Clarion Review

HISTORY

Hazelet's Journal: A Riveting Alaska Gold Rush Saga

George Cheever Hazelet

John Clark, editor

Douglas Keeney, contributor

Old Stone Press

978-1-938462-00-9

Five Stars (out of Five)

Step aside, Jack London, and make room at the bar for George Cheever Hazelet. John Clark’s

marvelous edit of the journals his great-grandfather penned during the Alaskan Gold Rush are

every bit as exciting and authentic as what the author of White Fang and The Call of the Wild

wrote. Contemporary in experience and outlook, George Cheever Hazelet should have been the

chronicler of the Klondike. He may yet become that.

Beautifully written and lightly edited in order to maintain the pace and emotion of the

entries—some hurried, some pensive—Hazelet’s Journal is primary-source history at its finest.

This is not some musty pile of scribblings left to gather dust but a vibrant document into which

generations of the family have breathed life. Clark, a printer by profession, has completed a task

begun by his great-grandfather on a train leaving his Midwest home in 1898, and he has done so

with a light yet deft hand.

Clark’s recruitment of Douglas Keeney—a noted historian, author, and a founder of the

Military Channel—to present the prologue adds both gravitas and an independent point of view

to introduce the narrative. Clark resisted the urge to “clean up” the journals, noting with

unnecessary apology his “editorial decision to leave the journal entries, in almost every instance,

exactly as my great-grandfather wrote them.”

Not that Hazelet’s work needs much correction. This was no schoolboy adventurer.

Hazelet was a college graduate, businessman, husband, father of two, and school principal

before heading off to seek his fortune in the Alaskan wilderness at age thirty-seven. His was a

journey of desperate necessity, an attempt to recoup losses sustained in the depression of the late

1890s and to “be successful for my family’s sake.”

While he admired the beauty of the “wonderful country,” Hazelet did not want to be in

Alaska. “If we could make a find we would at once pull out for home and happiness,” he writes.

His journals are as much about longing for family as they are about the exploration of the

wilderness, an adventure which he found so hard and wearying that “at times I feel like making

a kicking machine and turning it loose on the seat of my pants.”

The book is lavishly illustrated with well over a hundred photographs. Hazelet, his

comrades, their camps and canoes, pack trains, and digs are the subjects of many of these

images, which in themselves chronicle the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898-1902. There are also

many amazing and beautiful photos of glaciers, mountain trails, and winding, rapid rivers so

dangerous that their twists and turns are still known as the Devil’s Elbow and Hell Gate.

This is no staid diary. There are forest fires, floods, gunplay, and many other deathdefying

episodes. There is little glory here other than that of nature; as Hazelet notes, “the work

is simply killing and that is all there is to it.” This is no mere metaphor, however, as Hazelet, in

his best Jack Londonesque voice, makes note of more than one man who “came into this wild

country to find his fortune and found his death.”

Mark McLaughlin

“Hazelet’s Journal is an inspiring example of the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity.” — John M. Mulder, historian and prize-winning biographer of Woodrow Wilson

“By publishing his ancestor’s journal, John Clark has made significant contributions to preserving the history of the American Northwest and Alaska.” — Mark Davis, author Solicitor General Bullitt: The Life of William Marshall Bullitt Crescent Hill Books

“Hazelet’s Journal weaves a provocative account of a man seeking his fortune in Alaska, capturing his strength and courage in a world far away from everything he knew and loved.” — Patricia Relay, Executive Director, Valdez Museum & Historical Archives

“It’s an irresistible read and a reminder of how much we owe those who blazed the trails before us.” — Nancy Lethcoe, teacher, activist, Olympic medalist, author Valdez Gold Rush Trails of 1898-99 Prince William Sound Books

“The story takes you from forest fires, earthquakes, months spent on the trail to the ruthless world of claim jumpers and last-chance gold rushers. It was impossible to put it down.” — L. Douglas Keeney, author 15 Minutes: General Curtis LeMay and the Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation, St. Martin’s Press

“Hazelet’s career traces an epic trajectory from aspiring dreamer to battered adventurer, and his own vivid writing mirrors the way stations of his quest for riches in the Alaska wilderness.” — Dr. John R. Hale, archaeologist, distinguished scholar, winner of Panhellenic Teacher of the Year Award and the Delphi Center Award, author Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy, Viking Press