Introduction : A great, but old, discovery

The Seattles Post-Intelligencer, July 17, 1897

In this post, we will focus on the discovery in itself, as a quick introduction for the real journey that represents the Klondike Gold Rush for the gold prospectors.


The Klondike Gold Rush as we called it, refers to the massive migration of gold prospectors in the region of the Klondike, in Alaska between 1897 and 1899. In July 1897, steamships from Alaska full of  "stacks of yellow metal' docked in San Fransisco and Seattle. Many rich deposit of gold had been discovered along the Klondike River in 1896. At that moment, the information quickly spread through the continent, newspaper and telegraphs talked about that great discovery that would lead hundred of people to the Yukon, all of them looking for gold. (It would be interesting to see in details in another post who left for the Klondike and why, but also how.)

In reality, that was not a new discovery. According to Gary L. Blackwood's article published Wild West :

There had been rumors of gold in the Yukon as far back as the 1830s, but little was done about it. The harsh land and harsher weather, plus the Chilkoot Indians’ jealous guarding of their territory, effectively kept out most prospectors–until 1878, when a man named George Holt braved the elements and the Indians and came back with nuggets impressive enough to make other prospectors follow his lead. By 1880, there were perhaps 200 miners panning fine placer gold from the sandbars along the Yukon River.

As it is written, gold had not been found during a simple stroke of luck and the region was already scanned by miners long before the actual Gold Rush. If some of the miners were locals, part of them were also foreigners (Russians are mentionned in the article) or coming from the mainland, which suggests that the information about gold in the Klondike was already known and shared by few people around the country. But it was only rumors which attracted miner that "came as much for the solitude as for the gold.", and it took several decades to actually found enough gold to appeal other prospectors from the mainland and start the Yukon fever. 

Blackwood also suggests that the delay between the actual discovery and the frenzy that took over the continent was due to the lack of communication, or rather the impossibility to spread of the information. Indeed, gold had been dug out in one year prior, on August 1896 by the American Georges Carmack and two Indians on Rabbit Creek, along the Yukon River. According to Blackwood, winter had been a great obstacle to the communication between Canada and the United-States. 

If all this had come about early in the year, the news would have reached civilization within a few weeks. But winter was already closing in. Once the rivers froze and the heavy snows fell, communication with the outside was nearly impossible. William Ogilvie, a Canadian government surveyor, sent off two separate messages to Ottawa, telling of the magnitude of the strike, but both were lost in the bureaucratic shuffle.

The harsh climate and land of Alaska is an important aspect of the Klondike Gold Rush, and most of the difficulties encountered by the miners revolved around that. Locals had even made money out of this problem by selling goods and services to fight the wild environement of the Yukon, which would be the subject of another post. This implication of the locals in the Gold Rush is not new either, they had already invested this eventual source of income. In the article, we learn that they were participating in the gold search, Chilkoot Indians were also gold miners. But after the migration of hundreds of American, they seemed to have changed their approach concerning gold. Unlike the miners who intended to make money out of gold, locals made money out of miners.

The law enforcement also mentioned in the article generated a good income. Under Canadian laws, miners had to get a license, and then when they had found a good location, they had to claim it to finally be able to mine and hopefully, find gold.

Source :

Gary L. Blackwood, Wild West (Aug, 1997)  (Document PDF)