Then and Now

26 July 2010

by Konrad Taube

In this modern day, it is a daunting task to try and fathom the way people lived in the centuries past. On Saturday we were given that challenge, With both amusement and surprise, we came across a group of Klondike gold rush reenactors, with the women cooking and the men working on a wooden raft, all dressed in classic attire. We were struck by the stark contrast between their world and ours.

Our modern Wenonah canoes and Current Designs kayaks, made of the extremely durable Royalex and fiber glass materials far surpass their simple timber raft, which was the apparent reason for their stop along the shoreline.

Dressed in 19th century dresses and pants made of unwieldy thick cottons and wools, the reenactors were polar opposites of our lightweight and durable hiking shoes, jackets, pants, and backpacks.

On a cast iron skillet fried a modest stack of flapjacks, a testament to the kinds of meals usually consumed by the miners at that time (heavily salted pork, beans, sourdough, and flapjacks were about all the nutrition they got, and because of this the miners  were frequently called “Sourdoughs”). Our meals, on the other hand, are loaded with important vitamins, minerals, proteins, and carbohydrates, vastly more nourishing and healthy than the former list of foods was.  We do suffer from some of the same limitations, however, such as no refrigeration.  If we were headed out on a longer expedition, we would probably suffer from some of the same nutrition challenges.

From equipment to clothing, the differences between the reenactors way of life and ours are huge. The challenge of putting ourselves into the shoes of the Klondike gold miners is a tough fit, and seems to be a task best left for another day.