1898 Tappan Adney Original Manuscript Map of the Klondike Gold Rush

A remarkable discovery and highly important Klondike Gold Rush (1896 - 1899) map, this is a one-of-a-kind 1897-1898 original manuscript (hand drawn) proof of journalist Edwin Tappan Adney's map illustrating the overland route to the Yukon and Klondike River. The map covers from Sitka north to Fort Yukon, the Porcupine River, and the Mackenzie River - all just north of the Arctic Circle. In the process it covers various routes to the Klondike Goldfields, as well as river courses and topography, identifying trading posts, territorial claims, proposed railway routes, indigenous villages and forts.

Adney's Account of the Gold Rush

This manuscript formed the basis for a reduced printed map that accompanied Adney's seminal account of the gold rush, The Klondike Stampede (Harper and Brothers; New York; 1900), a work so influential that it remains in print to this day. The Klondike Gold Rush was unique in that it occurred on the cusp of a new age of media awareness and technological advancement. Telegraph communication, photography, and even film played a pivotal role in communicating the experience of 'Stampeders,' as the hopeful miners that flooded into the Yukon became known.

Chronicler of the Klondike Experience

Tappan Adney is the primary chronicler of the Klondike experience. He arrived in the Yukon in 1897, one of the first journalists to do so, just one year after the original discovery on Rabbit Creek. Unlike many of the miners whose stories he told, Adney was a skilled outdoorsman, with First Nations training in wilderness survival, canoe building, and other outdoor arts. Moreover, Adney was also a highly capable draughtsman and cartographer, thus writes truthfully when he describes his maps as 'based upon personal surveys and information supplied by minors.'

A Unique Original Mansucript

This original manuscript, presumably drawn in 1898, offers a wealth of information that appeared on no previous map. This includes considerable information that would have been particularly useful to the prospective 'stampeder,' such as various overland routes to the Yukon, the site of customs houses and mounted police bases, river rapids, national boundaries, Hudson Bay Company trading posts, etc.

On the Map

The map itself can be broken down into three parts. There is the main sheet which contains the primary map detailing course of the Yukon River and its tributaries. A secondary 'General Map of Alaska and Northwestern Canada,' which appears as a pastedown plate in the lower left quadrant. A second paste down appears in the upper left and features the title of the map. This is notably on heavier paper than the rest of the sheet suggesting that it may have been intended to update an earlier title.

Publication History and Census

Tappan Adney composed two important maps, the present map, and a secondary map detailing the 'Klondike and Indian River Gold Fields.' The manuscript proof of the 'Gold Fields' map appeared on the market about two years ago. The present map, being the Tappan Adney's manuscript proof of his more general map of the Yukon Route, was presumed lost until rediscovered earlier this year. The two are clearly of the same hand and are a natural pair. We would love to see them reunited, but the first has moved into an unknown private collection.