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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.08.10 19:14l 58 Lines 2678 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Aug 16
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Sent: 100816/1749Z @:N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA #:14501 [Branson] FBB7.00i $:14501_N
From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@WW
Aug 16, 1896:
Gold discovered in the Yukon
While salmon fishing near the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon
Territory on this day in 1896, George Carmack reportedly spots
nuggets of gold in a creek bed. His lucky discovery sparks the
last great gold rush in the American West.
Hoping to cash in on reported gold strikes in Alaska, Carmack
had traveled there from California in 1881. After running into a
dead end, he headed north into the isolated Yukon Territory,
just across the Canadian border. In 1896, another prospector,
Robert Henderson, told Carmack of finding gold in a tributary of
the Klondike River. Carmack headed to the region with two Native
American companions, known as Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie. On
August 16, while camping near Rabbit Creek, Carmack reportedly
spotted a nugget of gold jutting out from the creek bank. His
two companions later agreed that Skookum Jim--Carmack's
brother-in-law--actually made the discovery.
Regardless of who spotted the gold first, the three men soon
found that the rock near the creek bed was thick with gold
deposits. They staked their claim the following day. News of the
gold strike spread fast across Canada and the United States, and
over the next two years, as many as 50,000 would-be miners
arrived in the region. Rabbit Creek was renamed Bonanza, and
even more gold was discovered in another Klondike tributary,
dubbed Eldorado.
"Klondike Fever" reached its height in the United States in
mid-July 1897 when two steamships arrived from the Yukon in San
Francisco and Seattle, bringing a total of more than two tons of
gold. Thousands of eager young men bought elaborate "Yukon
outfits" (kits assembled by clever marketers containing food,
clothing, tools and other necessary equipment) and set out on
their way north. Few of these would find what they were looking
for, as most of the land in the region had already been claimed.
One of the unsuccessful gold-seekers was 21-year-old Jack
London, whose short stories based on his Klondike experience
became his first book, The Son of the Wolf (1900).
For his part, Carmack became rich off his discovery, leaving the
Yukon with $1 million worth of gold. Many individual gold miners
in the Klondike eventually sold their stakes to mining
companies, who had the resources and machinery to access more
gold. Large-scale gold mining in the Yukon Territory didn't end
until 1966, and by that time the region had yielded some $250
million in gold. Today, some 200 small gold mines still operate
in the region.
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