Ebenezer McAdam was one of the thousands who joined the Klondike Gold Rush. He stands out a hundred years later because of the careful diary he kept of his trip, published under the title From Duck Lake to Dawson City (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1977).
Eben McAdam was born in Montreal on January 2, 1859. When news of the Klondike gold strike reached Montreal, he sent his two motherless daughters to live with their grandparents and set out to seek his fortune in the north. He travelled with four other Montrealers, leaving Montreal on March 9, 1898. They took the train to Duck Lake, then travelled overland and by a series of rivers to the Klondike. In total, the journey took 15 months.
When McAdam arrived in Dawson City, the Gold Rush was already over. He took a job as a clerk with the North American Transportation and Trading Company and stayed on to become, eventually, its resident manager. As the town declined and business declined with it, Eben McAdam had more time for his hobbies -- ornithology, astronomy, and carving. His brass model of the solar system, electrically driven, was displayed for many years at McGill University in his native Montreal.
Ebenezer McAdam died on May 23, 1927, not rich, but a respected citizen of Dawson City.
