The Game begins with Exposition of the time date, July 1897 the US is in the throes of a depression, times were tough and people were beginning to lose hope (sure they weren’t just bored?) then from out of the North came astonishing news…..GOLD! All of a sudden people in the US and around the world were heading to the Yukon in hopes of striking it rich. Then we get dialogue from Gold Dust Charley and a cameo from the newspaper hawler Fast forward to a month later….YOU yes YOU the player are in Seattle, Washington near a shipyard, the game wants to know your name for Journal purposes

Once you’ve exited the Journal you see a pair of people that are either going to convince you to go to either Dyea or Skagway (this was before the Yukon/White Pass Railroad was a thing you’re on your own here) they’ll both tell you you’ll need a ticket to board the ship and they tell you there’s a ticket office down the street. You find it you try to buy a ticket but get told that you’ll need a partner in order to get a ticket. (you can also talk to the other people in Seattle but it’s completely optional, in fact talking to people is optional, more on that later) There are four people waiting for you

The Berry’s would convince you to pick a good partner and buy your food in Seattle rather than wait til you get to Alaska because everything is cheaper here

There is Sadie who claims to be the best Gold Miner on the planet

There’s “Linda” (she tells us to call her that because her name is difficult for outsiders to pronounce) who is a trail guide and can help carry your stuff (and happens to be from where we are supposed to go)

There’s Jake who is a carpenter, he’ll actually tell you which is the best boat to build if you choose the square one or the arrow shaped one, more on that later

And there’s Midas T Golden he breaks easily but has the most money out of all 4 partners, the rest of them have 500 bucks each

Once you’ve selected a partner you can go buy your ticket, there are three ships to choose from the most expensive ships can go today, the mid prices ones will take a week because they’re coming back from Alaska, and the cheap ones are getting patched up and won’t be ready for two weeks

Once you’ve got your tickets maybe now would be a good time to get supplies, everyone insists they are cheaper in Seattle and they’re right, sleds and whipsaws cost 40 and 8 bucks respectively

Once you’ve bought everything you need, you can head back to the wharf, one person is replaced by this peddler and he has six different items to sell but in each game only two are seen, it’s either a combo of Kittens and a Folding Boat, Eggs and Gophers, Caviar and a trail bike, you don’t have to buy them however some of them can be resold for profit like you can sell the kittens when you get to Dawson City (they won’t sell if you are in Alaska) You can sell the Caviar like probably at any place (wait til you’re in Dawson City they’ll be worth more) and the eggs (sell them in Alaska if you wait til you get to a checkpoint town or to Dawson City they’ll be rotten) the Gophers will last the trip but they’ll take off once you’ve staked a claim, and the Folding Boat and the bike will be thrown overboard when you’re on the ship

Now once you’ve boarded the ship you’ll be travelling by map (as the Muppets would put it) you don’t really do anything on the ship you just sit tight til we arrive in Alaska and hope to god you don’t hit any rocks or icebergs and no storms happen

When you arrive in Dyea or Skagway, your partner will tell you (yeah they are usually expositionists here) and if you haven’t gotten supplies in Seattle they’ll tell you we should go shopping first (otherwise when you start the trail you’ll be told they’re out of there) what happens in each town varies, there are more gambling options (yes gambling, but this can be turned off in the Management options, P.S. the password is MECC) in Skagway (don’t wager more than $1 at find the nugget it’s very rigged, you can whine to Soapy Smith about it but he won’t do anything…oh speaking of which almost every person you run into actually existed, The Berrys, the Carmacks, Skookum Jim, Luella Day (and boy is her story interesting) and yes even Jefferson Randolph Smith) why is it the seediest of the two towns has more for you to do?

There are two different trails (both towns will have a packer but you can’t afford them even if you don’t bother to spend money in Seattle or Alaska) and they’re both very different and each will have a different checkpoint town town, the Chilkoot trail from Dyea is short but steep you might get injured more easily, the White Pass trail is longer and maybe there’s a reason we meet a bunch of stampeders that are down on their luck in White Pass City….more on that in a bit

When you start the main trail you are travelling by map again and you can change the load options I would suggest Heavy Load otherwise you would have to make multiple trips with Light Mode, guess it’s the equivalent of the Pace options in the other trail games) anything can happen on the trail if you get injured DO NOT click let’s rest you will be stuck there FOREVER, same goes for bad weather that isn’t Blizzards (when your partner tells you stuff about the Blizzards or the lineups or the mule train or a rock slide it automatically has the OK option) if your partner tells you some food was stolen just go to your journal for inventory the food amount will be different every time, try clicking on the stuff in your inventory you’ll get some interesting entries especially with the food

The checkpoint you reach will depend on which path you take if you take the Chilkoot trail you will meet a guy that has a special tram that can take your stuff up (it’ll cost you 100 bucks though I’ve actually used it myself a couple of times a drawback is that you have to wait for it to arrive at customs which might not be good news for your food supply) and you’ll meet someone who is betting on a sled dog race it’ll cost you 5-25 dollars you can bet a second time but after that she’ll tell you no more racing they gotta get to the Klondike too). At White Pass City you’re going to meet a bunch of stampeders that are down on their luck and stuck here because of bad decisions (or circumstances beyond their control like the weather). Both checkpoints will have a shop where you can restock on food if you have less than 2000 pounds of food or are getting close to getting below that point

Once you’ve reached customs you have to have 100 bucks on you and more than 2000 pounds of food (not 1000 the Mountie will make you go back to the checkpoint, I don’t know if other people were lying to you or if it’s a game glitch….or maybe it’s 1K in the DOS version) they’ll still let you pass if you have more than 2000 pounds of food and less than 100 bucks but you’ll be completely broke. Now once you’ve cleared that it won’t really matter about delays but you might want to get to Lake Bennett (not Lake Laberge like the people in Seattle have been saying) before December because you’re going to be stuck at Lake Bennett til Spring and your departure will depend on when you arrive.When you do arrive you’ll be greeted by Sam Steele a NorthWest Mounted Police member so legendary that he got his own Canadian heritage minute. He will tell you you’ll be here until Spring (but this is Northern Canada, Spring arrival will take awhile, you’re stuck there til late may, depending on when you arrive if you arrive too late you’ll have to wait four days to leave, but if you arrive early enough you can get out of there the second he tells you) and you’ll have to spend that time building a boat there are three choices to pick from, the one of the far right is the slowest and the one in the middle is the fastest (in fact Jake will insist you build that one) and the calendar will do the rest once you’ve selected your boat

Once you’re on the river you are going to travel by map again however there are going to be three points where you will be navigating your boat down the river, oh yeah something I neglected to bring up, when you talk to people, they can give you advice that that be jotted down in the journal, give the newspaper hawker some extra stuff to work with when you let her borrow your journal (it’s worth it, she’ll pay you 20 dollars in gold) there are a couple of people at Lake Bennett that can give very useful information on how to navigate the rapids. Miles Canyon you have to stay in the middle of the river, The Whitehorse Rapids and the Five Finger Rapids you have to keep to the right bank (like the right side of the screen) if you damage your boat in the rapids your partner will give you some options, either we take a few days and repair it, we start over and build a new boat (that will take a week) or keep going at a slower pace

We’ve made it to our objective Dawson City! Now should we go straight to the claim map or look around? By the way, the same newspaper hawker from Dyea is in Dawson city and she might still be interested in your journal and she’ll still pay you 20 dollars in gold or maybe if you still have those cats and the caviar let’s sell them! All three major towns in this game will have a saloon and the same dude that wants to play a game of Cards (I think the game is Klondike) don’t worry he’s not one of Soapy’s guys, in fact he actually is aware that you think he’ll cheat so he has your partner watch your hands, you can bet ten or fifty cents a point

There’s an arcade that is also in all three major towns, the proprietor of the arcade will insist you score exactly 1000 points in her game no more no less and she will tell you the best place to dig for gold (you can play but Eldorado Creek is not the best place to dig for gold)

If you get there earlier enough (like mid June) there will be alot of claims open the best claims are in 1 and 2 below Bonanza Creek, however get there after June 20th and the best you can do is Cheechako Hill (yeah you’ll get gold out of that no matter what George Carmack says)

Chances are you’ll either uncover gold nuggets first or Gold Dust first or maybe you’ll get a message from your partner saying that we’ve struck it rich (mind you this normally happens at the Bonanza’s)

You can also choose to switch claims or keep testing the claim (I’d stake it as soon as you get told you’ve struck it rich) once you’ve staked the claim the game will take it from there and you’ll see people working your claim at least until November 2nd you’ll get a message that it’s time to cash out and head home. You’ll get a pop up of Gold Dust Charlie either telling you that “You’re Rich” or that “Well at least you made it to Dawson” (you can also get a message from him if you choose to end the game before you get to the Yukon or if you completely run out of food and your partner decided to bail on you) and you’ll be put in the hall of fame. I made it to Yukoner rank once, too bad I didn’t enter my name at the beginning of the game

And that’s all there is to it, even though the major learning point here is History, you will learn Time and Money Management as well.

Man I totally remember playin Yukon Trail back on the old family PC. I always loved Oregon Trail but this one was like Oregon Trail's weird cousin with sled dogs n gold. My buddy and I would pick the craziest partners n blow all our cash on cats & caviar just to see what'd happen lol. The random events made it feel like a choose your own adventure, and it kinda taught us about the gold rush at the same time. Thanks for the walkthrough, it brought back all the nostalgia, I might try a run again soon just for kicks.