Discovery Claim is a mining claim at Bonanza Creek, a watercourse in the Yukon, Canada. It is the site where, in the afternoon of August 16, 1896, the first piece of gold was found in the Yukon by prospectors. The site is considered to be the place where the Klondike gold rush started. It is located around 17 km south-southeast of Dawson City. The Discovery claim was designated a National Historic Site of Canada on July 13, 1998.
On August 16, 1896 George Carmack, an American prospector, his Tagish wife Kate (birthname Shaaw Tláa), her brother Skookum Jim (birthname Keish), and their nephew Dawson Charlie (K̲áa Goox̱), while travelling through the area, stopped to rest on the banks of one of the Klondike River's tributaries called Bonanza Creek, then called Rabbit Creek. [1] They were there on the a suggestion of another prospector Robert Henderson. [2] One of them noticed a shiny object in the water. It was gold and Carmack took credit for finding it. It is uncertain whether it was George Carmack, Kate Carmack or Skookum Jim who made the discovery, but the group decided that George Carmack be named as the official discoverer out of concern that mining authorities would be reluctant to recognize a claim made by an Indigenous claimant. [3] [4] [n 1]
On August 17, 1896, they staked out four claims, the first at Bonanza Creek. Two were for George Carmack. At that time, being the first to discover gold in an area entitled him to stake another, second claim. The other two claims were staked on behalf of Skookum Jim and Dawson Charlie. [6]
The following month on September 24 they registered the claims. This took place at the police post in Forty Mile 80 km away at the mouth of the Forty Mile River. [7] [8] [9] [10]
The initial claim is described legally as Claim 37903, a 152.4 metre (500 ft.) by 609.6 metre (2,000 ft.) area. [11]
The Klondike Gold Rush 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. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in films, literature, and photographs.
Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–99). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest town in Yukon.
White Pass, also known as the Dead Horse Trail, is a mountain pass through the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains on the border of the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia, Canada. It leads from Skagway, Alaska, to the chain of lakes at the headwaters of the Yukon River, Crater Lake, Lake Lindeman, and Bennett Lake.
The Tagish or Tagish Khwáan are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group that lived around Tagish Lake and Marsh Lake, in Yukon of Canada. The Tagish intermarried heavily with Tlingit from the coast and the Tagish language became extinct in 2008. Today Tagish people live mainly in Carcross or Whitehorse and are members of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation or the Kwanlin Dün First Nation.
Carmacks is a village in Yukon, Canada, on the Yukon River along the Klondike Highway, and at the west end of the Robert Campbell Highway from Watson Lake. The population is 493. It is the home of the Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation, a Northern Tutchone-speaking people.
Keish, also known as James Mason and by the nickname Skookum Jim Mason, was a member of the Tagish First Nation in what became the Yukon Territory of Canada. He was born near Bennett Lake on what is now the British Columbia and Yukon border. He lived in Caribou Crossing, now Carcross, Yukon, Canada.
Shaaw Tláa, also known as Kate Carmack, was a Tagish First Nation woman who was one of the party that first found gold in the Klondike River in 1896, and is sometimes credited with being the person who made the actual discovery.
Dawson Charlie or K̲áa Goox̱ [qʰáː kuːχ] was a Canadian Tagish/Tlingit First Nation person and one of the co-discoverers of gold at Discovery Claim that led to the Klondike Gold Rush located in the Yukon territory of Northwest Canada. He was the nephew of Keish, also known as Skookum Jim Mason, and accompanied him on his search for his aunt, Kate Carmack. He staked one of the first three claims in the Klondike, along with his uncle and George Carmack. Storyteller Angela Sidney was a niece.
Clarence Jesse Berry (1867–1930), known as C.J., was a businessman and successful gold miner in the Klondike Gold Rush. He and his wife, Ethel Bush Berry, made a further fortune in Ester, Alaska, in 1902, and founded several oil companies over the years, which eventually became Berry Petroleum Company.
Clinton Creek is a ghost town in Yukon. It was a small company-owned asbestos mining town in western Yukon near the confluence of the Yukon and Fortymile rivers. It operated by the Cassiar Asbestos Corporation, which also operated the asbestos mine in Cassiar, British Columbia, from 1967 to 1978, when it was closed and all the buildings were auctioned off.
The Carcross/Tagish First Nation is a First Nation native to the Canadian territory of Yukon. Its original population centres were Carcross and Tagish, and Squanga, although many of its citizens also live in Whitehorse. The languages originally spoken by Carcross/Tagish people were Tagish and Tlingit.
George Washington Carmack was an American prospector in the Yukon. He was originally credited with registering Discovery Claim, the discovery of gold that set off the Klondike Gold Rush on August 16, 1896. Today, historians usually give the credit to his Tagish brother-in-law, Skookum Jim Mason.
Angela Sidney, was a Tagish storyteller. She co-authored two narratives of traditional Tagish legends and a historical document of Tagish place names for southern Yukon. For her linguistics and ethnography contributions, Sidney received the Order of Canada, becoming the first Native woman from the Yukon to be so honoured.
"Well, I have no money to leave for my grandchildren. My stories are my wealth!"
Bonanza Creek is a watercourse in Yukon Territory, Canada. It runs for about 20 miles (32 km) from King Solomon's Dome to the Klondike River. In the last years of the 19th century and the early 20th century, Bonanza Creek was the centre of the Klondike Gold Rush, which attracted tens of thousands of prospectors to the creek and the area surrounding it. Prior to 1896 the creek was known as Rabbit Creek. Its name was changed by miners in honour of the millions of dollars in gold found in and around the creek.
Alexander "Big Alex" McDonald (1859–1909) was a Canadian gold prospector who made a fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush, earning himself the title "King of the Klondike".
The Klondike Gold Rush is commemorated through film, literature, historical parks etc.
The Grand Forks Hotel was a prominent roadhouse during the Klondike Gold Rush, situated near Dawson City in the Yukon region of Canada.
Thomas William O'Brien was a Klondike gold rush entrepreneur who was best known for his Klondike Mines Railway and Klondike brewery businesses. He was also elected as a member of the Yukon Territorial Council, and was the first president of the Yukon Order of Pioneers, Klondike Lodge.
Dredge No. 4 is a wooden-hulled bucketline sluice dredge that mined placer gold on the Yukon River from 1913 until 1959. It is now located along Bonanza Creek Road 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) south of the Klondike Highway near Dawson City, Yukon, where it is preserved as one of the National Historic Sites of Canada. It is the largest wooden-hulled dredge in North America.
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