On a recent holiday to the Yukon, where the Klondike Gold Rush took place, two things surprised me,

Firstly that the Gold Rush lasted less than 2 years and secondly that Dawson City did not exist before the Gold Rush. In 1896 there were 1500 prospectors looking for gold along the Yukon Basin and 3 found a large accumulation of gold lying between slabs of bedrock. They registered the claim and word spread like wildfire.

However word didn’t reach the outside world till 1897 when the Yukon River thawed and steamships reached Seattle with prospectors and their gold.

At the time there was a world-wide recession and so 100,000 started off for the Yukon. Most were unprepared and inexperienced. Rich prospectors travelled by steamer and paddleboat but the majority travelled by foot and hand-built boats to travel 560 miles down the Yukon River.

When they got to Dawson City in 1898 they found that the good claims had been registered.

In 1896 Joseph Ladue bought an area of marshland at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers and established Dawson City. He knew that gold camps were more profitable than mining. He developed the city to provide all the services that the miners needed.

In 1899 gold was found in Alaska and the unsuccessful miners and those arriving too late to get a good claim moved on to Alaska ending the gold rush.