In the Yukon gold rush, 1500 people set out over the difficult overland route from Ashcroft to the gold fields in 1898. W.R. Hamilton was one of five who made it. In The Yukon Story, published in 1964 by Mitchell Press, Hamilton introduces the reader to death in the killer canyon, placering in perma-frost, Skagway and Soapy Smith, Atlin Camp, the Yukon Stage Line, the White Pass Route, lode mining, pioneer missionaries and poetry of the north. Former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker said of the book, "It conveys the atmosphere of the Yukon as does no other book that I have read."

[BCBW 2004]