This collection contains photographs, newspaper clippings, maps and a handwritten reminiscence of a prolonged trip to Alaska and the Klondike. All items except the photographs are contained in one 17.25" x 11.5" x 3" box. Clarence Reckmeyer was a prolific newspaper article writer, according to an obituary from the Omaha (Nebraska) World Herald. The scrapbook contains articles presumably written by Reckmeyer for the World Herald, the Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal, the Fremont (Nebraska) Tribune and Guide and the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. The articles cover a large range in subject matter: obituaries, marriage announcements, historical notes, and public interest stories from 1928 to 1955. The maps in the collection include a Conoco/Rand McNally & Co. road map of Utah, dated 1921, and an 1897 map from the Northern Coast Steamship Company showing routes from San Francisco to Alaska and the Klondike. The Alaska map also includes tips for travelers and suggestions for gold prospectors as to gear to take and recipes for camp food. The very detailed travel story is handwritten on paper in pencil and describes travel on the steamship to Alaska, on the Dyea Trail, by steamboat to the Yukon, the White Horse Tramway, small boats on various rivers, and a description of the "McQuestion River Expedition," where the author joined a group to prospect the McQuestion River, a tributary of the Stewart River. This journey on foot put the prospectors into contact with several tribes of natives and ultimately led to several worthless claims for the members of the party. The group then went to Dawson, where the narrative ends. From Dawson, Reckmeyer went on to Nome, back to Seattle, and then back to his home in Nebraska. The photographs in the Clarence Reckmeyer collection are in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science Image Archives. They include originals and copies of scenes of Nome, Alaska, taken in 1899 and 1900, a photograph of a group of men at Lake Bennett, Alaska, in 1898, a group of natives in Cape Prince of Wales, and a photograph of a placer mine for tin on Buck Creek, about twelve miles north of York, Alaska, in 1903.There are also several undated photographs of mountain locations in Colorado. Included in the collection is a short obituary from the Omaha World Herald. Reckmeyer also left short biographical notes, which are included in the collection.
