"To Whom It May Concern:
I do, this day, locate and claim, by right of discovery, five hundred feet, running up stream from this notice. Located this the seventeenth day of August, 1896."
With this simple hand-made sign, prospector George Carmack set off the last great Gold rush that our country would ever see.
George Carmack and His Find
There had been reports of gold in Alaska and in adjacent parts of Canada for years. There were smaller parties of men looking for gold along the Klondike River in parts of the United States and Canada's Yukon Territory. The Gold Rush of 1848 was a not too distant memory,
so at about this time, Carnack having found nothing in California heard about gold to be found along the Klondike River. So he moved into the area with a pair of Native American cohorts: Tagish Charlie, and Skookim Jim. On today's date August 16 in 1896 while camped near Rabbit Creek, Carmack said that he saw a nugget of gold in one part of the creek, The three men looked further and found more gold in many of the rocks at their spot. Carmack posted the sign quoted above the very next day. As it turned out there was gold to be found all around this portion of Rabbit Creek which was renamed "Bonanza" as many of the local prospectors began setting up claims in the area as news of the find began to spread.
News of Gold Goes National
While the men who were already on the spot at the time became rich, the Yukon was in a fairly remote spot. So it was nearly a year before the news spread around the country. But on July 27, 1897 news got to the rest of the world. This was when the steamship
Portland arrived in Seattle filled with Gold from these original finds. And the newspapers just couldn't resist from trumpeting the news in their largest print. As a
result over the next several months nearly 100,000 men made their way north to Canada and Alaska hoping to strike it rich quickly. Although most of the easy to find gold had been snapped up by the men like Carmack, they made it as best they could to the Klondike river. The fact is that only about 30,000 actually got there. It was a long and very cold journey by foot or using pack animals or sleds. And many just gave up or were killed. Said one prospector: "“It is impossible to give one an idea of the slowness with which things are moving. It takes a day to go four or five miles and back; it takes a dollar to do what ten cents would do at home.”
Klondike Fever Rises!
The excitement was extreme according to further reports in the
Seattle Post Intelligencer: "It is safe to say that never in the history of the Northwest has there been such excitement as has prevailed in this city all day long and which is raging to-night. It is due to the arrival ... of the steamer Portland, carrying sixty-eight men, from the Clondyke
gold fields, every one of whom brings down a fortune." The hopefuls would land at such tent city ports as Skagaway and Deya, And from there they would start the 600 mile trek to the Gold fields (they hoped). There were many routes, one of which was the steep climb of Chillkoot Pass (left). They of course needed all manner of supplies, like snowshoes, winter coats, boots, picks and shovels... everything. and of course there were many men who got rich providing these supplies.
The End Result....
Dawson City (below) became the largest genuine city north of San Francisco; not just a giant tent city but a town with modern amenities such as proper plumbing, electric lighting and fire hydrants. The growth of Dawson City was one of the key reasons that the Yukon became a new Canadian Territory on June 13, 1898. Those original groups that found gold (known as "the Klondike Kings") became very rich. It is estimated that over one billion dollars worth of gold was found (adjusted for
modern standards). The original "Klondike King", George Carmack, wound up leaving the area with $1 million in his account. There was an environmental impact on the area due to soil erosion, and deforestation. And the Native American peoples also suffered from the introduction of white men's diseases such a venereal diseases and small pox. The gold began to run out around 1898-99 with many of the small claims selling off to large mining companies. Also world events started crowding out the Gold Rush for national attention, such as the looming Spanish/American War. Also gold was found elsewhere in the area such as Nome, Alaska. But a handful had gotten very rich very quickly in this, the last great gold rush in our country's history
Sources =
https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/goldrush.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush
https://www.historynet.com/klondike-gold-rush
http://content.lib.washington.edu/extras/goldrush.html
http://alaskaweb.org/mining/klongoldrushstrts.html
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gold-discovered-in-the-yukon
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