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Looking down McKee Creek (Atlin Mining District) from Eldorado towards Atlin Lake. Tents along the creek. Date: 1899. Yukon Archives. Anton Vogee fonds, #140.
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Miner with wheelbarrow full of gravel inside mine shaft on No. 16, Eldorado Creek. Date: ca. 1901. Yukon Archives. Adams & Larkin fonds, #9089.
1896 Yukon Nuggets
Eldorado Creek
A tiny creek which flows into Bonanza, was shunned by the gold seekers of 1896. Only those who were too late to stake a claim on Bonanza creek bothered with this little pup. It turned out to be the richest ground in the Klondike.
Eldorado is a Spanish name meaning the guilded man. It comes from a south American Indian legend in which once a year, a chief is covered in gold then jumps into sacred waters and lets the gold wash away. Not surprizingly, Spanish explorers in South America eagerly sought the source of this gold.
So it was in the Klondike, when gold was discovered on a tiny creek - or a pup - of Bonanza, the first stakers called the creek Eldorado.
A CKRW Yukon Nugget by Les McLaughlin.
Les McLaughlin
As storyteller, radio man, and music producer, Les proved a passionate preserver of Yukon heritage throughout his life — nowhere more evident than as the author and voice of CKRW’s “Yukon Nuggets,” from its inception until his passing in 2011.
