Menu

Yukon Nuggets

Results 96

1897

Treasure Ships

When George Carmack and Skookum Jim discovered coarse gold on Bonanza Creek in 1896, every prospector in the district headed for the Klondike creeks. By the summer of 1897, poor prospectors had become wealthy Klondike kings, and they wanted…

Read more

00:0000:00

+1

1898

Clara Nevada

Clara Nevada. Sounds like the name of a movie starlet from a Hollywood flick of the Thirties. Not so! Instead, it was a three-masted sailing barque with a wood-fired boiler producing steam for power from an inboard engine. The old…

Read more

00:0000:00

+1

1898

Dawson City Post Office: Alfred G. McMichael, from a letter to his wife.

In Dawson City itself, the first crude post office was operated by the Northwest Mounted Police from a tent on Front Street. Then, in 1897, Frank Harper was appointed the first post master; but the Mounties still staffed the office.…

Read more

00:0000:00

1898

Dyea

Railways have a way of making - or breaking - a community. Such was the case for the boom and bust town of Dyea, near Skagway. This summer, I stood at headwaters of the Taiya Inlet where Dyea once stood…

Read more

00:0000:00

1898

Eric A. Hegg

He captured the Klondike. Almost single handedly. And because he did, the images of the great Klondike Gold Rush are as fresh today as they were in 1898.

Eric Hegg was a studio photographer in Bellingham, Washington when news of…

Read more

00:0000:00

1898

Famous People

At the height of the Klondike gold rush in 1898, Dawson City was rightly called the Paris of the North. The boom towns had just about everything you could imagine. And it had characters...some of whom were already rich and…

Read more

00:0000:00

1898

Frank Slavin

In his days, he was the toughest man in the British Empire. He'd beaten everyone he'd met in the ring. But he never had the chance to fight the best in North America. So when he came to the Klondike,…

Read more

00:0000:00

1898

Getting There was not Half the Fun

Are we there yet? The Klondike gold seekers who left the west coast and sailed the inside passage to Alaska could be forgiven for uttering that famous childhood phase. The journey to the goldfields began with a scenic boat ride…

Read more

00:0000:00

1898

Klondike Mike

He was a big, bold and brash farmboy from eastern Ontario. When he joined the Klondike stampede in 1897, his youthful vigor and incredible strength got him into and out of a lot of trouble. In later years, so did…

Read more

00:0000:00

+2

1898

Postal Service in the Klondike

Lake Bennett, April 21, 1898.

I sent a letter off this morning by a man from Massachusetts who was going to Dyea. I went up to Lindeman to look for mail but was disappointed. My walk was about 33…

Read more

1898

Swiftwater Bill Gates (No. 1)

There must be something in the name Bill Gates which attracts money. The only difference between the Bill Gates of 1998 and the guy with the same name in 1898, is that one saves all his money. The other spent…

Read more

00:0000:00

+2

1898

The Great Chilkoot Avalanche

It wasn't the first time that an avalanche had claimed lives on the trails to the Klondike. But on April 3rd, 1898, a natural disaster of monstrous proportions claimed the lives of more stampeders than any disease or crime.

For…

Read more

00:0000:00

1898

The Klondike Nugget

The first newspaper to hit the streets in Dawson City was the Klondike Nugget. Actually, the first edition didn't hit the streets at all. Instead it was nailed to a telephone pole.

Gene Allen was the fiesty editor of the…

Read more

00:0000:00

1898

Watson Lake

Frank Watson was among about 1500 people who attempted to reach the Klondike via the almost impossible route from Edmonton. When he arrived in the Upper Liard River area in the spring of 1898 Watson had lost all hope of…

Read more

00:0000:00

1898

Yukon becomes a Territory

Back in 1897, the government of the Northwest Territories decided to capitalize on the influx of miners into the gold fields of the Yukon. They decided to impose a liquor licensing system and charge each outlet an annual fee. The…

Read more

00:0000:00

1899

Cad Wilson

In those heady days of 1898-99, the Klondike kings had money - or gold - to burn. They were also starved for entertainment and they wanted the best. Saloon owners were prepared to oblige.

There were many Klondike entertainers, most…

Read more

00:0000:00

1899

Dawson City fire 1899

Dawson City hit the big time in May of 1899. The isolated gold-rush mecca was on the North American map. But the news was not good. A massive city fire made the front pages of newspapers across the United States…

Read more

00:0000:00

1899

Father Judge

He was known by everyone as the saint of Dawson. When he died in 1899, after only two years in the bustling gold-rush town, his impact on the people of that gold-mad town was so great that everything came to…

Read more

00:0000:00

+2

1899

Gold Fields of Nome

By mid-summer of 1899, news of an improbable gold strike filtered through the mining camps of the Klondike. Men working other people's claims for wages wanted something to call their own. Quickly, the little miner with his pick and pan…

Read more

00:0000:00

+1

1899

Hardship introduction

Klondike characters are often depicted as rugged individuals who could withstand every kind of hardship. Indeed, tales of the klondike trails are filled with misery brought on by cold, isolation, failure and greed. Well, some of it is true, but…

Read more

00:0000:00

1899

John Leonard, Klondike Balloonist

The Klondike gold rush attracted a strange mix of personalities. Dawson City was the land for adventure seekers as much as it was for gold diggers. The Klondike had it all - from major prize fights to big-league gambling nights.…

Read more

00:0000:00