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Robert Henderson suggested detailed contents for an outfit for gold seeking cheecacos (greenhorns) lacking wilderness experience. The Klondike Gold Rush was in decline at the time. Gold output had diminished but gold still panned out and no doubt Dawson merchants’ warehouses were piled high with tools and sundries as demand for kit declined along with gold output. Henderson may have thrown them a bone. He wrote for the Dawson Weekly News suggesting cheecacos (pronounced, “cheechakos”) should travel with a wad of cash and buy local. The list is long, the baggage voluminous, all the gear and sundries necessary for wintering in the Alaskan interior and Canadian northwest. Take a steamer to Dawson and buy what you need there, says Henderson. Well stocked local merchants can fill the bill. Henderson’s letter is reproduced in the journal Mines and Methods, October 1912

Henderson is credited with the discovery that launched the Klondike Goldrush in August 1896. He was an experienced young miner grub-staked by a large firm to explore and prospect the far north in Yukon’s Indian River basin. He broadened his exploration and found gold placer deposits across the divide in the Klondike basin. Henderson shared his find with others who made big discoveries of their own. These discoveries brought tens of thousands of stampeders, cheecacos, from all parts south and worldwide along the brutal Chilcoot Trail across Alaska’s coastal range, then along a hazardous float in a makeshift boat down the Yukon River, all with burning ambitions to stake their claims and strike it rich in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness.

Henderson was not alone in recommending heavy baggage. The Canadian Royal Mounted Police required parties to carry a ton of baggage, literally 2000 pounds, before allowing bungling greenhorn stampeders across the boarder into Canada. The volume and weight of Henderson’s suggested kit is gigantic by today’s standards. I estimate the total weight excluding boat and sledge at 1600 pounds. I reproduce a complete edited version herein just for fun and to illuminate modern benefits of travel services and technologies for reduced weight. Henderson’s suggested kit offers a window into historical methods.

The “cheecaco,” or newcomer entering the Yukon to prospect should receive a little preliminary instruction before launching into the wilderness, says Robert Henderson, discoverer of gold in the Yukon Valley, in a letter to the Dawson Weekly News.

Henderson continues…

The prospector should leave Dawson in August or September. At the same time, the summer floods are over, flies are less troublesome and game and fish are plentiful. Whenever possible, the prospector should go by boat. For shallow swift and narrow rivers a boat 30 feet long of 26 inch bottom and 22 inches deep is the best. Having procured his boat, 150 feet of 1/2-inch hemp rope and a pair of rubber boots, the prospector next selects and loads his provisions always bearing in mind that articles less likely to be damaged by water should be placed in the bottom of the boat.

Henderson details a mother-load of food stuffs.

The outfit for 12 months should comprise the following: flour 500 lbs, rolled oats 150 pounds, cornmeal 50 lbs…

baking powder 2 lbs, baking soda 2 lbs, yeast cakes 6 boxes…

best pilot bread 30 lbs…

Grains and daily bread account for: 825,550 calories wheat flour, plus 264,750 calories rolled oats, plus 83,950 calories cornmeal, plus 1,360,780 calories pilot bread for a grain grand total calories 2,535,030 or 6945 calories per day for 365 days!

Henderson is suggesting an outfit for two men, the high calorie count makes this obvious. Henderson also offers sage wisdom in selecting your second man and ways to get along in the closing paragraph of his “letter.”

Your partner on a prospecting trip should be a man with whom you are well acquainted, and of jovial and optimistic disposition. Avoid arguments, especially of a religious or political nature, and the golden adage, “A kind word turneth away wrath,” is nowhere so forcibly realized as in the wilderness.

A year of gold mining is a demanding, calorie-burning endurance struggle. Henderson continues piling on the grub and goods he recommends for a successful two-man outfit…

syrup 5 gallons, sugar 125 lbs, Lubeck potatoes 60 lbs…

Henderson has a sweet tooth, I think. Add 66,560 calories syrup, 221, 875 calories sugar, 25,560 calories potatoes.

apricots 25 lbs, prunes 25 lbs, apples 25 lbs,

beans 7 lbs…

Anti-scorbutic high fiber fruit calories are calculated dry weight though Henderson does not tell us as much. Seven pounds is not a lot of beans – that’s a choice from experience, the prospect of living confined in a small cabin with bean-eating buddies, I’m sure. Add beans, 4425 calories, apricots 27, 400 calories, prunes 27,250, apples 33,000 calories, and beans 4452 calories.

butter 50 lbs, milk 2 cases, cream 2 cases…

Dairy for the carry… butter 162,900 calories, dry milk 50,000 calories, dry cream, 60,000 calories.

ham 25lbs, bacon 50 lbs, salt 15 lbs, pepper 1 lbs

Along the way, the prospector will eat ham 16,450 calories, and bacon, bacon, bacon 121,900 calories. And when the hunting’s good in that hungry country wintertime he will spice up his bush meat with basic condiments.

That’s 3,356,802 total estimated calories or 4,598 calories per day for each of two work hungry men for 365 days. If that’s not enough, hunting will provide, assures Henderson…

The prospector will have no difficulty in providing himself with fresh meat. The country abounds with moose, bear, caribou, mountain sheep, geese, ducks, ptarmigan, partridges and grouse, and cranes and swans alight on the bars of the upper rivers by the thousands. Beaver, land otter, marten, lynx, wolf, fox, wolverine, and other fur bearing animals are plentiful around the upper reaches of Yukon side streams.

Suggested hunting equipment…

30 30 Winchester rifle, good shotgun, 200 rounds for shotgun, 200 rounds for rifle.

Dress for success. Four season clothing and footwear adequate for the subarctic for each partner…

best woolen underwear 3 suits, thick overshirts 3, thick woolen socks 12 pair, German socks 2 pairs, woolen pants 1 pair, overalls 3 pairs, felt shoes 1 pair, rubber shoes 2 pairs, moccasins 3 pairs, insoles for moccasins 6, snowshoes 1 pair, fur robe, fur cap, canvas jacket, sweater.

Basic personal equipment…

pack straps 1 set, eyeglasses colored 1 pair, good field glasses 1 pair, reliable compass, sheath knives 2, soap 12 lbs, candles 2 boxes, tobacco

And for prospecting, digging, and separating the gold…

picks 2, shovels 3, gold pans 2

Every prospector his own doctor…

The outfit should include a small medicine chest, among the contents of which should be one box of carbolic salve and a half pint bottle of peroxide of hydrogen or other equally good antiseptic. One gallon of concentrated lime juice should be taken along to make a pleasant and invigorating drink and it will be a most effectual preventive of scurvy.

Alaska is moist – give me shelter…

The tent should be 10 by 12 feet in size. It serves when not in use to cover the outfit, a precaution that should never be neglected either in the boat or in camp

On the trail in severe weather always make camp while there is plenty of daylight. Never travel in foggy or stormy weather, always have matches and dry birch bark ready to make a fire quickly. Eat regularly even if you are not hungry. Keep your hands and feet dry and don t forget your tobacco.

Man’s best friend…

It is well on a trip of this kind to take two or three good dogs and a Yukon sleigh. The dogs cost little to feed in a game country. The sleigh can be packed in the boat and will be useful for moving camp from creek to creek. Make a good warm shelter for the dogs and feed them at night.

Keep your cache…

To keep the outfit while in camp, pick out four trees a few feet apart and 12 feet from the ground. Pick off the bark and build a platform on top and let it extend about three feet on each side beyond the supports. Place supplies on top and cover with canvas and spruce boughs. They are in this way protected from animals.

A tent is not enough. Bring tools for building cabin and camp.

axes 2, small camp ax, auger 1/2-inch, 1 crosscut saw, 4 feet whipsaw, jack plane, nails 15lbs 10 penny, clawhammer, flat files 2, three cornered files 2, sharpening stone

Sturdy walls against winter winds…

In building a cabin make it big enough. It takes little longer to build a cabin 16 by 12 than one of less dimensions and this is large enough for all requirements. Level off the ground and let the first logs be imbedded in it. Cover well with moss and lay the next log on top and so with each log until the walls are six feet high. The logs forming the gable must be pinned together with 1 inch wooden pegs and the ridge pole laid in place. A smaller log on each side of the ridge pole further supports the roof which I made of poles three or four inches in diameter laid side by side and covered with moss and earth.

Whipsaw a few boards to make a door. Pieces of moose skin make good hinges and a clean flour sack steeped in melted tallow or oil makes a good substitute for glass.

Last but not least, a prospector’s spartan kitchen befitting a small cabin…

Yukon stove with oven or drum, frying pan, knife fork and plate, small pots, 4, large enameled mugs, 2