The Lapland gold rush, also known as the Ivalo Gold Rush, was a gold rush that occurred in the 1870s in Lapland, Grand Duchy of Finland, then part of Imperial Russia. The Lapland gold rush started in the valley of the Ivalojoki River in 1870 and lasted for a few years. Although the scale of the Lapland gold rush is not comparable to the major 19th century gold rushes, the Lapland gold rush has great local significance in Lapland and across Finland. [1]
The first references of gold in the Finnish Lapland date back to the early 16th century, when gold was discovered from Utsjoki, but its presence not widely known until the 19th century. [2] In the 1860s, Norwegian geologist Tellef Dahll was conducting a geological survey in Finnmark county, located in the extreme northeastern part of Norway, when he discovered gold in the Tana river. Dahll found that the most promising sites were on the Finnish side of the river and contacted the authorities in Helsinki. In 1868, the Finnish Mining Board sent an expedition to Lapland in search of gold. Finland, which at the time was an autonomous part of Russia, was suffering from a major famine, and the Finnish local government hoped that the gold would benefit the country's deprived economy.
The expedition was led by the engineer Conrad Lihr, who later became the head of the Mint of Finland. After several months, Lihr and the expedition finally discovered gold in September 1868 from the Ivalo River in the municipality of Inari. The discovery was seen as so prosperous that the government decided to pass a new law regarding future gold mining in Lapland, which was approved by Alexander II in April 1870. The new law repealed the former act which had given the Emperor the privilege of all noble metals. Gold prospecting in Lapland was now free for every "decent" man of the Grand Duchy of Finland and the Russian Empire.
The gold rush on the Ivalo River began in 1870, shortly after gold prospecting was made legal. During the spring and the summer, about 500 gold prospectors made their way through Lapland to the Ivalo River. The prospectors traveled hundreds of kilometers by ski, foot, or boat to the gold prospecting area, which was born to the confluence of Ivalo and its tributary Sotajoki. [3] To regulate the rush, the government established a headquarters for the authorities and service point for the prospectors, called the "Kultala Crown Station." In Kultala, the officials issued licenses for prospectors and purchased their gold. There were also law enforcement officers and cartographers, as well as a restaurant and post office. [1] At its largest, the number of government officials and gold prospectors was approximately 600 people. This was a significant community, as Lapland was mostly uninhabited wilderness, and the largest populated places contained only up to few hundred people. [3]
Since the government fees and taxes were extremely high, only the 19 wealthiest prospectors were able to make claims and then employ the rest of the prospectors. The largest claims had 30–40 men, who worked for 11 hours per day, six days a week. [3] The major claims produced some 10 kilograms of gold yearly, but the rush was over soon, as the gold started running out. In 1873, the government fees were cut in half and a year later a special law for the gold prospecting on the Tana River was passed. [4] The Ivalo River area was almost abandoned in the early 1880s, and the few prospectors that were left moved to Sotajoki and to the Laanila village, located 10 kilometers east. In 1883–1884, the Kultala Crown Station was used by the professor Selim Lemström for exploring the northern lights, until it was closed in 1900. During the 1920s, two companies were practicing industrial gold mining, but both went bankrupt within a few years. [5]
Gold was also found in the Norwegian Lapland in the 1890s, but a rush never occurred. [6]
In 1934, Sami people from the Purnumukka village found gold from Tankavaara in Sodankylä. The discovery attracted several Finnish prospectors, as well as some foreigners like the Swedish mining company Boliden AB and the German architect Werner Thiede from Hamburg. Thiede later had some problems with the authorities and was deported in 1938. During World War II, Thiede served in the German Army in occupied Norway and returned to Tankavaara in 1944 as the Germans were building the Schutzwall defensive line across the northeastern Lapland. As the German troops retreated, they destroyed all the gold mining facilities in Tankavaara, except the ones built by Thiede. Since the 1970s, the Tankavaara area has served as a tourist attraction, including restaurants, hotels, and a gold prospecting museum. [1]
Another minor rush in Lapland occurred in 1945 when gold was found in the Lemmenjoki river. Today there are still around 20 prospectors and 50 claims at the Lemmenjoki National Park, producing more than 20 kilograms of gold every year. The 2011 mining act prohibits all mechanical mining until 2021, but manual gold panning is still legal. [1]
The Lapland gold rushes have inspired several artists such as the novelist Arvo Ruonaniemi and the naivistic painter Andreas Alariesto. The most notable films are the 1951 classic comedy At the Rovaniemi Fair by Jorma Nortimo and the 1999 drama Gold Fever in Lapland which is based on the 1870 Ivalo gold rush. [7]
The Pike's Peak Gold Rush was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861. An estimated 100,000 gold seekers took part in one of the greatest gold rushes in North American history.
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy; the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood in the Compromise of 1850. The Gold Rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population's decline from disease, starvation and the California genocide.
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Greece, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, California, the United States, and Canada while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.
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.
Lapland is the largest and northernmost region of Finland. The 21 municipalities in the region cooperate in a Regional Council. Lapland borders the region of North Ostrobothnia in the south. It also borders the Gulf of Bothnia, Norrbotten County in Sweden, Troms and Finnmark County in Norway, and Murmansk Oblast and the Republic of Karelia in Russia. Topography varies from vast mires and forests of the South to fells in the North. The Arctic Circle crosses Lapland, so polar phenomena such as the midnight sun and polar night can be viewed in Lapland.
Prospecting is the first stage of the geological analysis of a territory. It is the search for minerals, fossils, precious metals, or mineral specimens. It is also known as fossicking.
Sodankylä is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the region of Lapland, and lies at the northern end of Highway 5 (E63) and along Highway 4 (E75). The Kitinen River flows near the center of Sodankylä. Its neighbouring municipalities are Inari, Kemijärvi, Kittilä, Pelkosenniemi, Rovaniemi, and Savukoski. The municipality has two official languages: Finnish and Northern Sami.
The Otago Gold Rush was a gold rush that occurred during the 1860s in Central Otago, New Zealand. This was the country's biggest gold strike, and led to a rapid influx of foreign miners to the area – many of them veterans of other hunts for the precious metal in California and Victoria, Australia.
Lemmenjoki National Park is situated in area of municipalities of Inari and Kittilä, Lapland, in Northern Finland. It was founded in 1956 and has since been expanded twice. Its total area is 2,850 square kilometres (1,100 sq mi), making it the biggest national park of Finland and one of the largest in Europe.
The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia at its confluence with the Nicoamen River a few miles upstream from the Thompson's confluence with the Fraser River at present-day Lytton. The rush overtook the region around the discovery and was centered on the Fraser Canyon from around Hope and Yale to Pavilion and Fountain, just north of Lillooet.
The Hammastunturi Wilderness Area is located in Lapland, Finland. It was established in 1991 like all the other 11 wilderness areas of Finland. It covers 1,825 square kilometres (705 sq mi) situated in a fell and forest area between the Urho Kekkonen National Park and Lemmenjoki National Park. It is governed by the Metsähallitus.
The history of Yukon covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians through the Beringia land bridge approximately 20,000 years ago. In the 18th century, Russian explorers began to trade with the First Nations people along the Alaskan coast, and later established trade networks extending into Yukon. By the 19th century, traders from the Hudson's Bay Company were also active in the region. The region was administered as a part of the North-Western Territory until 1870, when the United Kingdom transferred the territory to Canada and it became the North-West Territories.
The Similkameen Gold Rush, also known as the Blackfoot Gold Rush, was a minor gold rush in the Similkameen Country of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, in 1860. The Similkameen Rush was one of a flurry of small rushes peripheral to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, which had drawn tens of thousands of prospectors to the new colony in 1858-1859, among the others being Rock Creek Gold Rush and Big Bend.
The Omineca Gold Rush was a gold rush in British Columbia, Canada in the Omineca region of the Northern Interior of the province. Gold was first discovered there in 1861, but the rush didn't begin until late in 1869 with the discovery at Vital Creek. There were several routes to the goldfields: two were from Fort St. James, one of which was a water route through the Stuart and Tachie Rivers to Trembleur Lake to Takla Lake and the other was overland, called the Baldy Mountain route. A third route came in overland from Hazelton on the Skeena River and a fourth route used the Fraser River and crossed over the Giscome Portage to Summit Lake, through McLeod Lake, and up the Finlay River to the Omineca River.
The Ivalo River is a 180-kilometre-long (110 mi) river that flows through upper Lapland into Lake Inari.
During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of New South Wales had suppressed the news out of the fear that it would reduce the workforce and destabilise the economy.
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, discoveries of gold at a number of locations in Western Australia caused large influxes of prospectors from overseas and interstate, and classic gold rushes. Significant finds included:
The Nome Gold Rush was a gold rush in Nome, Alaska, approximately 1899–1909. It is separated from other gold rushes by the ease with which gold could be obtained. Much of the gold was lying in the beach sand of the landing place and could be recovered without any need for a claim. Nome was a sea port without a harbor, and the biggest town in Alaska.
Tankavaara is a village and a tourist attraction in the municipality of Sodankylä in Lapland, Finland. It is located by the E75 highway 90 kilometres north of Sodankylä and 30 kilometers south of the Saariselkä ski resort. Tankavaara is famous of its gold prospecting that started in the 1930s. Since the 1970s, the village has been a tourist attraction including hotel, restaurant "Old Gold Prospector" and the Gold Prospector Museum.
Tellef Dahll was a Norwegian mineralogist and geologist.
