219 © Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Geology Today, Vol. 23, No. 6, November–December 2007 FEATURE Feature Klondike Gold In 1896, the world’s greatest gold rush descended on the Klondike, in northern Canada. The hardships endured on the journey there and then in hand-mining the frozen ground are the stuff of legends. But the ‘mother lode’ was never found, and only recently have the origins of the gold been recognized. After the madness and the extravagance of the initial rush, mining methods evolved, and there are miners still working the Klondike today. Tony Waltham tony@geophotos.co.uk The Klondike is a modest river within the Yukon Territory of northwestern Canada; modest, except for the fabulous riches of its gold. It is a tributary of the Yukon River, which drains most of the interior of Alaska and the Yukon, its basin trapped between the coastal mountains along the Pacific rim and lesser ranges on the Arctic side. Hardened prospectors and trappers were the first into the Yukon valley, and a trading post was established on the riverbank in 1874. Through the 1880s, gold was found in various basins that were largely in Alaska, and a mining camp grew at the mouth of the Fortymile River just inside Canada. By 1895, there were hundreds of prospectors and miners on most of the creeks draining into the Yukon River. Robert Henderson was the first man to pan a little gold in Rabbit Creek (now known as Bonanza Creek), which is a tributary of the Klondike just above its confluence with the Yukon. On his advice, George Carmack and two Indian friends camped on Rabbit Creek, 15 km up from the big river. On 16 August 1896, they found gold richer than their dreams in the creek gravel. They staked their claims, and went to Fortymile to record them. Within days, hordes of other miners from up and down the river followed the stories; by the end of 1896 most of the Klondike creeks had been staked as claims. The next year the river terraces high above the creek beds had also been prospected, had again been found to be rich in gold, and had subsequently been staked. Claims cost just $15 to register, and more than 30 claims on Bonanza and Eldorado Creeks each yielded a million dollars in gold. But in 1897 the Yukon was a very isolated place, and the outside world did not yet know of these golden riches. Until the great gold rush, very few people penetrated beyond the coastal mountains into the sub-arctic wilderness of Alaska and the Yukon. It is a seriously hostile country, with vast expanses of wetland, forest and mountain defended by a climate that is rarely comfortable. The coastal mountains have peaks rising to over 4000 m between glaciers and icefields; only a few passes provide routes to the interior. Beyond the mountains, the lowland of the Yukon basin is largely covered by forests of spruce and birch (Fig. 1). The climate is severe. Exposed to the Pacific Ocean, the coast mountains can receive 30 m of snowfall in a single winter. The interior lies in the rain shadow, has a thinner snow cover in winter, and has little summer rain. Winter lasts from October to Fig. 1. The valley of Bonanza Creek, in the heart of the Klondike gold fields.