In 1897 a grimy steamer bearing two tons of pure Klondike gold docked in Seattle, immediately triggering a stampede north to Alaska. In his exhilarating The Klondike Fever, Pierre Berton chronicles the incredible succession of events that followed in all their splendid and astonishing folly.

As many as 100,000 adventurers, dreamers, and would-be miners from all over the world struck out for the remote, isolated gold fields of the Klondike Valley, most of them in total ignorance of the long, harsh Alaskan winters and the territory's indomitable terrain. Less than a third of that number would complete the enormously arduous mountain journey to their destination, and fewer still would strike gold.

Berton's story belongs less to those who would make their fortunes than to the many swept up in the gold mania who met misfortune and tragic ends. The Klondike Fever is a stirring testament to the human capacity to dream, and to endure.