1967 Yukon Nuggets

Hide a Case of Whiskey

Liquor played a significant role in everyday life in the Klondike during the gold rush. Saloons were scattered around Dawson like Bonanza Creek nuggets, and finding the booze was usually easier than finding the gold. But not for a moment in the sixties. In 1967, Hiram Walker, the maker of Canadian Club rye whiskey, launched a unique advertising project.

It was called the "hide-a-case" campaign. Cases of the company’s signature brand, Canadian Club, were planted in exotic places around the world - like Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, Mt. St. Helen’s in Washington State, the Swiss Alps and in the Yukon. Then, magazine ads invited CC drinkers to try and find the whisky.

The cases were carefully hidden so that they would likely be found and weekly clues were provided in sports sections of daily newspapers. In all, twenty-two cases were hidden between 1967and 1981.

It was worth the hunt. Anyone who found a case won an all expenses-paid trip around the world. A case hidden on top of a skyscraper in New York City was found in three months, while the Mt. Kilimanjaro whiskey was not discovered until the mid-70s when a Danish journalist stumbled on it while on an unrelated expedition.

Five of the 22 hidden cases have never been recovered. They are near Lake Placid, New York, in Tanzania, at the North Pole, on Robinson Crusoe Island in Chile and somewhere around the King Solomon Dome near Dawson City.

In keeping with strange things done ‘neath the midnight sun, Hiram Walker had to hide two cases in the Yukon. The first case of whiskey was hidden somewhere in the Klondike in 1969, but a group of Boy Scouts found the booze before the contest officially started and before any advertizing had begun.

So another case was planted somewhere in the vicinity of King Solomon Dome on the Bonanza Creek road. It was never found and there is no guarantee that this Yukon case is still anywhere to be found.

But if you do find a case of Canadian Club whiskey somewhere around the King Solomon Dome, the people at Hiram Walker in Walkerville, Ontario would like to hear from you even though the contest ended back in 1981.