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In August 1896, three people led by Skookum Jim Mason headed north, down the Yukon River from the Carcross area, looking for his sister Kate and her husband George Carmack. The party included Skookum Jim, his cousin Dawson Charlie and his nephew Patsy Henderson. After meeting up with George and Kate, who were fishing for salmon at the mouth of the Klondike River, they ran into Nova Scotian Robert Henderson who had been mining gold on the Indian River, just south of the Klondike. Henderson told George Carmack about where he was mining and that he did not want any Indians (Skookum Jim) near him. On August 16, 1896, the Skookum party discovered rich placer gold deposits in Rabbit (Bonanza) Creek which is located in the Yukon Territory of northwest Canada. It is not clear who made the actual discovery, but some accounts say that it was Kate Carmack, while others credit Skookum Jim. George Carmack was officially credited for the gold discovery because the actual claim was staked in his name. The group agreed to this because they felt that other miners would be reluctant to recognize a claim made by an Indian (Skookum Jim), given the strong racist attitudes of the time. The news spread to other mining camps in the Yukon River valley. Gold was first discovered in Rabbit Creek which was later named Bonanza Creek because so many people came to the creek for gold. The Bonanza, Eldorado, and Hunker Creeks were rapidly staked by miners who had been previously working creeks and sandbars on the Fortymile and Stewart Rivers. Robert Henderson, who was still mining a couple of miles away over the hill, learned about the discovery only after all the rich creeks had been staked. But of course, he didn’t want Skookum Jim near him anyway, so I guess all was well! News from Alaska reached the United States in July 1897, when the first successful prospectors arrived in San Francisco on July 15 and in Seattle on July 17, setting off the Klondike stampede. In 1898, the population in the Klondike may have reached 40,000, which threatened to cause a famine. It was noted that 100,000 prospectors left for the Klondike, about 40,000 made it to Dawson City and only 10% of them found gold. Alaska prospectors, for the most part, landed at Skagway, or the adjacent town of Dyea, both located at the head of the Lynn Canal. At the height of the Klondike gold rush Dyea had 150 businesses established including 48 hotels and 2 hospitals. (By 1903 Dyea’s population was down to a mere 3 and Today the area is a thriving forest) From these towns they traveled the Chilkoot Trail and crossed the Chilkoot Pass, or they hiked up to the White Pass into the Yukon Territory and proceeded thence to Lake Lindeman or Lake Bennett, the headwaters of the Yukon River. Here, some 30 to 35 grueling miles from where they landed, prospectors built rafts and boats that would take them the final 500-plus miles down the Yukon to Dawson City, near the gold fields. Stampeders had to carry a year's supply of goods (about a ton, more than half of which was food) over the passes to be allowed to enter Canada. At the top of the passes, the stampeders encountered Canada's Mountie post that enforced that regulation. It was put in place to avert shortages like those that had occurred in the previous two winters in Dawson City. Once the bulk of the prospectors arrived at Dawson City, the major mining claims of the region were already established. The Alaska gold locations, by gold district, and the amount of gold produced in each location of Alaska is available in “THE GREAT AMERICAN GOLD RUSHES”, Volume I in “THE GREAT AMERICAN SERIES” of e-books on gold.
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