Jason's Gold Books in Order

The Jason's Gold books are historical adventures set during the great northern gold rushes at the turn of the twentieth century. They follow Jason Hawthorn, a fifteen-year-old who hears that gold has been found in the Yukon and makes a snap decision that changes everything. He leaves for Seattle, stows away on a ship, and joins the mass of hopeful prospectors heading north.

Jason is chasing gold, but he is also chasing a larger life. He wants to be useful, independent, and able to help his family. The trouble is that the route to the Klondike is brutal. The Dead Horse Trail, Chilkoot Pass, the Yukon River, cold weather, hunger, and hard choices stand between him and the future he imagines.

The North does not care how badly someone wants to strike it rich.

In Jason's Gold, Jason's path crosses with Jamie Dunavant, a Canadian girl with plans of her own, the young writer Jack London, and King, a husky Jason rescues. These relationships give the story warmth, but they do not make the journey safer. Hobbs uses the historical setting to show the scale of the rush, thousands of people gambling money, strength, and time on a dream that may never pay off.

Down the Yukon continues Jason's story after Dawson City is already changing under the pressure of another rush. This time the lure is Nome, where gold has been discovered in beach sands far away. Jason has a more personal reason to take the risk: his family has been cheated out of its sawmill, and he wants to buy it back. Jamie returns, and the pair enter a demanding race toward Nome.

The second book expands the scope from mountain trails and inland rivers to the dangerous open sea. Jason and Jamie have skills, courage, and feelings for one another, but they also face two dangerous men and a landscape that can turn from opportunity to disaster in minutes. Their partnership is one of the series' strongest threads.

These are fast historical novels, but they don't treat the past like a costume. The tools, travel, labor, weather, and money worries shape every decision. Readers get the excitement of canoe races, winter travel, dogs, river hazards, and gold fever, along with a clear sense of how exhausting and uncertain the rush could be.

Start with Jason's Gold. It introduces Jason, Jamie, King, and the Klondike journey that gives the sequel its emotional weight. Then move to Down the Yukon for a bigger, riskier trip into the next wave of northern adventure.