Back to the Klondike is a comic story written and drawn by Carl Barks. It features Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck and in her debut, Goldie O'Gilt.
Plot[]
Scrooge McDuck is hit with a case of mild amnesia, and, after some difficulties, Donald manages to get him to see a doctor about it. The doctor gives him pills to stimulate his memory. The medicine works better than expected and Scrooge is flooded by memories of the Klondike Gold Rush he participated in from 1896 to 1899… including the love of his life, Goldie O'Gilt, and also a fortune in gold which he hid somewhere in his claim and never retrieved until today. This is enough to make him go "back to the Klondike", dragging his nephews along with him.
Continuity[]
- Carl Barks had previously established Scrooge's past in the Klondike in Only a Poor Old Man (1952).
- Many writers, Don Rosa foremost among them, expanded upon Scrooge's ill-fated love story with Goldie O'Gilt, in such stories as Last Sled to Dawson (1989) and The Prisoner of White Agony Creek (2004). The latter is especially notable for expanding the very events already described in Barks's flashback in this story.
Behind the scenes[]
This story was first printed in March of 1953 in Uncle Scrooge #2. It was then reprinted in The Best of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, Uncle Scrooge #142, Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times, Gladstone Comic Album #4, Uncle Scrooge Adventures #26, Uncle Scrooge Adventures by Carl Barks #2, Uncle Scrooge #325, Carl Barks' Greatest DuckTales Stories #1, and, of course, in all versions of the Carl Barks Library.
In the first printing of the story, five whole pages were cut from the story by the editor. Those pages depicted the flashback of the young Scrooge and Goldie in 1896, and a half-page following that sequence where Donald Duck checked the number of memory pills left in the box, thus foreshadowing the story's ending. The four-and-a-half pages of the flashback were sent back to Carl Barks, who sent copies of it to some of his fans from the 1970's onwards. These pages were eventually integrated back into the story in the 1981 printing of the story in Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times.
However, the last half-page could not be found. Based on his own storyboards, Barks penciled a black-and-white reconstitution of that sequence, which was used in some printings (such as Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times and both Carl Barks Libraries). This sketched version was also inked and colored by Daan Jippes in 1987, and that version was used in the printings of Gladstone Comic Album #4, Uncle Scrooge Adventures #26, Uncle Scrooge Adventures in Color #2, Uncle Scrooge #325 and Carl Barks' Greatest DuckTales Stories #1.