| "Last Sled to Dawson" | |
|---|---|
| Story code | AR 113 |
| Story | Don Rosa |
| Ink | Don Rosa |
| Hero | Scrooge McDuck |
| Pages | 28 |
| Layout | 4 rows per page |
| Appearances | Scrooge McDuck Goldie O'Gilt Soapy Slick Casey Coot |
| First publication | June 1988 |
"Last Sled to Dawson" is a 1988 Scrooge McDuck comic by Don Rosa. It is Rosa's third full-length Uncle Scrooge story after The Son of the Sun and Cash Flow , both published the previous year. Last Sled is the first story in which Rosa delves into Scrooge's past life, on his journey to becoming the richest man in the world, and so acts as a spiritual sequel to Carl Barks's classic Scrooge story "Back to the Klondike", describing his experiences as a gold prospector during the Klondike Gold Rush.
Rosa would eventually create The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck , a twelve-part serial chronicling several episodes in this journey, beginning with Scrooge's childhood in Scotland, and including the episode "The King of the Klondike", and the later companion stories "The Prisoner of White Agony Creek" and "The Hearts of the Yukon", also taking place in Yukon.
The story was first published in Uncle Scrooge Adventures #5 by Gladstone Publishing in June 1988.
In the midst of a typically hectic business day, Scrooge McDuck notices a telegram from his bank in Whitehorse, which takes him back to December 1899:
The young Scrooge is stunned to be told that his latest deposit of gold ore into the bank has increased his holdings to $1 million. Believing it is more money than he will ever need, Scrooge decides to close down his claim in White Agony Creek, but doesn't know what to do with his life next. Outside the bank, he converses with another prospector, Casey Coot, who has also worked out his claim but can't afford passage home. Scrooge offers to buy his family's land back in the (fictional) American state of Calisota, believing he will settle down.
After loading his most prized possessions onto his dog sled, Scrooge begins an overland journey to Dawson City. Struck by the beauty of the landscape, he recites the final stanza of Robert W. Service's "The Spell of the Yukon", but realizes that he has lost his trail and wandered onto Mooseneck Glacier. A fissure opens, trapping his sled, and forcing him to cut his dogs loose. Unable to retrieve the sled, he jams his rifle into the fissure, hoping to come back for it later. Pursued by a pack of timber wolves, he falls off a cliff and crashes through the roof of Soapy Slick's gambling barge, on its return trip to Whitehorse. Disheartened by the loss of his sled, he decides that his luck soured as soon as he decided to retire from working and settle down, and resolves to keep working and accumulating even greater wealth.
He snaps back to the present with the arrival of Donald and his nephews, who open the telegram and learn that the ice covering Mooseneck Glacier has finally thawed enough to expose the marker of his sled. Elated, Scrooge says they are going "back to the Kliondike... again!"
After they arrive in Dawson City, Scrooge is surprised to see the infamous Blackjack Ballroom has been converted into a tourist hotel, and even more surprised to recognize the owner as his old flame, "Glittering" Goldie - who bought it with the money she won off Scrooge at their last meeting.
When Scrooge tries to charter a riverboat to Mooseneck Glacier, he alerts the owner, Soapy Slick, who has been waiting decades to claim whatever it was Scrooge lost - believing it to be the deed to the land in Calisota where Scrooge's Money Bin now stands. He throws Scrooge off the wharf and casts off for Mooseneck Glacier alone. Goldie offers them the use of a hot air balloon owned by the hotel to shortcut the journey over the mountains.
Reaching the glacier moments before Soapy, Scrooge hammers in a stake to mark the sled as legal salvage, but the glacier splits and an iceberg carries the ducks down the river, with Soapy in pursuit. Believing the sled will be legally his if the iceberg beaches on his wharf, Soapy orders his captain to ram it into dock, wrecking both his boat and the iceberg.
Scrooge's sled, freed of the ice, slides off the wharf and down Dawson's main street. Soapy runs after it on foot, but the sled hits a statue of Scrooge and it tips over, knocking Soapy unconscious with the stone replica of the Goose Egg Nugget in the statue's hands. Scrooge rushes to the sled as Donald wonders aloud what could be on the sled that's so valuable. In joy, Scrooge unpacks the sled, revealing his old prospector's kit: a coonskin cap and deerskin coat ("no silk topper and golden-fleece mackintosh could ever be as noble an outfit!"), his coffee pot and skillet ("no fancy meal has tasted half as fine as the beans I cooked on my own campfire under the Klondike stars!") and his old pickaxe, shovel and gold pan ("these were my tools before stock options and crop futures and compounded interest!") Regaining consciousness, Soapy is outraged to see there's nothing on the sled but "a buncha' junk!"
Huey, Dewey and Louie find one more item fallen off the sled: a box of chocolates with a card addressed to Goldie. That was the real purpose of his last trip to Dawson, and the nephews wonder aloud what might have happened if Scrooge had arrived as planned. With tears in her eyes, Goldie says Scrooge is a rich man for reasons that have nothing to do with money: rich in finding work that he enjoys, rich in the loyalty of his family and friends, and most of all, rich in memories.
The story uses "facts" from two stories by Carl Barks, Back to the Klondike and North of the Yukon . Otherwise most of the story uses real historic facts about the Klondike Gold Rush.
"The Last Sled" is the title of a song on Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge, composed by Tuomas Holopainen, in which Scrooge (voiced by Alan Reid) recites the same passage from "The Spell of the Yukon" that appears in the comic:
There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting so much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck (Lo$) is a serial of 12 comic book stories written and drawn by Don Rosa, lettered by Todd Klein, first published by the Danish publisher Egmont in the magazine Anders And & Co. from 1992–94 and later in English in Uncle Scrooge #285 through #296 (1994–96). The stories chronicle the in-universe biography of Scrooge McDuck before his introduction in 1947. The stories were later collected and published together in a single volume. Rosa later published additional stories which expanded on Scrooge's biography. These were released as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion.
The Donald Duck universe is a fictional shared universe which is the setting of stories involving Disney cartoon character Donald Duck, as well as Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Scrooge McDuck, and many other characters. Life in the Donald Duck universe centers on the city of Duckburg and is a part of the larger Mickey Mouse universe. In addition to the original comic book stories by Carl Barks, the Duckburg cast was featured in Little Golden Books, television series such as DuckTales (1987–1991), Darkwing Duck (1991–1992), and the DuckTales reboot (2017–2021), and video games such as DuckTales (1989), QuackShot (1991), Goin' Quackers (2000), and DuckTales: Remastered (2013).
John D. Rockerduck is a cartoon character created in 1961 by The Walt Disney Company for the Duck universe. He is one of Scrooge McDuck's main rivals in Disney comics. His name is a play on that of John D. Rockefeller, the American capitalist and philanthropist. Though a relatively obscure character in the United States, Rockerduck is an example of a character who has become notable in the foreign market, particularly in stories produced for the Italian market. He made his first animated appearance in 2019, in the second season of the DuckTales reboot.
The Municipality and Borough of Skagway is a first-class borough in Alaska on the Alaska Panhandle. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,240, up from 968 in 2010. The population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal with more than 1,000,000 visitors each year. Incorporated as a borough on June 25, 2007, it was previously a city in the Skagway-Yakutat-Angoon Census Area. The most populated community is the census-designated place of Skagway.
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of Yukon, in north-western Canada, between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896; when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in films, literature, and photographs.
"Back to the Klondike" is a Disney comic book story created by Carl Barks, created in September 1952 and first published in March 1953 in Four Color #456. Scrooge McDuck returns to Klondike where he has made his fortune, bringing Donald and the three nephews along, to find back the gold he has left there.
Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a city in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–1899). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest city in Yukon.
White Pass, also known as the Dead Horse Trail, is a mountain pass through the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains on the border of the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia, Canada. It leads from Skagway, Alaska, to the chain of lakes at the headwaters of the Yukon River, Crater Lake, Lake Lindeman, and Bennett Lake.
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stampeders lay in the Yukon Territory, the park comprises staging areas for the trek there and the routes leading in its direction. There are four units, including three in Municipality of Skagway Borough, Alaska and a fourth in the Pioneer Square National Historic District in Seattle, Washington.
The Chilkoot Trail tramways were aerial tramways that played a significant role in the Klondike Gold Rush and the Chilkoot Trail as a transportation system to move prospectors and equipment towards the Dawson City/Klondike gold fields.
Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith II was an American con artist and gangster in the American frontier.
"North of the Yukon" is a 24-page Disney comics adventure story featuring Scrooge McDuck and his nephews, Donald Duck and Huey, Dewey, & Louie. It was written and drawn by Carl Barks. This was his last story involving Scrooge's adventures in Alaska. It was published in September 1965, and later reprinted in May 1993. Gemstone Publishing later reprinted the story again in 2005 for a Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge graphic novel with another story inspired by this one called "Somewhere in Nowhere". The character of Barko was inspired by an actual sled dog named Balto, who participated in the 1925 serum run to Nome. Barks had read an article about Balto in an issue of National Geographic, and was inspired to create this character.
"A Little Something Special" is a 1997 Disney comics story created by Don Rosa to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Scrooge McDuck's first appearance in Carl Barks's "Christmas on Bear Mountain" in 1947.
"The Prisoner of White Agony Creek" is a 2006 Scrooge McDuck comic by Don Rosa. The story takes place between "King of the Klondike" and "Hearts of the Yukon" in the series The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck making it part 8B. The story shows how Goldie O'Gilt was taken to Scrooge's claim by the White Agony Creek. As Don Rosa announced his retirement in June 2008, this is his last story to date.
"The King of the Klondike" or "The Argonaut of White Agony Creek" is a 1993 Scrooge McDuck comic by Don Rosa. It is the eighth of the original 12 chapters in the series The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. The story takes place from 1896 to 1897 and deals with Scrooge McDuck who participates in the Klondike Gold Rush. It takes place before The Prisoner of White Agony Creek and The Hearts of the Yukon.
"The Billionaire of Dismal Downs" is a 1993 Scrooge McDuck comic by Don Rosa. It is the ninth of the original 12 chapters in the series The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. The story takes place from 1898 to 1902.
The Klondike Gold Rush is commemorated through film, literature, historical parks etc.
Thomas William O'Brien was a Klondike gold rush entrepreneur who was best known for his Klondike Mines Railway and Klondike brewery businesses. He was also elected as a member of the Yukon Territorial Council, and was the first president of the Yukon Order of Pioneers, Klondike Lodge.
Klondike is a three-part miniseries about the Klondike Gold Rush that was broadcast by the Discovery Channel on January 20–22, 2014. Based on Charlotte Gray's novel Gold Diggers: Striking It Rich in the Klondike, it is the Discovery Channel's first scripted miniseries. Klondike was directed by Simon Cellan Jones and stars Richard Madden as Bill Haskell, a real-life adventurer who traveled to Yukon, Canada, in the late 1890s during the gold rush.
