Chasing the Echo

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"This is a good country to tell what a man is made of, for it will either kill him or make him tougher than sole leather in a very short time."

There's a race of men that don't fit in,

A race that can't stay still;

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

And they roam the world at will.

If they just went straight they might go far,

They are strong and brave and true;

But they're always tired of the things that are,

And they want the strange and new.

-Robert W. Service

What compels a man to leave his wife and family, his work and his hometown to embark on an arduous, dangerous journey that at its end may bring him little besides deprivation, loneliness, broken health and empty pockets? In electing to go to the Klondike, Charles William "Charley" Watts joined thousands of other men who made that perplexing, life-changing decision.

Charley's 79 letters to his wife and daughter provide clues to his motives that can be linked to his immigrant heritage. But, perhaps the challenges he faced in Alaska and the Klondike changed the trajectory of his life in equal measure. Charley's choice to trek north undeniably was determined by impulses both beyond and greater than the mesmerizing lure of gold depicted in glowing newspaper headlines.