Nancy B King

Welcome to the investors from Ms. DeMark’s Applied Math class who attend the high school at the Skagway City School . The Skagway school district consists of one K-12 school with an enrollment of 72 students of which 32 are high school students. Ms. DeMark is the math teacher for grades 8-12 and teaches all math classes from consumer math to calculus. She, like many other math teachers in Alaska and nationwide, uses the Stock Market Game program to enrich her math curriculum. SMG’s Math Behind the Market extends basic math skills, reinforces math knowledge, and provides test taking practice in a real-life type situation. In fact, Learning Point Associates conducted a rigorous, nationwide-randomized, controlled trial measuring the impact of the Stock Market Game and found that students who played the game scored significantly higher on mathematics tests than their peers who did not play the game. To view the full study click here. Teachers typically use the SMG once or twice a week to create a real world application for math. Ms. DeMark’s students are using math concepts, problem solving, and computation as they guide their investments that include stock in a Chinese seafood processor, a Japanese video game producer, a Canadian movie and TV production company, a biopharmaceutical company, and well-know companies such as GE, Johnson & Johnson, UPS, Dell, and Motorola.

Skagway is a coastal town in Southeast Alaska—the panhandle of Alaska. It is at the north end of 

the Lynn Canal. The Lynn Canal is a natural inlet waterway that connects Skagway and Haines at the north end and Juneau at the south end to the rest of the Inside Passage and the west coast ports in the lower 48.

The Inside Passage and the Lynn Canal are a main route for shipping, cruise ships, and Alaska ferries. Because Skagway is the northern terminus of the Lynn Canal section of the Alaska Marine Highway and is a port of call for the Inside Passage cruise ships, its population of 875 plays host to nearly 900,000 tourists each summer.

Skagway is also on the road system—one of only three Southeast Alaskan communities (Haines and Hyder). Skagway residences can take the Klondike Highway to Whitehorse in Yukon Territory, Canada, where it joins the Alaska Highway, the ALCAN Highway. If they turn left at Whitehorse, they can drive to Tok and be back in Alaska, then go north to Fairbanks or south to Anchorage. If they turn right at Whitehorse, they can drive through the southern part of Yukon Territory, on through British Columbia, and into the lower 48 states.

The Skagway area was first inhabited by the Tlingit people. They hunted and fished and traded with other groups of people living along the coast and in the interior. Then during 1896 gold was discovered along the Klondike River near Dawson City in Canada’s Yukon Territory. Skagway became a terminus and staging area for gold miners making the 500 mile trek to the Klondike gold fields. In 1896 only a handful of people lived in Skagway. By 1898 the population had increased to 8,000, which made Skagway the largest city in Alaska. Lots of gold mining town history was lived and created in the three short years between 1897 and 1900. By 1900 the gold rush was nearly over and the Skagway economy had collapsed. Names and events such as Jack London, The Call of the Wild (Skagway is part of the setting), “Soapy” Smith, and the shootout on Juneau Wharf, have become part of our national historical lore. Today, tourists can visit the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park and ride the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad that hauled miner’s supplies as far as Whitehorse, and adventurous hikers can trek the 33 mile Chilkoot Trail which miners struggled up to reach the Yukon goldfields.

Miners and Prospectors on the Chilkoot Trail

The following is a modern-day runner’s description of the trail:

The trail is like running through a museum. The history here jumps at you. The trail follows a river for a few miles with considerable climbing & descending over glacial moraines, around chasms and outcroppings. At about 16 miles you obtain the pass by climbing 1500’ in about 3/8 mile. The route is all roots, bogs, rocks, tundra and more rocks of every size & description in your very worst nightmare! Chilkoot Pass itself makes Wasatch’s “Chinscrapper” seem easy. I crossed so many streams, snowfields and rock fields it all blends into a memory of this being the most difficult physical feat I have ever attempted in less than a day. There is one 4 mile section where backpackers are advised to allow 10 hours. (this section took me 4 hours). During my run as I passed backpackers, they were jealous of my light fanny pack and my ease of negotiating the difficult terrain unencumbered as they were with their heavy packs. Once over the pass & into B.C. the trail tends to be downhill but still with many climbs around & over “stuff.” Rocks, snowfields & wet conditions from the rain & glacial runoff combine to make the going pretty slow. Of course there is the required reading of historical signs & taking breaks to soak in the wonder around you. The temperatures were 35-60 deg. & everything that can fall from the sky including brilliant sunshine, did. The winds were light except at the summit at Chilkoot Pass. There’s about 7000’ of climbing & 3000’ of descent. I carried minimal survival gear & relied on 8 packets of GU energy gels & 3 Cliff bars. I treated my water from the streams with iodine.

Also, in modern-day Skagway

The students in Ms. DeMark’s Applied Math class can learn about current publically traded railroads, mining corporations, and hiking equipment companies while they live in Skagway, the historical staging town for the Yukon Territory gold rush of 112 years ago.

Nancy King, Stock Market Game Alaska Coordinator—administered in Alaska by the Alaska Council on Economic Education.