The Trail of the Goldseekers: A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse was published by Macmillan in 1899, recording Garland’s journey to the Klondike during the gold rush of 1898. Garland traveled the overland route from Ashcroft, British Columbia, through the interior of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory — a journey of over a thousand miles through some of the most demanding wilderness in North America.
The book combines diary entries (written on the trail), descriptive prose (written afterward), and verse (composed during the journey). The diary entries have the immediacy of experience — the cold, the mosquitoes, the muddy trails, the exhaustion of horses and men — while the retrospective prose provides context and reflection. The verse is Garland’s weakest contribution, but the prose sections are vivid and precise, capturing the beauty of the northern landscape alongside the suffering of the gold-seekers.
Garland did not find gold — few of the overland travelers did — but he found material for one of the most honest accounts of the Klondike rush. Where Jack London romanticized the North, Garland depicted it realistically: a beautiful, indifferent wilderness that tested human endurance and usually won.
Collecting The Trail of the Goldseekers
First edition (Macmillan, New York, 1899): Cloth binding, illustrated.
Market values:
- First edition: $40–$120
- Later editions: $10–$25