By now, the story is a familiar one. In August 1896, three prospectors discovered gold in a tributary of the Klondike River, deep in the Yukon Territory of Canada. Within months, thousands of people headed north to stake a claim for themselves. But getting there was no easy feat. If you had means, you could board a steamship in Seattle, bound for the western coast of Alaska, and follow the Yukon River east to the gold fields. But most Klondikers could only afford passage from Seattle to Skagway and Dyea, in southeast Alaska, where they would hike 33 miles to Bennett Lake, and finally, float up the Yukon River to their destination, 550 miles away. The most popular route was the Chilkoot Trail, a trading route that had been established by native Tlingit people decades earlier.

“Historically, the Chilkoot Trail took native people from the coastal parts of Alaska into the Yukon interior, where communities were ripe for trade,” says Sandra Snell-Dobert, chief of interpretation and education at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. “People from the coastal regions would take fish oil, seal meat, seal furs, and native plants from that area, carry them over the path, and trade for moose hides, copper, and other resources you can find only in the interior.”

With their years of experience criss-crossing those mountains, the Tlingit people quickly recognized they could make money by guiding ambitious prospectors. They laid claim to their trail and provided packing services to miners, charging anywhere from $5 to $15 per hundred pounds, and even fixing prices among themselves.

With or without assistance, the journey was a difficult one, and few of the new arrivals were prepared for what faced them. Seeing the risks posed by the voyage, the Canadian government quickly enacted a “one-ton law,” prohibiting people from crossing the border unless they had enough goods to survive a year in the Yukon. The steep slopes of the Chilkoot Trail were impossible for pack animals to navigate, so stampeders had to carry everything on their backs, leaving food and equipment in caches along the way, then shuttling back and forth for the better part of three months.

“The journey posed a huge mental challenge,” says Snell-Dobert. “These people weren’t all that physically fit, and certainly weren’t used to mountain expeditions, so the thought of getting over those mountain passes with all of those goods had to be incredibly daunting.” More than a few journeys ended at the Golden Stairs, a nearly 45-degree slope to the summit, where steps had been carved out of ice and snow to make the route passable.

But as it turned out, striking gold wasn’t the only way to make a fortune.

“Very early on, a lot of these people realized, ‘I don’t have to cross those mountains to make money. I can set up a business in Skagway or Dyea and I can make a mint mining the miners,’” says Snell-Dobert. “Both cities developed rapidly from tent towns with ramshackle buildings to small-scale cities. Skagway quickly had nearly 90 saloons, as well as brothels, hardware stores, and grocery stores. Women took in laundry and cooked for the stampeders, and made a lot of money doing it.”

And for the few who were strong enough to conquer the Chilkoot Trail, the journey had just begun.

“Once they arrived at Lake Lindeman or Lake Bennett, they had to cut their own timber, saw the logs, and build their own boats—something most of them had never done in their lives,” says Snell-Dobert. “Then as soon as the ice melted off the lakes, they launched the boats, and floated the Yukon another 550 miles to Dawson City. It was a huge journey that took months, so, needless to say, by the time most of them got to Dawson City, most of the good claims had already been staked.”

Today, you can wander the streets of Skagway and stop in at the museum or the visitor center, take a train over the White Pass, or hike the Chilkoot yourself, just like more than 2,000 people did last year. Wayside exhibits provide interpretive information, and warming cabins with wood stoves offer comfort for the weary.

Although the gold rush lasted only two years, it had far-reaching impacts on the lower 48, helping Seattle develop, spurring businesses like Nordstrom, and opening up Alaska to those who had never seen the state. Even though few of the Klondikers were rewarded with untold riches, few were bitter, either.

“When you read the journals of these people, you see that many of them turned back, disappointed, but they didn’t really talk about the disappointment so much as the big adventure, how much they learned, and how glad they were to have participated in this historic event,” says Snell-Dobert. “Even the people who didn’t strike gold did very well in other ways, and they all had quite a story to tell.”