Klondike

... More >

Seattle it triggered a gold-rush, and in a short time more than 100,000 people from all over the world came pouring into the Klondike. The worldwide depression meant that the lure of the gold, so vividly described by Jack London, proved irresistible, although less than half those who hoped to make their fortune in the Yukon probably never actually got there. Many of them who came from the Pacific died trying to get over White Pass or even Chilkoot Pass to Bennett Lake and to the boats in Carcross which would take them down the Yukon to Whitehorse ; as many again suffered the unspeakable hardships of the long trek from the east through Edmonton to the Yukon. Dawson City, the gold-rush's famous capital city of tents and log cabins, sprang up overnight at the confluence of the Klondike and the Yukon, and by 1898 had a population of about 25,000. By 1903 the rivers and creeks of the Klondike had yielded gold worth about 96 million dollars, at an average price of 20 dollars per ounce (31g), but there were very few whose dreams of great riches came true.

When gold was found in August 1899 at Nome, near the mouth of the Yukon, the prospectors moved on to Alaska. The Klondike gold-rush eventually ended ten years after it began, leaving the valley to sink back into obscurity.

The search for gold continued, but the individual gold-panners were replaced by big corporations using industrial machinery. The damage they caused to the environment is still visible, as gold continues to be mined, and more extensive operations are under discussion.