30 There Is Gold in Those Hills 1896

One night Skookum Jim had a dream. A woman came to him. In Skookum's dream, this woman gave him a golden walking stick. She told Skookum Jim that he would find his fortune in Northern Canada. In 1896, Skookum Jim did exactly that when he turned over a rock at Rabbit Creek in the Yukon and found gold under it.

Skookum Jim, his sister Kate, her husband George Carmack, and their son, Dawson Charlie, went fishing together in July that year. On August 16, 1896, Jim and the Carmack family found their fortunes when they saw gold in the rocks at Rabbit Creek. Jim and the Carmacks changed more than 100,000 people's lives the moment they found gold in Northern Canada. They started a rush of prospectors going to the Yukon. Within two years, some people became rich. Most became poor. Thousands quit their jobs, left their families and moved north. Towns were built. New businesses were started. Many people died.

Canadians believe that Skookum Jim found the gold. He was a First Nations man though and he didn't know if he could legally stake a claim. George Carmack was a white American so George signed the legal papers. The two went to work looking for gold at their claim which they called Eldorado. When people in town heard that a claim had been staked they knew where in Canada to look for gold. About 3,000 went to the same area and very quickly staked their own claims.

On July 14, 1897, the steamship Excelsior arrived in San Francisco with $500,000 worth of gold that the prospectors in the Yukon had found. Three days later, the steamship Portland arrived in Seattle with more gold and 5,000 people greeted it. Everyone watched while over $1 million worth of gold was carried off that ship by the 68 prospectors who had found it.

The very next day, Seattle's Mayor quit his job and jumped on a ship heading north to Alaska. He joined 30,000 other people who spent up to one year getting to the place where Dawson City in the Yukon is today. It was to be the most difficult year of all of their lives.

Most of the prospector's ships stopped in Skagway, Alaska. None of them knew about the almost impossible road they had to take from there to the Yukon. In Skagway, they had to choose from travelling over the White Pass or the Chilkoot Pass through the mountains. Many bought horses and tried their luck with the White Pass. This road was narrow. It had many large stones. It was a long way to the bottom for anyone who fell over the side. So many horses died that people started to call it “Dead Horse Trail”. Others, who did not have the money to buy horses, walked over the Chilkoot Pass in Canada. They had to climb over the mountain. They had to climb up 3,000 feet. They had to walk 42 kilometres to the end of the pass. Many had to climb up and down this pass 30 times before they had enough supplies at the top to continue on to Dawson City.

Canadian law said that prospectors had to bring enough food and other supplies for one year. The law said they had to bring four wool shirts, 12 pairs of socks, three pairs of shoes, and many other clothes. Some of the food they had to bring were 200 lbs of bacon, 400 lbs of flour, 35 lbs of rice and over 670 lbs of other food. They also had to carry equipment like a tent, a shovel, an axe, a rope, and much more. Their goods were looked at by the North West Mounted Police(see 1873)before they could start their first trip up the Chilkoot Pass.

Prospectors who chose this route had to carry their one tonne of items on their backs. Some of them took three months to do this. Those who tried first were lucky. They did it in the autumn. Those who came in the winter had to climb over frozen rocks. They had to climb in snow storms. They had to climb when the temperature was as cold as -50° C.In April of 1898, a rush of snow, called an avalanche, killed 63 prospectors as they were trying to climb over the pass.

WHEN GOLD WAS FOUND IN NORTHERN CANADA, THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE RUSHED THERE

Some prospectors camped in their tents during the winter and waited for spring. Although it was warmer and there was no danger of an avalanche, things were no better. In spring, there was rain and fog. The rocks were slippery and there was a lot of wet earth. Men had trouble walking through that mud. Even today, those who walk the Chilkoot with their light loads and modern equipment say it is one of the most difficult walks in the world.

The prospectors who made it to the top of the pass with all of their goods could not rest. They still had more than 800 kilometres to go along the Yukon River. To do this, they had to chop down trees. They had to make a small boat or a raft that would carry them on the water to Dawson City. When the ice finally broke in the spring, they had to put all their food, clothes and supplies onto their raft and go on.

In the first few days of spring, over 100 rafts that set off were broken into pieces and 10 men were drowned. Almost all of those that lost their rafts also lost all of their supplies. The prospectors saw their mistake. They should have walked along the frozen lake to Dawson City. Now that the ice was gone, they had to sail past the Whitehorse Rapids in their rafts. Nearly 7,000 prospectors tried, but the dangerous water in the rapids killed many. Others did not die, but when they lost everything they had no way to go on and no money to get back home. They became some of the first settlers in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Surprisingly, over 30,000 made it. They changed the small First Nations, fishing camp into the largest and busiest Canadian city west of Winnipeg in just two years. They named it Dawson City. Almost all of the prospectors who came to Dawson City in the second year found there were no more claims left and they could not look for gold. By 1899, the Klondike Gold Rush was all over. Gold was found in Nome, Alaska that year and most of the prospectors rushed there. Those that stayed had their best year ever in 1900. More than $22 million in gold was dug out of the Yukon ground in that one year.

In the end, Skookum Jim and George Carmack's Eldorado gold claim made them over $30 million which is nearly $900 million today. They were two of only about 300 people that ever became rich from prospecting for gold in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush. More fortunes were made in Dawson City by people selling things to the prospectors than from gold.