Anyone who took high school U.S. History knows about the California Gold Rush of 1849, but they may not know about the Klondike Gold Rush between 1896 and 1899. The 100,000+ “stampeders” who made their way to the Canadian Yukon in search of gold had a lot more challenges than the Forty-niners — starting with climbing steep mountain passes in sub-zero temperatures with a year’s worth of supplies piled on their backs. We’ll meet the men who became “Klondike Kings,” the few women who became “Klondike Queens,” and the many stampeders who went home empty-handed — or never made it home at all.

We’ll explore 1890s Seattle, where stampeders geared up before sailing north. We’ll also explore the makeshift boomtowns of Skagway, Alaska, and Dawson City in the Yukon, where miners played with their newfound riches and shady folks sought to take it away. The Klondike Gold Rush is a colorful story of human persistence, greed and luck — a story that deserves to be told. Sharon Boorstin is a contributing writer for the Los Angeles Times, specializing in lifestyle, food and travel. In 2019 she won Visit California’s Eureka Award for Best Newspaper Travel Article. In the 1970s and ‘80s Sharon was the Restaurant Critic of the (late) Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and in the ‘90s she edited the annual Gayot Guidebooks for Los Angeles and other cities. She also wrote for magazines including Bon Appetit, Smithsonian and Town & Country Travel. With her husband Paul, she wrote dozens of screenplays for feature films and television including Angel of Death (ABC) starring Jane Seymour. Her memoir/cookbook, Let Us Eat Cake: Adventures in Food and Friendship (Harper-Collins 2002), was a selection of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club. Raised in Seattle, Washington, Sharon moved to Los Angeles in 1966 after earning a California Lifetime Teaching credential at U.C. Berkeley. She taught high-school History, English and Social Studies in L.A. for 11 years. The Fifty and Better program was designed to offer university-level courses (no tests, no homework) taught by experts in the field, and to host social engagement activities for individuals age 50 and older.