Faith of fools

the long version

Discovered in a California flea market nearly a hundred years after the Klondike gold rush, William Shape's original journal and photographs give a very human dimension to the journey undertaken by vast hordes of prospectors who headed north in the late 1890s. Venturing into one of the most remote and inhospitable areas of North America, Shape recorded daily the hardships and dangers, along with the beauty and satisfaction of his 1897-98 trip. His journal and candid snapshots vividly recreated the frenzy that drew thousands of would-be prospectors to the frozen north. Faith of Fools provides a rare opportunity to live history in the first person, traveling to the gold fields with those ordinary prospectors who made that long, laborious trip.