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Mar 2, 2015 · The Canadian North was seen as something more than frozen wasteland: Klondike fever was the catalyst for a chain of later mineral discoveries. Sixty steamboats plied the Yukon.
In the first wave was a tough, stocky 21-year-old from San Francisco named Jack London. Left, the riverfront in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, December 1897. Though his time in the Yukon was brutal ...
119 minutes. Country. Canada. Language. English. Budget. $4,000,000 [1] Klondike Fever is a 1980 Canadian adventure film, based on the writings of Jack London. It follows London's journey from San Francisco to the Klondike gold fields of the Yukon Territory, Canada in 1898.
Klondike. Klondike (also spelled Klondyke). The name is derived from a Gwich'in word, thron-duick (hammer river), and identifies a town, a river, and a range of hills in the Yukon. It also is used colloquially (as 'the Klondike') to describe the 'placer' area around what became Dawson City, where gold could be panned.
- Geology
- Discovery
- Early history
- Route
- Setting
- Results
- Population
- Aftermath
- Effects
- Legacy
The discovery of gold in the Yukon in 1896 led to a stampede to the Klondike region between 1897 and 1899. This led to the establishment of Dawson City (1896) and subsequently, the Yukon Territory (1898). The Klondike gold rush solidified the publics image of the North as more than a barren wasteland and left a body of literature that has populariz...
The search for gold in the Yukon started in 1874 with the arrival of a small handful of prospectors. Among them were Arthur Harper, Al Mayo and Jack McQuesten (the former an Irish immigrant, the latter Americans). The three became traders because they couldnt make a living as prospectors at that time. These men encouraged, promoted and then supplie...
Joseph Ladue, an American who had been in the Yukon since 1882, operated a trading post on the Yukon River, 70 km above the mouth of the Klondike. While others staked claims for gold, Ladue was quick to capitalize on the discovery of gold on Bonanza Creek. He staked out 65 hectares of swamp and moose pasture at the mouth of the Klondike River, call...
The stampeders laboured over a trail clogged with ice, snow and people; avalanche, drowning and disease; exhaustion, failure and heartbreak. Over the mountains and down the icy valleys along the Chilkoot and the White Pass Trails, they laboured until they reached the headwaters of the Yukon River. By the time the stampeders had relayed their tonne ...
At Dawson City, they found a bustling and rapidly growing city at the mouth of the Klondike River where scruffy Klondike millionaire veterans (a years residence in the Yukon entitled them to bear the name Sourdough) rubbed shoulders with newly arrived Cheechako (a Cheechako could only earn the title of sourdough after having survived an Arctic wint...
By the time the stampeders arrived in the Klondike to search for gold, it was too late to leave because the summers are short in the North. Each man (there were few women in Dawson at first) had to build shelter for the winter, and then endure seven months of cold, darkness, disease, isolation and monotony. For those lucky enough to find gold, noth...
The population of the Klondike dwindled from the 25,000 or more during the hey-day of the gold rush, to a few hundred within a decade. A century later, however, gold mining is still the economic mainstay of the region.
The Klondike gold rush brought about a rapid advance in the development of the Yukon Territory, which was officially formed by Parliament on 13 June 1898. The gold rush left an infrastructure of supply, support and governance that led to the continued development of the territory. Had it not been for the discovery of gold, development of this regio...
The gold rush brought tremendous upheaval and disenfranchisement for the people indigenous to the region. The Han people of the Yukon valley were pushed aside and marginalized. Only a century later, as a result of land claim settlements have the Trondëk Hwechin found redress and self-governance.
The most lasting legacy of the Klondike gold rush is the impression it left in the public mind. It was a shared experience which all participants faced, rich or poor, on a relatively similar footing, and which left its mark indelibly etched in their memories. Words like Klondike and Chilkoot evoke images of gold, adventure, challenge and the North....
The Klondike Gold Rush [n 1] was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of Yukon, in north-western Canada, between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896; when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors.
Caught up in ‘Klondicitis’ fever, many men abandoned their winter supplies, as the race to be the first to find gold began. But in a town where onions were sold for five dollars, that’s $170 today, it was not the paradise they had envisioned.
