For the determined

Westland Distillery & Original Alaska Outfitters, C.C. Filson, came together for a collaborative project. Coldfoot, as a concept, was conceived as a metaphor to represent the iconoclastic stance of their mutual dedication to craft, quality, and the pursuit of their own paths.

The story of Coldfoot is true. In 1897, a rugged group of prospectors took a different trail. Not to the fabled gold fields of Dawson and Eldorado, but to Coldfoot, a little-known camp 167 miles above the Arctic Circle. 2000 hopefuls set out on the journey, but only 200 made it and stuck it out. One year later, only 100 remained. The others either expired in the effort or turned back with cold feet, giving the camp its name. But the Coldfoot project is not intended to be a history lesson; instead, it creates a visceral connection to a piece of the story that helped to shape the West.

We intentionally steered clear of the story and visuals made famous in the Yukon Gold Rush—scenes of thousands of prospectors hauling their goods to an overpopulated boomtown—we focused on the lonely trail. A story of isolation and hardship. The Coldfoot brand is for the people who embraced the struggle, or even reveled in it, because their reward wasn’t in the bonanza that never came. Instead, their reward was in the beauty of the experience, the landscape itself, and in the triumph of the self. 

Coldfoot is for the Determined.