Technically – and legally – a cord is a pile of wood four feet by four feet by eight feet. In real life terms, a cord of wood is a lot of cutting and hauling.  During the Alaska Gold Rush it took thousands of cords of wood to keep steamboats plowing their way up the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. But the steamships could only use the river systems for about 130 days a year, roughly the middle of June to the end of September. The rest of the time the rivers were covered with six feet of ice.  Woodcutters like these men would fell trees and split wood all winter and stack it in piles by the river’s edge. Then they would earn a year’s income in 130 days. To the modern eye, this is just a photograph of a large pile of wood. To these woodcutters it was solid gold.