Day 30 - It's All About The Gold - Dawson City, YK

One million people, it is said laid plans to go to the Klondike. One hundred thousand actually set off and about thirty thousand made it. What was moose pasture and a fish camp was transformed into a metropolis in two years. Dawson grew slowly throughout the winter of 189, but once the Yukon River thawed in May 1898, boats arrived by the hundreds at all hours of the day or night. Dawson City became the largest city north of Seattle and west of Winnipeg.

Gold seekers heading to the Klondike in 1898 were required to pack and carry their goods over the Chilcoot Pass. The list of supplies required for each man included 400 pounds of flour, 100 pounds of beans, and 100 pounds of sugar. These are just a few of the items they had to carry. The average man took about 40 trips to haul his supplies to Bennett. That’s over icy trails, through blizzards and sub-zero conditions, not to mention the Chilcoot Pass Summit.

During a global depression and the associated widespread unemployment in the 1890’s thousands of men and a few hundred women joined the Klondike Gold Rush. Most seekers found no gold but the prospect of sudden riches was not all that mattered. The Klondike represented escape from the humdrum life and the adventure of a new frontier.

Not long after gold was discovered in the Klondike, dredges started showing up in the Yukon. One of two dozen dredges worked this area was Dredge No. 4 which rest on Claim No. 17 below Discovery on Bonanza Creek near the spot where it ceased operations in 1959. It was the largest wooden hull, bucket-line dredge in North America.

To get gold from the ground, the bucket line dug down to bedrock bringing gravel up to the hopper. Gold is heavy, so gravity sorted it from the waste as it passed through the trammel and sluice. The sluice worked like gold pans, trapping the gold in the riffles and coconut matting then sending the waste out the stacker.

Dredge No. 4 worked its way up the Klondike Valley into Hunker Creek. The ground at the mouth of Hunker Creek was so rich the dredge produced as much as 800 ounces of gold in a single day. Over 46 years, Dredge No. 4 recovered eight metric tons of gold.

All placer (loose) gold mining required two things: water and gravity. Inside the dredge, a large pipeline sprayed water into the trammel to wash the smaller and heavier gold bearing gravel through the holes into the sluice tables. More water washed over the sluice tables and washed away all but the heavier gold particles. 

Before the Bonanza Creek discovery, the first major find of coarse gold flakes and nuggets came on Forty Mile River in 1886. Prospectors travelled up the Klondike River but they overlooked the rich pay streaks of the tributaries.

In July 1894, Robert Henderson started prospecting the tributaries of Indian Creek and in 1896 started mining on Gold Bottom Creek in the Klondike Drainage. Henderson met George Carmack at a fish camp and invited him to visit his workings at Gold Bottom. About 20 days later George Carmack, Skookum Jim, and Dawson Charlie travelled up Bonanza Creek to visit Henderson and found some gold flakes. The three men staked claims at the richest spot they found. George went to Forty Mile to record them. No one felt the need to tell Henderson and by the time he found out all the rich ground was staked. While Carmack was recording the claims, Skookum Jim was credited with sinking the first post on Bonanza Creek. 

And this is where it all happened. The picture is of Skookum (far left), George Carmack (center), and Dawson Charlie (far right). There’s a great one kilometer trail that talks about the discovery of gold and how mining has evolved over the years. You can even site at the site where the first gold discovery was made.

Bonanza Creek

An early sluice was an inclined wooden box with obstacles (riffles) to catch the heavy gold as water washed gravel and sand down its length.

There is still evidence today of old mining claims along Bonanza Creek. 

In saying that the area is still actively mined north of Bonanza Creek as evidence of the TV show Gold Rush. We watch the show all the time. Susan and I were getting into our truck and who drives by but Parker from Gold Rush. Sorry no pictures happened way to fast.

So what do you do when you have read all the history on the Klondike and seen Discovery Claim, well you try it for yourself at Claim 33. We didn’t strike it rich but let’s say we struck gold and had a great time.

After striking it rich we all thought we were pros at this gold mining business. Claim 6 is a free claim that anyone can pan for gold at any time with a few limitations. So with pans and shovel in hand away we go.

We didn’t find any gold but had a great time. 

Before departing Dawson I had to find my cousin. After supper I was on a mission, and sure enough I found him. That made my trip to Dawson even that much better. It was just bad we couldn’t spend more time together. He was working, I was leaving.