Where to find white gold in a klondike. Klondike. Golden fever. In a gold mine can be found

03.03.2020

On August 16, 1896, gold was found on the Klondike River in Alaska. From that moment on, the "gold rush" began here, capturing the minds of many thousands of people. Now this area is open to tourists, like some other gold-bearing places.

Open Air Museum of the Era, Alaska

Nadezhda, or Hope, was the name given to their first city by Alaska prospectors who built it on the banks of the Klondike. Now it has been preserved in its original form, and is a real museum. It differs from the settlement founded more than a hundred years ago only by the presence of electricity. Hope is now home to the descendants of those who came here hoping to get rich. They work in logging, hunt or search for gold in the few remaining mines. Well, and, of course, the residents of the settlement receive their main income from tourism. Tourists are even allowed to try to mine gold themselves, of course, for a fee. And there are always those who wish.

Switzerland

Gold is not mined on an industrial scale, gold mining is left to amateurs and tourists. It is enough just to pay money for a permit, and you can freely travel around the country and look for grains of gold, participate in competitions in gold mining. This brings a lot of profit to the state, because tourists, attracted by the glitter of gold, usually do not skimp on the purchase of goods and services.

Australia

Here, too, gold can be mined and it is even allowed to take it out of the country without paying customs duties. It is enough just to pay a few tens of dollars for a license and purchase the appropriate entourage - metal detectors, cards, equipment. In addition, if it turns out that the site chosen by the tourist has an owner, then he will have to pay for permission to look for gold. All this translates into a tidy sum, but what can be compared to the sight of shiny grains of sand, mined on their own!

California, USA

Not far from the city of Jamestown there is a real "Gold Mining Club", where a beginner will be taught all the tricks of a gold digger. For this, theoretical seminars and workshops are held. Those who want to get rich in three days will be taught how to wash gold, find veins of gold by various signs and with the help of a metal detector. Citizens of the United States and those with a residence permit in this country can purchase their own land for gold mining here, and those who could not acquire it are allowed to try their hand at gold mining on the grounds of the club.

Goldfields,

The "Golden Fields" deposit, which has been actively functioning for about a hundred years, is now a place of tourism and amateur gold mining. In order to become a prospector, it is enough to buy a ticket, get inventory, and be instructed. For a complete acquaintance with the history of gold mining, excursions to abandoned mines are organized.

Tankavaara, Finland

There is a gold museum in this village, under the patronage of which every year, since 1977, competitions of amateur prospectors have been held. Well, gold can be mined here all year round, having passed the appropriate training in advance, having received a permit and inventory.

The most famous California gold rush in history began in September 1896. She proved that in order to make money on gold, it is not necessary to mine it - it is enough to know how to lure nuggets from the pockets of miners.

On September 5, 1896, the steamer Alice of the Alaska Commercial Company sailed to the mouth of the Klondike River. On board were a hundred prospectors from nearby villages. They followed in the footsteps of George Carmack. Three weeks earlier, he had brought from these places a case from a hard drive, completely filled with golden sand. Thus began the most famous and largest gold rush in history.

The "discovery" of the Klondike was not accidental. The prospectors approached him slowly but surely. Gold was found on the Pacific coast of Canada before 1896. Missionaries and fur traders were the first to notice the precious metal in local rivers back in the 1840s, but remained silent. The first - because of the fear that the influx of prospectors will shake the moral foundations of the newly converted Indians. The second - because they considered the fur trade a business more profitable than gold mining.

Still, in the early 1950s, the first prospectors appeared on the Fraser River in British Columbia. There were not many of them: the mines here were not very rich, and besides, the gold rush in California was in full swing. But as stocks dwindled in California, the migration of miners intensified. With varying success, they explored the channels of Canadian rivers, gradually moving north, to the border with Alaska.

Even the first mining towns appeared. First, Forty Mile is a settlement on the bend of the river of the same name and the Yukon. When the gold was found a little further north, many of the prospectors moved to the new village of Circle City. They mined a little gold here, but still managed to equip their life. Two theaters, a music salon and 28 saloons were opened here for a thousand and a half inhabitants - that is, a saloon for about every 40 people (!).

A wave of prospectors .

The measured life of British Columbia's miners was violated by George Carmack. He found deposits of gold that the people of Circle City had never dreamed of. When the news of new deposits reached this city in November 1896, it was empty in just a few days. All went to the future capital of the gold rush - Dawson.

I must admit they were lucky. Winter was beginning, there was no connection with the "mainland", no one could either come to the Yukon or leave here, and wide circles of the American public learned about new gold deposits only next summer. Thousands of prospectors were able to mine gold in the most fertile areas for six months without worrying about competitors.

The real gold rush began only after these prospectors brought their gold to the "mainland" at the beginning of summer. On July 14, 1897, the steamer Excelsior entered the port of San Francisco. He flew from Alaska. Each passenger had gold dust in their hands in the amount of $ 5,000 to $ 130,000.

And three days later, on July 17, another steamer, Portland, entered the port of Seattle. It had 68 passengers on board and a ton of gold belonging to them. “It’s time to go to the Klondike country, where gold is as abundant as sawdust,” wrote the city's newspaper The Seattle Daily Times the next day.

And there was a chain reaction. Dozens of ships went north. By September, 10,000 people had gone from Seattle to Alaska. Winter put the fever on pause, but the following spring, more than 100,000 fortune hunters traveled along the same route.

Hundreds of miles to a dream

Further - a crossing over Lake Lindeman and 800 km of rafting along the Yukon River strewn with rapids to the Klondike. Out of more than a hundred thousand who sailed to Alaska, no more than 30 thousand made it to the gold mines. Of these, at best, several hundred made a fortune on the gold mined.

But there were almost more people who actually made money on the prospectors. They didn't wash gold. They realized earlier than others that one can earn money not by biting into the permafrost in search of nuggets, but by luring these nuggets out of the pockets of miners for scarce services.

The power of foreboding .

A native of New York, John Ladue, out of inexperience, also tried the profession of a prospector. Tried to wash gold in North Dakota. When the idea turned out to be a failure, he turned to sales agents. In 1890 he came to British Columbia as an employee of the Alaska Commercial Company. To avoid competition, he opened a trading post (in other words, a small store with a warehouse) in the very wilderness - at the mouth of the Sixty Mile River. The nearest prospectors worked 25 miles from his store on the Forti Mile River. But Ladya lured the prospectors by not selling, but giving away inventory for free in exchange for a promise to pay for it as soon as the client finds gold.

When the first news came from the Klondike, John was one of those closest to the mines Carmack had found. He arrived there with the first prospectors. But unlike them, he staked out not gold-bearing areas, but useless 70 hectares at the mouth of the Klondike River. He brought food supplies there, built a house, warehouses and a sawmill. This is how he became the founder of Dawson Township. When the gold rush hit the area, everything that was being built in Dawson was being built on Ladue's land. After a few years, he returned to New York as a millionaire.

In terms of prudence, only one more person can compare with John Ladu. Retired captain William Moore bought land in Skagway Bay ten years before the gold rush began. A former sailor, he noticed that this is the only place for a hundred miles where the fairway allows large ships to approach the coast. For ten years he and his son slowly built a pier, warehouses and a sawmill in Skagway. Moore's calculation was simple: the prospectors are exploring all the rivers to the south, which means that someday they will get to these places.

The forecast came true in full: in two years of the Klondike fever, more than 100 thousand people passed through Skagway, and the farm of William Moore turned into a large city at that time.

2000 rubles for scrambled eggs.

Still, the biggest fortunes on the Klondike fever were made by those who understood the mechanisms of trade. In the midst of the golden boom, commodity prices in Dawson and other prospecting communities were not just high, they were fabulously high.

Start with what it cost to get to Dawson. Indian porters, in the midst of the fever, charged $ 15,000 at current prices to carry a ton of cargo across the Chinkuk Pass.

For clarity, we will continue to operate with today's prices. A boat that allowed rafting 800 miles across the Yukon could not be bought for less than $ 10 thousand. The future writer Jack London, who happened to be in the Yukon in the summer of 1897, earned money by helping to lead inexperienced miners' boats through the river hummocks. For the boat, he took godly - about $ 600. And over the summer he earned $ 75 thousand. For comparison: before leaving for the Klondike London he worked at a jute factory and earned $ 2.5 per hour. That's $ 170 per week and 2300 for three months. That is, thirty times less than on the hummocks of the Yukon.

Jack London economy.

In general, according to the stories of Jack London, one can easily study the economy of the Klondike. The heroes of his autobiographical stories sell elk meat for $ 140 per 1 kg, buy beans for $ 80. When Little Kid - the hero of the book "Smoke and Little Boy" - manages to get some cheap sugar, he is surprised at the seller's pliability: "The freak asked for only $ 3 per pound." And this is in no way less than $ 150 per 1 kg. $ 83 per kg Smoke and Kid pay for spoiled brisket to feed their dogs. Eggs cost in Dawson and other prospecting communities from $ 20 to $ 65 apiece. The price of a kilogram of flour in the most remote villages reaches $ 450! In the story "Race", the Kid buys for almost $ 4,000 a worn suit from someone else's shoulder, which does not even fit him in size, and justifies himself in front of Smoke: "It seemed to me that it was remarkably cheap."

Dawson also had its own "queen" - Belinda Mulroney. She started out speculating in clothing and then switched to whiskey and shoes, selling rubber boots for $ 2,500 a pair. And she also became a millionaire.

Moreover, these people were not pioneers. Enterprising people knew how to make money on the gold rush for a long time. A few decades earlier, when the fever swept California, the first millionaire was not some guy with a pick and a shovel, but the one who sold these shovels to the guys. His name was Samuel Brennan, and he was in the right place at the right time.

Alcoholic Mormon .

Bigamist, adventurer, alcoholic and head of the San Francisco Mormon community, Samuel Brennan, is among other things "famous" for the phrase: "I will give you the Lord's money when you send me a receipt signed by him."

And it was like this. In the midst of the California gold rush, many Mormons came there. Religion obliged them to give God a tenth of their earnings. The tithe of the reclaimed gold was brought to Samuel by the Mormon prospectors. And he was obliged to ferry him to Utah, to the headquarters of the church. But no parcels with golden sand came from California. When it was hinted to Brennan from Utah that it was not good to appropriate the money of God, he replied with that very phrase about the receipt.

Intoxicated in the literal sense of the wealth scattered under their feet, the prospectors embarked on a wild revelry, trying to outmaneuver each other with their licentiousness

By then, Brennan could afford such impudence. He no longer depended on anyone. And all because one day the discoverer of Californian gold, James Marshall, came to see him - then still a modest shepherd and owner of a small shop. He found gold a couple of months earlier, but kept his secret. However, left without money, he somehow paid in Brennan's store with golden sand. And to prove that the gold is real, he confessed where he found it.

The pastor used the situation to his advantage. Over the next few days, he bought all the shovels and other household utensils around. And then in his newspaper he published a note that gold was found on the American River. With this note, the California gold rush began. Brennan's calculation was simple: his store is the only one on the way from San Francisco to the mines, which means that the prospectors will pay what he requests. And the calculation worked: very soon he was selling shovels for $ 500, which he bought for $ 10. For a sieve, which cost him $ 4, he asked for $ 200. In three months, Samuel made his first million. A few more years have passed, and he is no longer just the richest man in California, but also one of the "pillars of society", the owner of newspapers, banks and steamships, the Senator of the State of California.

However, Samuel's end was sad. Apparently, the Lord, being ashamed to send him a tithing receipt, found another way to remind him of justice. Several risky financial transactions and a scandalous divorce bankrupted California's first millionaire. He met old age, sleeping in the back rooms of local saloons.

Prospectors-spenders

The writer Bret Harth, famous for his description of the life of the miners, tells of a man who, having sold his land profitably, loses half a million dollars in one day in a San Francisco casino. pipes from five-pound bills (this is like a five-thousandth in our reality) and paid the cabbies with handfuls of golden sand.

This attack did not bypass Russia either. The gold rush was not as spontaneous as in America, mining was controlled by the state, but still the income of even hired workers in the gold mines of the Urals and Amur was ten times more than that of an ordinary peasant. "Intoxicated in the literal sense of the wealth scattered under their feet, the prospectors indulged in wild revelry, trying to outmaneuver each other with their licentiousness," we read in Mamin-Sibiryak's "Siberian Tales from the Life of Mine People". “During the usual half-hour afternoon snack, pounds of very expensive tea and huge heads of sugar were thrown into a pot of boiling water. Expensive imported clothes and shoes were worn for one day, after which everything was thrown away, being replaced by a new one. A simple peasant put 4 thousand rubles each. on the card and, not at all embarrassed, lost this amount, which in reality represented for him a whole wealth, with which he could perfectly furnish his agriculture and live comfortably all his life. "

Feverish economy

In the essay "The Economy of the Klondike," Jack London sums up the gold rush. In two years, 125 thousand people came to the Klondike. Each was carrying at least $ 600. This is $ 75 million. Jack London also estimates the work of the miners. He sets a "fair price" for the working day at $ 4 per day. The bottom line is this: in order to earn $ 22 million (and this is the entire price of gold mined at the Klondike), the miners spent 225 million. Most of these million settled in the pockets of enterprising people who knew and understood how to make money on human passions.

Photo of the Klondike and its inhabitants:

Gold prospectors and miners climb a trail across the Chilkut Pass during the Klondike Gold Rush

Dawson was the center of gold mining in Alaska.

The Klondike Gold Rush is a disorganized mass mining of gold in the Klondike region of Canada in the late 19th century.

The fever began after prospectors George Carmack, Jim Skoom and Charlie Dawson discovered gold on August 17, 1896, at Bonanza Creek, which flows into the Klondike River. News of this quickly spread to the inhabitants of the Yukon River Basin. However, it took another year for the information to reach the mainstream. The gold was not exported until June 1897, when navigation opened and the ocean liners Exchelsior and Portland took the cargo from the Klondike. The Excellsior arrived in San Francisco on July 17, 1897, with a cargo of about half a million dollars, arousing public interest. When the Portland arrived in Seattle three days later, a crowd greeted it. The newspapers reported half a ton of gold, but this was an understatement as the ship carried over a ton of metal.

In 1911, August 17 was declared Discovery Day in the Yukon territory. Over time, the third Monday in August became a day off. The main festivities take place in the city of Dawson.

So, our story about the gold rush in the Klondike and the city of Dawson.

Gold on the Fraser River in British Columbia was discovered in the early 1850s, at the height of the California gold rush. Several people found gold between the forts of Hope and Yale at the same time that it was no longer available in California and thousands of prospectors set out in search of the "new Eldorado."

James Houston, finding gold and having experience of meeting with Indians in California, covered himself with the name of the Hudson's Bay Company, to which the indigenous population was mostly loyal. Meanwhile, he was robbed and made it to Fort Hop in dire condition. In the spring of 1857, he began searching for gold in the streams near the fort. Another prospector was Ferdinand Boulanger, originally from Quebec, who also came to British Columbia from California. Together with a group of Quebecans and Iroquois, he discovered gold on the Fraser River. Boulanger showed the Indians how to define metal, and he himself promised to exchange it for chewing tobacco. However, the Indians showed the found gold to Donald McLean, the chief of the trade mission at the fort. He recommended that the Indians not sell gold to white people, and sent the found grains to his boss, James Douglas, in Fort Victoria, from where it was later transported to the headquarters of the company's western branch in San Francisco.

Cooking Bacon ", 1862. The painting by an unknown artist depicts the interior of a prospector's hut on the Fraser River.

In the spring of 1858, prospectors began to arrive on the banks of the Fraser River. In total, about 30 thousand gold prospectors arrived, mainly from the United States. A gradual survey of all streams and tributaries of the Fraser River began. In 1860, in a remote, isolated place in the Caribou mountains, gold was found at a depth of 2.5 m and below. On a standard site, cultivated by a team of three people, up to 3.5 kg of gold was mined per day. It was the richest deposit in British Columbia, which produced about half of the province's gold.

James Douglas at Fort Victoria immediately recognized the danger of prospectors flooding the region. There was a possibility that the territory could fall under American control, and Douglas wrote a letter to England asking them to act immediately, which was done. The British government revoked the license from the Hudson's Bay Company, which had previously owned the territory for 21 years, and on 22 August 1858 recognized the land as its colony.

George Carmack

In the company were Jim Skoom, his cousin, also known by the name of Charlie Dawson (sometimes Charlie Tagish) and his nephew Patsy Henderson. After meeting George and Keith, who were fishing for salmon at the mouth of the Klondike River, they went to Robert Hederson, a Nova Scotia native, who was looking for gold on the Indian River, north of the Klondike River. Henderson told George Carmack where he had done his reconnaissance and that he did not want any contact with the Indians.

People from all walks of life traveled to the Yukon even from as far away as England and Australia. Most surprisingly, these were mainly qualified workers, such as teachers and doctors. There were even one or two city mayors who quit their prestigious jobs to travel. Most of them were well aware that the chances of finding significant quantities of the yellow metal were small, people just decided to take a chance. No more than half of those who reached Dawson had the desire to continue the journey without the hope of prospecting. As a result, thanks to the large number of qualified gold prospectors who arrived in the region, the Gold Rush contributed to the economic development of the Western Maple Leaf Country, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest Territories of the United States and the Maple Leaf Country.

Most of the prospectors arrived in the Alaskan villages of Skagway and Dayu, both located at the source of the Lynn Canal. From these villages, along the Chilkut trail, they crossed the Chilkut pass or climbed to the White Pass, and from there they headed to Lake Lindeman or Lake Bennett in the upper reaches of the Yukon River. Here, 25 to 35 grueling miles (40 to 56 km) from where they arrived, people built rafts and boats to traverse the last 500 miles (over 800 km) down the Yukon to the city of Dawson, near the goldfields.

Gold prospectors had to carry with them an annual supply of about a ton, more than half of which were food supplies, in order to obtain permission to enter the Land of the Maple Leaf. At the tops of the passes, people were met by the Canadian post of the Northwest Mounted Police (abbreviated as NWMP, then the so-called modern Royal Canadian Mounted Police), which monitored the implementation of this requirement, and also performed the functions of customs. The main objectives of the mounted police posts were to prevent food shortages that had been in Dawson for the previous years in a row, as well as to limit the penetration of weapons, especially small arms, into the territory of the British colony.

Another goal was to restrain the penetration of criminal elements into the territory of the Maple Leaf Country from Skagway from the United States and other ports on the Yukon River (at that time the Yukon was a colony of England), as well as the British and Canadian authorities did not want to allow a possible armed seizure of gold mines by the US authorities.

When most of the prospectors arrived in Dawson, bids for most of the major mines had already been made. However, any disturbance was prevented by the Northwest Mounted Police under the command of Sam Steele.

The gold rush contributed to the development of the territory's infrastructure. For a long time, the main transport arteries of the region were the Yukon River and its tributaries. There were about 10 steamboats operating on the river, mostly built at the mouth of the Yukon River in St. Michael. After the Klondike gold was discovered, the number of steamers, their quality and size, increased dramatically. Many steamers went to Dawson from St. Michael, but some from Lake Bennet.

In 1900, the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad Company founded the city of Closeleith (later to become Whitehorse) and connected it to Skagway in Alaska. Two years later, a winter track was built between Whitehorse and Dawson.

On June 26, 1925, exactly 90 years ago, the premiere of Chaplin's famous film "The Gold Rush" took place. The film, filmed 29 years after the outbreak of the Alaska gold rush, by and large recreates that historical phenomenon. To make matters more plausible, Chaplin even hired 2,500 vagrants who waved pickaxes to imitate the work of the miners. However, in 95 minutes of screen time, it is impossible to reflect all the details of the life of gold miners. Yes, this was not required, because in the comedy film there is no place for tragedies and collapses of illusions that lay in wait for the miners at every step. And on-screen Charlie, fabulously rich and finding happiness in the mines, was a rare exception on the Klondike.

In 1896, the Klondike Gold Rush began - perhaps the most famous in history. She proved that in order to make money on gold, it is not at all necessary to mine it. On September 5, 1896, the steamer Alice of the Alaska Commercial Company sailed to the mouth of the Klondike River. On board were a hundred prospectors from nearby villages. They followed in the footsteps of George Carmack. Three weeks earlier, he had brought from these places a case from a hard drive, completely filled with golden sand. Thus began the most famous and largest gold rush in history ...

Let's find out the details ...

Went for salmon, came back with gold

Even the first mining towns appeared. First, Forty Mile is a settlement on the bend of the river of the same name and the Yukon. When the gold was found a little further north, many of the prospectors moved to the new village of Circle City. They mined a little gold here, but still managed to equip their life. For over a thousand inhabitants, two theaters, a music salon and 28 saloons were opened here - that is, a saloon for about every 40 people!

George Carmack

Any natural disaster - and the gold rush for the overwhelming majority of its participants was precisely a disaster - begins by chance, with some trifle. In early August 1896, three residents of the Canadian state of Yukon, bordering Alaska in the north, went in search of the missing Kate and George Carmack. A couple of days later, they were found at the mouth of the Klondike River, where they were harvesting salmon for the winter.

Then these five people wandered around a little and came across a rich placer of gold, which simply sparkled in the stream, and it could be collected with bare hands.

On September 5, George Carmack brought a couple of kilograms of golden sand to the village of Circle City to exchange it for currency and necessary goods. Circle City, which was home to about a thousand people, was instantly empty - everyone rushed to the mouth of the Klondike. Exactly the same madness seized the inhabitants of the whole neighborhood. Thus, about three thousand people gathered to mine gold in the places of its richest deposits in the fall of 1896. It was they who managed to grab the bird of happiness by the tail. Gold lay literally underfoot, and it was possible to collect it without meeting fierce resistance from competitors. In 1896, there was enough gold on the Klondike for everyone.

These lucky people owed such a lafe to the remoteness of the region from civilization and the lack of transport and information communication with large cities located much to the south in the cold season. It is precisely these three thousand people who, with rare exceptions, have washed many thousands of dollars worth of gold. However, not all of them reasonably disposed of what they acquired; most of them had golden sand leaked between their fingers.

The decent earned should also include at most one and a half of those who subsequently arrived in the Yukon from other regions of the world, including even Australia. This already had to literally fight for gold. And endure incredible hardships, since they were not adapted to hard work in the harsh conditions of the north.

And three days later, on July 17, another steamer, Portland, entered the port of Seattle. There were three tons of gold on board the Portland: sand and nuggets in dirty canvas sacks, on which sat, beaming with a weathered smile between their frostbitten cheeks, their rightful owners. After that, the United States of America (and then the rest of the world, civilized and not so) went crazy in chorus. People left their jobs and families, laid their last belongings and rushed north. The policemen left their posts, the carriage drivers left the trams, the pastors left the parishes.

The mayor of Seattle, who was on a business trip to San Francisco, telegraphed his resignation and, without returning to Seattle, rushed to the Klondike. The venerable thirty-year-old housewife Mildred Blenkins, a mother of three children, went out to shop and did not return home: having taken the savings with her husband from the bank, she got to Dawson and sported there in cloth pants, engaged in the resale of food and building materials. By the way, old lady Millie did not lose: three years later she returned to her family, bringing with her as an expiatory gift of golden sand for 190 thousand dollars.

“It’s time to go to the Klondike country, where gold is as abundant as sawdust,” wrote the city's newspaper The Seattle Daily Times the next day.

Of course, few people understood what he was doing. The easiest route to the Klondike looked like this: several thousand kilometers across the ocean to Alaska, then crossing the Chilkut pass a kilometer high, a queue of several thousand people. Moreover, it was possible to overcome it only on foot - pack animals could not climb the steep slope. Horses and dogs on the slope were powerless. True, there were Indians who could be hired to carry at the rate of a dollar per pound of luggage. But that kind of money was found only in eccentric millionaires, who, however, came across more often in the Yukon than in restaurants in Nice. An additional difficulty: in order to avoid starvation, the Canadian authorities did not allow them to cross the pass if the prospector did not have at least 800 kg of food with him. Some swung up and down forty times to carry the load. They crawled so tightly that, having dropped out of the queue, one could wait five to six hours to get back into line. Frequent avalanches buried both people and belongings.

Prospectors overcome the Chilkut pass

Those who overcame the Chilkut cut wood, built rafts, boats - in short, everything that kept them afloat and supplies, and prepared for the last dash along the Yukon River. In May 1898, as soon as the river was free of ice, a flotilla of seven thousand so-called ships set out for 800 kilometers downstream.

Rapids and narrow canyons have shattered the dreams and lives of many: of the 100,000 adventurers who disembarked in Skagway, only 30,000 reached Dawson, at that time a nondescript Indian village. Of these, a fortune was made on the gold mined, at best, a few hundred.

Earned by overwork

The statistics of the two-year gold rush that swept both the Yukon and spread to Alaska is rather sad. During this period, about 200 thousand people tried to find their financial happiness in the northern regions. Happiness was found, as it was said, 4 thousand people. But those who found death here were much more - according to various estimates, from 15 to 25 thousand.

Adversity began immediately, as soon as the catchers of fortune reached Alaska by ship, where it was necessary to overcome the steep Chilkut pass, which the beasts of burden were not able to master. Here they were met by the Canadian police, who let only those who had at least 800 kilograms of food through. Also, the police limited the import of firearms into the country, so that large-scale battles did not take place in the mines, which threatened to spill over to the south of Canada.

Then there was a crossing over Lake Lindeman, a 70-kilometer off-road crossing and an 800-kilometer rafting down the Yukon River strewn with rapids to the Klondike. Not everyone got to the mines.

A harsh climate with strong (up to 40 degrees) frosts in winter and sweltering heat in summer awaited people on the spot. People were dying from hunger and disease, and from accidents at work, and from skirmishes with competitors. The situation was aggravated by the fact that a significant number of "white collars" - clerks, teachers, doctors, who were not used to hard physical labor or everyday hardships - came to mine gold. This was due to the fact that America at that time was going through far from the best economic times.

And the work was really hard. After quickly collecting gold from the surface of the earth, it was necessary to shovel the soil. And he was frozen for most of the year. And it had to be heated with fires. During the California gold rush, it was much easier for the prospectors.

The novice writer Jack London, who was forced to leave the University of California due to the inability to pay for his studies, decided to try his luck. In 1897, at the age of 21, he reached the mines and staked out a plot with his comrades. But there was no gold on it. And the future famous writer was forced to sit on an empty plot with no hope of enrichment, waiting for spring, when it would be possible to get out of the regions cursed by providence. In the winter, he fell ill with scurvy, frostbitten, drained all the cash he had ... And we, the readers, were very lucky that he survived, returned to his homeland and wrote great novels and brilliant series of stories.

It must be said that the amount of gold reclaimed over 2 years of feverish mining turned out to be not so much per each prospector. On a modern scale, prices are $ 4.4 billion, which should be divided by 200 thousand people. It turns out only 22 thousand dollars.

But one of the smartest and most perspicacious entrepreneurs turned out to be John Ladu. 6 years before the start of the gold rush, he founded a trading post in northern Canada, supplying all the necessary local residents, as well as miners, who at that time mined gold in very modest volumes.

When in September 1896 all the surrounding residents rushed to the mouth of the Klondike to the placers discovered by Carmack, Ladya did not stand aside. But he bought not a gold-bearing area, but no one needed 70 hectares of land. Then he brought food supplies on them, built a house, a warehouse and a sawmill, founding the village of Dawson. When tens of thousands of fortune-seekers rushed to the mouth of the Klondike in the spring of next year, all residential buildings and infrastructure buildings were built on Ladya's land, which brought him enormous profits. And very soon Ladya became a multimillionaire, and the village grew to the size of a city with a population of 40 thousand.

Skagway now: a former brothel, now a popular pub

The forecast came true in full: in two years of the Klondike fever, more than 100 thousand people passed through Skagway, and the farm of William Moore turned into a large city at that time.

The gold prospectors who were just starting their way to the Klondike were in a worse situation. in Alaska. Since the spring of 1898, about a thousand prospectors have passed through Skagway every month on their way to Dawson. Overcrowded villages in southern Alaska have become a haven for thousands of men, languishing in anticipation of their departure north. To entertain this restless public, numerous "saloons" and simply brothels have sprung up in Skagway.

Slippery Smith (center) in his saloon. 1898 year

The king of this shadowy world of Alaska was a man called Soapy. His real name was Jefferson Randolph Smith II. By 1884, "Slippery" was claiming the role of king of the underworld in Denver, organizing fictitious lotteries. For excessive claims, rival gangs tried to kill Smith in 1889, but he managed to fight back. It got to the point that Denver City Hall had to repel the attacks of gangsters with guns. Smith realized that his gang would not be able to resist the artillery, and preferred to move to Alaska in 1896.

"Slippery" was ahead of the main wave of gold prospectors by a year and had time to prepare well for it. He acted in the usual way. In Skagway, he first organized a gambling establishment in the "saloon". Then Smith set up the reception of the telegrams, arranging a poker game nearby, which ended in an almost predictable loss of the sender of the telegram. It never occurred to gullible prospectors that the nearest telegraph pole was hundreds of miles away. Not everyone understood that they had been tricked. And those who understood were too rushed to the cherished Klondike to waste time on complaints.

A year later, Smith had strong competitors. In May 1898, under the leadership of Canadian engineers, construction began on the narrow-gauge White Pass & Yukon, which was supposed to connect Skagway to Whitehorse. "Slippery" realized that the gold prospectors who went from the steamer ladder to the train carriage without delay would not become his clients, but it was not easy to fight the railway company. The gold miners themselves have become bolder. On the evening of July 8, 1898, a meeting of "vigilants" (citizens involved in lynching) was convened in Skagway. Drunk Smith went to this meeting, but he was not allowed there. A verbal skirmish began, smoothly turning into a firefight, during which "Slippery" was killed. The crime kingdom in Skagway has come to an end.

Start with what it cost to get to Dawson. Indian porters, in the midst of the fever, charged $ 15,000 at current prices to carry a ton of cargo across the Chinkuk Pass.

For clarity, we will continue to operate with today's prices. A boat that allowed rafting 800 miles across the Yukon could not be bought for less than $ 10 thousand. The future writer Jack London, who found himself in the Yukon in the summer of 1897, earned money by helping to lead inexperienced miners' boats through the river hummocks. For the boat, he took godly - about $ 600. And over the summer he earned $ 75 thousand. For comparison: before leaving for the Klondike London, he worked at a jute factory and earned $ 2.5 per hour. That's $ 170 per week and 2300 for three months. That is, thirty times less than on the hummocks of the Yukon.

Like soldiers in war, the people of Dawson lived in the present. The owner of the cancan Gertie Diamond Tooth (the entertainment business was going so well that she inserted one for herself) accurately described the situation: “These unfortunate people just itch to get their money down quickly - they are so afraid to give God their soul before they dig up everything that is there. there is still left. " The pain, despair and frozen corpses in the frozen huts got along perfectly with the chansonettes who stood ankle-deep in nuggets on the Monte Carlo stage. Feral prospectors spent their fortunes for the right to dance with the sisters Jacqueline and Rosalind, known as Vaseline and Glycerin.

Of course, the prices can be explained by the difficulties of delivery to godforsaken areas. But, of course, greed and monopoly played their part. So, the supply of food to Dawson was almost completely controlled by one person - Canadian Alex MacDonald, nicknamed Big Alex. A year after the start of the gold rush, Big Alex's fortune was estimated at $ 5 million, and he himself received the title of "King of the Klondike." He not only bought dozens of "applications", but also hired bankrupt miners to work in his mines. As a result, MacDonald earned $ 5 million and received the unofficial title of "King of the Klondike". True, the final of the real estate buyer turned out to be sad. Having concentrated huge plots of land in his hands, MacDonald did not want to part with them in time. As a result, the price of mountains and forests with depleted deposits fell, and the "King of the Klondike" went bankrupt.

Belinda Mulroney

Dawson also had its own "queen" - Belinda Mulroney. She started out speculating in clothing — bringing in $ 5,000 worth of clothes to run-out prospectors that sold for $ 30,000, and then switched to whiskey and shoes, selling rubber boots for $ 100 a pair. And she also became a millionaire. Having learned about the discovery of gold in the Nome region, the "queen" Klondike immediately moved to Alaska. She was still resourceful and adventurous. The "queen" Belinda did not receive the throne, but she managed to marry a French swindler who declared himself a count. Mulroney's money was invested in the European Steamship Company. "Queen Klondike" lived in London, not denying herself anything, until 1914, when the war led to the collapse of shipping and the ruin of many companies. Belinda Mulroney died in poverty.

Samuel Brennan

The pastor used the situation to his advantage. Over the next few days, he bought all the shovels and other household utensils around. And then in his newspaper he published a note that gold was found on the American River. With this note, the California gold rush began. Brennan's calculation was simple: his store is the only one on the way from San Francisco to the mines, which means that the miners will pay what he requests. And the calculation worked: very soon he was selling shovels for $ 500, which he bought for $ 10. For a sieve, which cost him $ 4, he asked for $ 200. In three months, Samuel made his first million. A few more years have passed, and he is no longer just the richest man in California, but also one of the "pillars of society", the owner of newspapers, banks and steamships, the Senator of the State of California.

Most of the miners ended their lives in about the same way. Even having washed up millions on the rivers of the Yukon, they could not cope with their passions. Saloons, brothels, casinos - the service industry knew how to get money out of their pockets. The writer Bret Garth, famous for describing the life of the miners, tells the story of a man who, having profitably sold his land, loses half a million dollars in a San Francisco casino in one day. In their memoirs, witnesses of the gold rush in Australia shared memories of characters who in local taverns lit pipes from five-pound bills (this is like a five-thousandth in our reality) and paid cabbies with handfuls of golden sand.

The queue for licenses for gold mining.

Tent town on the shores of Lake Bennett. In this place, gold diggers built or bought boats in order to sail further to the Klondike on the water.

Another, already more capital village of gold miners.

The shortest, but most difficult route to the Klondike went through the Chilkut pass with a height of more than 1200 meters. The most reckless and hasty overcame this pass even in winter, and at first there were many of them.

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The extraction went on all year round. In winter, the frozen ground was hollowed out with pickaxes or heated with bonfires.

Artel of gold miners at work.

A group of prospectors en route to the Klondike.

Perhaps the only ones who really and fabulously got rich on the "gold rush" were dealers, who bought the precious metal from the miners on the cheap. The respectable gentleman on the left poses with the bags of gold he had bought in the previous fortnight. There may be gold in the chests too. Of course, a guard with a revolver with such a still life is far from superfluous.

Left cover of the April 1898 Klondike News magazine with an optimistic forecast of $ 40 million in gold production this year.
And the picture on the right from the English magazine "Punch" for the same year, as it were, warns adventurers that in fact most of them await on the Klondike.

In Game Klondike the location of the gold veins is completely random. They can dig out anywhere on the map of your neighbor, there is no pattern, just look here and there and your efforts will be rewarded a hundredfold. Dig under every bush, structure, stone, and decoration.

To find a gold mine in the game Klondike you need to dig everything. A gold mine can be found anywhere. Moreover, even the regularity of the location of the veins is absent and is not preserved. Therefore, I wish you luck finding it more often!

Goldmine of the Klondike game... Finding it is not easy and you can do it by typing, as they say. It can be under any object or building your friend has. So you need to dig and maybe you are lucky and you will find a gold mine. Each player has about twenty gold veins on the map, so there is a chance to find it. There are veins in which the treasure is good and there is a lot of it, but there are veins with a small amount of treasure. One gold mine can contain from two to eight shovels, that is, diggers. Having dug it out, you can find experience, gold bars, collection items. The gold mine participates in the tasks wisdom and law.

It is not so easy to find a gold mine in the Klondike, for it may be wherever you would think to look for it. Therefore, you will have to look everywhere and everywhere. But there are secrets of how to find it, they say that you need to dig under each new building. But you can also find gold veins from friends!

Are you talking about a gold mine? But I’ll say this: I don’t know, since it can be anywhere, so dig up everything and you will be lucky and you will find a gold mine.

On any map of any player, the veins are located chaotically, in various places, but it is best to dig under buildings.

The gold mine in the online game Klondike can be anywhere, even under a bush or grass. In general, I found strawberries under the bed, and even under a large boulder.

Gold veins can only be found at friends (at a party). You can only find hiding places on your site.

But there is one BUT... If suddenly you find a gold mine with a friend, then you can only dig up the treasure if your friend is on your site. To do this, he will need to be hired in a tent (for gold).

The easiest way to find the Goldmine in the Klondike is if you bought a dog. To search for a gold mine, you need to feed she has 9 bones. Before that, you need to hire a friend from whom you will look for a gold mine on the site.

Find a gold mine in the Klondike game not easy. Since it is set randomly and appears in a chaotic manner at the location of your friend.

About the gold mine:

it can contain from 2 to 8 shovels (actions, digging);
vein can be under any object on a friend's card;
the number and location of gold veins changes once a week;
it is easy to find a gold mine with the help of a dog (dog), after feeding it with bones!

In the gold mine you can find:

You can find a gold mine in the Klondike game. And even very easy. Your gold mine can be located anywhere: under any item on your neighbor's map; it is a bush, brick, fence, buildings, pillar. Several Klondike Gold Veins are placed on the map every week. And always under new items. Dig, maybe you're lucky.

Finding a gold mine is quite problematic, as its location changes weekly. But thanks to the dog, you can do it. Initially feed the dog with bones and he will thank you.

You can hope for luck and dig under new buildings and look for a mine with friends. Good luck!