurate—that he’d soon be knee-deep in a morass of fanciful yarns, self-serving fabrications, and, too often, blatant lies. To write a factual account, he’d need to tread gingerly through some rough historical country. No source—not even a first-person account, or contemporaneous newspaper articles, or, for that matter, an article in a scholarly journal—could be accepted at face value.
I wanted to tell an engaging tale that contained both high drama and a perplexing mystery. And I wanted to write a true story, to boot.
I was determined to make this a factual account, but I also had no plans (or, I admit, the abilities or the expertise) to make this a scholarly historian’s tome; I am, after all, a journalist by training and inclination.
I enjoyed this book very much and I would highly recommend if you are looking for a fun and engaging adventure tale with solid historical foundation, i.e. history that reads like a novel. 4.5 stars
Bloom has chosen three interesting characters (a legendary crook, a cowboy turned detective and a gold prospector gone native) to spin the hugely entertaining even if “embellished” portrait of Alaska’s wilderness at the end of the nineteen century.
A word of warning: the blurb goes overboard IMO and reveals too much of their stories, it could be a spoiler for the reader.
Charlie Siringo, the detective, was my favourite character, what a fascinating life!
George Washington Carmack, Yukon prospector
Soapy Smith, the conman
“Klondicitis,” as the New York Herald dubbed the phenomenon, gripped folks everywhere. A giddy mix of greed, a yearn for adventure, and wishful thinking, Klondicitis convinced people to abandon their old lives in a rash instant and confidently set off for the far north. “Klondike or bust!” pledged tens of thousands, the three words sealing an oath of allegiance to an intrepid fraternity. The lure of gold, people in all walks of life agreed, was too hypnotic to resist.
In Seattle, it was as if the city had been attacked by a devastating plague, so quickly did thousands of its citizens rush to escape. Streetcar service came to a halt as the operators walked away from their jobs. Policemen resigned. Barbers closed shops. Doctors left their patients. The Seattle Times lost nearly all its reporters. Even the mayor, W. D. Wood, boarded a steamer to Alaska, wiring his resignation from the ship rather than dallying to say his good-byes at city hall. “Seattle,” a New York Herald reporter observed, “has gone stark, staring mad on gold.”
It is labelled non-fiction, but admittedly, this book is not scholarly work nor aims to be proper biographies. The note at the end of the book reveals the author intent in writing it and the difficulties in choosing which version to pick when multiple versions of the same historical event exist.
Bloom clearly explains the reasons behind his choices in terms of historical sources. You can’t be more honest than that.
Clearly, anyone setting off to tell a true story about the lives and times of these three men would need to make his way through a deep and murky historical swamp. He’d face the genuine danger—“probability” is undoubtedly more accurate—that he’d soon be knee-deep in a morass of fanciful yarns, self-serving fabrications, and, too often, blatant lies. To write a factual account, he’d need to tread gingerly through some rough historical country. No source—not even a first-person account, or contemporaneous newspaper articles, or, for that matter, an article in a scholarly journal—could be accepted at face value.
I wanted to tell an engaging tale that contained both high drama and a perplexing mystery. And I wanted to write a true story, to boot.
I was determined to make this a factual account, but I also had no plans (or, I admit, the abilities or the expertise) to make this a scholarly historian’s tome; I am, after all, a journalist by training and inclination.
I enjoyed this book very much and I would highly recommend if you are looking for a fun and engaging adventure tale with solid historical foundation, i.e. history that reads like a novel. 4.5 stars
nelsonminar's review
3.0
A solid fun tale of Yukon adventure. The structure is slightly odd; the author follows three different men of very different temperament on different paths. But in the intersection it paints a broader story of Western and Yukon life, and it works. The author has a very deft hand with telling a gripping tale; as he notes, a highwire act since he's also trying to tell a true historical story. Which I assume he mostly succeeds in doing, even if his addition of extra color detail is a bit eyebrow raising at times. Does he really know what a character ate for dinner on some specific night? Maybe so, if he's working off a diary, and it's not the kind of story that requires footnotes. But there's a lot of details like that and sometimes it made me slightly skeptical.
Anyway, good story. Now I want to read a second story of the same time and place but a more sober story of ordinary people, not the gunslingers and prospectors. Also I'd love to read a woman's perspective in that time and place. The "good time gals" in this story are just furniture, which I'm guessing is a limitation of the author's source material. I bet they have good stories too.
Anyway, good story. Now I want to read a second story of the same time and place but a more sober story of ordinary people, not the gunslingers and prospectors. Also I'd love to read a woman's perspective in that time and place. The "good time gals" in this story are just furniture, which I'm guessing is a limitation of the author's source material. I bet they have good stories too.
bmwpalmer's review
3.0
Interesting enough to keep me reading, but only just. The story is very surface-level, with lots of glossed-over periods of history and summarized, paraphrased conversations. I think this could have been a much longer, in-depth book, but for some reason the author chose to only tell one particular strain of a much wider story.
When I was 14, my family went to Alaska and we spent (what seemed to me) a lot of time in Skagway. We also visited Dyea. That really helped me visualize parts of the book, although I was surprised to learn that Soapy Smith was a really bad guy. In Skagway, I remember him being presented to the tourists as kind of a mildly evil, harmless, entertaining henchman.
I remember Dyea being especially affecting, so I was touched to read this reflection on that place by one of the book's main characters, George Carmack:
"On Christmas Eve, surrounded by his loneliness, he recalled an image from the previous summer and began to write: 'But a whispering comes from the tall old spruce/And my soul from the pain is free.' His mind had been yearning, and in its desperation it had found a new destination. He focused on a clear, idyllic picture of the hewn-log trading post in Dyea that looked out on a 'tall old spruce' and an inlet of shimmering blue water. The fine bright beauty of the setting had affected him when he'd first encountered it, and in a burse of sentimental emotion he found himself traveling back to it on Christmas Eve in his poem."
When I was 14, my family went to Alaska and we spent (what seemed to me) a lot of time in Skagway. We also visited Dyea. That really helped me visualize parts of the book, although I was surprised to learn that Soapy Smith was a really bad guy. In Skagway, I remember him being presented to the tourists as kind of a mildly evil, harmless, entertaining henchman.
I remember Dyea being especially affecting, so I was touched to read this reflection on that place by one of the book's main characters, George Carmack:
"On Christmas Eve, surrounded by his loneliness, he recalled an image from the previous summer and began to write: 'But a whispering comes from the tall old spruce/And my soul from the pain is free.' His mind had been yearning, and in its desperation it had found a new destination. He focused on a clear, idyllic picture of the hewn-log trading post in Dyea that looked out on a 'tall old spruce' and an inlet of shimmering blue water. The fine bright beauty of the setting had affected him when he'd first encountered it, and in a burse of sentimental emotion he found himself traveling back to it on Christmas Eve in his poem."
summermsmith's review
4.0
Dad recommended we read this. It was a Wild, Wild, West true story that started in Denver and wound up to the Alaskan gold rush.
Very interesting reading.
Very interesting reading.
autistic_dragon's review
4.0
Imagine if The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly took place in Alaska, and you'll have a good idea about how this book goes. Except that this is real. It reveals that, after the West was won, the last refuge for adventurers, whether they be prospectors, cowboys, or outlaws, became Alaska. But while Alaska could be harnessed, it could not be tamed, and nobody stayed their for longer than they could help it. It reads more like a novel than a history book, and while it does not sacrifice accuracy for glamor, the author isn't forthcoming until after the story is over which parts the sources disagree on. But that does not take away from an adventure that, out of all real-life stories, beats all challengers to be called The Last Western.