101 Books, Number 43

Favorite Books from Throughout My Life

 

my copy

43: The Klondike Fever: The Life and Death of the Last Great Gold Rush, 1958, by Pierre Berton (1920–2004)

I read this book as I began

My life as a big Klondike fan.

Oh, I’d been teaching London’s Wild—

In ignorance—just like a child

Who says he’ll be X, Y, or Z

When he is only two or three

And knows nought of a life’s demands

And thinks that wishes are commands.

From Berton I learned, oh, so much—

Historian—he had the touch.

I traveled to the Yukon then—

And saw the places they had been

To search for all that yellow gold—

Where London’s stories would be told.

So thanks, Professor Berton, for

Your lessons—oh, I learned some more

In other books you later wrote—

Niagara was so good (take note!).

But Klondike Fever—I’d been sold!

And off I went in search of gold.

*Niagara: A History of the Falls, 1992