Cold Open - Gold in Rabbit Creek

It’s August 16th, 1896 at Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River in the Yukon territory of Canada.

Keish, a member of the Tagish people, wades through cool clear waters. He and the other members of his group are low on supplies, so he’s gone hunting for moose. But as he walks through the water, he also keeps an eye out for something else: Gold.

As a Tagish man, Keish has spent his whole life living off of the area’s abundant resources. But in recent years, more and more white men have been trying to do the same, coming to his homeland in search of gold. He shakes his head when he remembers the way he and his siblings would compete to collect gold flakes as children. They couldn't use it for food or shelter, so it had no value to them. Still, it was fun to see how many sparkly pieces they could find in the waters where they lived. Today though, Keish would never discard gold. In this new era, he knows it could mean life-changing wealth.

As he hears the telltale sound of a moose trampling through the brush ahead, Keish tears his eyes away from the water and listens carefully, moving toward his prey. Then he lifts his gun… and fires. 

Keish hollers as he watches the moose fall to the ground. He looks back to call out to his family members who are following him but he finds himself alone in the waters.

As Keish waits for them to catch up, he looks down into the water and a sudden thrill runs through him. There on the riverbed, he sees a familiar glint of gold, but a lot of it, more than he's ever seen before. Keish pulls out a pan and gets to work, frantically collecting the metal. And his pan fills up, Keish is hit by the realization that he's about to become a very rich man.

Over the coming years, the story of Keish’s discovery at Rabbit Creek will become shrouded in myth and controversy. His white brother-in-law, George Carmack, who accompanied Keish to the river will claim the find himself, filing the first legal gold claim on Rabbit Creek. Another version of the story will also develop that credits Keish’s younger sister who had also been at the river that day as the true discoverer. But most modern historians will agree that Keish was the first to sport the gold.

The full truth will never be known but what is certain though is that word of new riches found in the area will trigger a massive gold rush. Rabbit Creek will be renamed Bonanza Creek as more than 100,000 fortune-seekers migrate to the freezing cold of the Yukon, desperate to claim their own share of the riches that were found there on August 16th, 1896.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is August 16th, 1896: The Klondike Gold Rush.

Act One: Belinda Mulrooney

It’s June 15th, 1897 in a town in the Yukon territory, almost a year after Keish and his family struck it rich at Rabbit Creek.

25-year-old Belinda Mulrooney steps onto the muddy streets of Dawson City and takes in the overwhelming sights and sounds that still feel foreign to her.

For the first 13 years of her life, Belinda grew up in Ireland where she was cared for by her grandparents. Meanwhile, her mother and father started a new life in America. Eventually, Belinda made the trans-Atlantic voyage to join them, but she despised living around the coal mines of Pennsylvania. So Belinda set out to make a life of her own.

At 21, she moved all the way to Chicago where she started and ran a successful sandwich stand. With her profits, she moved to San Francisco where she opened up an ice cream parlor. But after her business burned in a fire, leaving her broke, Belinda was forced to change course. She found employment as a stewardess on a ship sailing from San Francisco to Alaska. And on her runs north, Belinda began hearing rumors of people getting rich from prospecting gold in the nearby Yukon territory. So Belinda quit her job and headed toward Canada’s Klondike River. Now, after weeks of arduous journey by foot and by boat, she has reached her destination.

Belinda is surrounded by rows of run-down tents and shacks alongside the town’s filthy main thoroughfare. The smell of animals and excrement stings her eyes. She can hardly believe that this is the famed Dawson City, the Klondike's nascent boomtown. But Belinda has made a habit of starting fresh in search of prosperity, and she’s confident she can do it again here. Dawson is growing fast, and Belinda figures as word of the Klondike River’s gold spreads, the size of the city will only swell.

For now though, it’s not much to look at. Belinda takes a stroll through the town’s streets to get her bearings. After a quick assessment, she realizes that the only money she’s brought - a 25-cent coin - is worthless. The currency in Dawson City is clearly gold dust. So Belinda takes her last bit of cash and just tosses it into the river. This act confuses Belinda’s new neighbors who watch with surprise as this unusual woman throws money into the waters of the Yukon. But Belinda doesn’t think twice about it. She may as well start completely clean.

First, Belinda asks a group of prospectors for their boat and their help turning it into a makeshift cabin. She can’t pay them right now, but she promises to watch their belongings while they stake out a gold claim. And by the time they return, she promises she will have money to pay them.

The next day, Belinda starts her first business venture in Dawson City. After making acquaintances with a few of the small number of the town’s women, Belinda invites them to her new residence where she has a surprise waiting. They gather at her cabin, curious to know what Belinda could have for them.

When they arrive, Belinda flashes a mischievous smile. Then, she pulls a can from her belongings and opens it up, revealing the stash of soft, silky dresses, petticoats, nightgowns, and underwear that she brought from San Francisco. For the men of the Yukon, these goods are useless. But Belinda is a savvy businesswoman. During her time traveling from San Francisco to Alaska, she learned that luxury items are in high demand among the small population of women braving the far north’s harsh conditions.

So in no time, Belinda’s business is booming. Wives of miners and indigenous men are hungry for the comforts Belinda sells, earning her more than enough money to pay off the men who sold their boat, and even hire a few women to help with her business.

But Belinda knows there’s still more money to be made. And soon she finds another opportunity. Belinda notices there aren’t many options for quality dining in Dawson City, and the men coming back through the town after prospecting have lots of gold to spend on an upscale meal. So Belinda launches a restaurant from inside her cabin, opting to go after the gold in miners’ pockets instead of the gold in the ground. Using the profits from her two businesses, she then starts buying property and selling cabins. By the end of her first month in Dawson City, Belinda’s well on her way to becoming the richest woman in the Klondike, turning her into a popular symbol of the area’s burgeoning wealth.

But Belinda’s fortune is just beginning. As steamships bearing huge hauls of gold from the Yukon start arriving on America’s west coast, the news of the Klondike gold will hit the continental United States like wildfire. With the US in the midst of a terrible economic depression, the story of Canada’s gold bonanza will captivate the country, and tens of thousands of down-on-their-luck men and women will read the news about gold in the Yukon and set forth for the Klondike River, determined to do wherever they must to become the next so-called “Klondike Kings.”

Act Two: Tappan Adney

It’s July 18th, 1897 in New York City.

Tappan Adney holds a copy of the New York Journal in his hands, his eyes wide with astonishment as he reads the front page.

The 29-year-old journalist and outdoorsman has spent most of his life in northern New York and Canada. He loves recording the beauty of wilderness through writing and illustrations, but today there’s a story unlike anything he’s seen. In the inhospitable northern Yukon Territory, prospectors have found an unbelievable amount of gold.

Tappan shakes his head in disbelief. Apparently, there’s so much of the precious metal that prospectors are pulling hundreds of dollars of gold out of the Klondike River every day. Tappan is skeptical of these claims, but he’s also curious. He’s written plenty of stories about outdoor adventures, but this has the potential to be something bigger. At a time when so many Americans are out of work, the promise of easy riches will be too good to pass up. But Tappan knows that most people who will make the journey north will be dangerously unprepared, and he’s curious to see what will come of this.

Over the next few days, Tappan reads more headlines about hordes of people stampeding for Canada. And the more he sees of these stories, the more certain he becomes that he has to see the Gold Rush for himself. He begins writing to his editors, asking them to send him to the Klondike. And a week later, he finally receives an assignment from Harper’s Weekly.

Immediately, Tappan hits the road. He knows it’s a race against time. It will take months for him to reach the Klondike River. And winter comes as early as October that far north.  

So Tappan boards a train and travels three thousand miles to British Columbia. Then, he assembles his materials. In an attempt to avoid a disaster, the Canadian government is requiring that anyone journeying to the Klondike must carry enough provisions to survive one year. So Tappan gathers one thousand pounds of food and other supplies, along with his photography and writing equipment. Then, he boards a steamship headed to Alaska.

Once he arrives, Tappan and the hundreds of others are faced with a choice. Take the Chilkoot Trail or the White Pass Trail. The Chilkoot is the path the native Tlingit people have taken for thousands of years. It’s more direct but steeper. White Pass is longer but offers a slightly more gentle climb. Tappan and most others around him opt for White Pass, but before he leaves, a man warns him, “Whichever way you go, you will wish you had gone the other.”

This proves true for Tappan. He tries his best to make his way up the White Pass trail, but he’s soon forced to turn back. It's a muddy mess, overcrowded with men and horses. Tappan watches in horror as, each day on the trail, horses die from exhaustion or fall off the side of the mountain, earning White Pass a new name: Dead Horse Trail.

But still, Tappan is determined to make it to the Klondike and get his story. He finds his way back to the Chilkoot trail, but even after surviving a treacherous climb through the mountains, he still has miles to go. Tappan then boards a rickety boat with all his belongings and navigates swift-flowing waters and rapids. Along the way, he records the story of many men, defeated or even dead, broken either by the wilderness’s harsh conditions or swindled by one of many schemers preying on hapless migrants. 

But despite the odds, Tappan eventually makes it to Dawson City. It’s a feat thousands of others will fail. But Tappan hardly feels victorious. He still must survive a long harsh winter. And when spring arrives, floods wreak havoc on the residents of Dawson. As cruel as the journey was to get here, the conditions in Dawson may be even more grim. Still, Tappan manages to make his grueling trip worthwhile. He remains in the Yukon territory until late 1898, turning his experience into a classic book called The Klondike Stampede, which provides an exceptional closeup of the life of prospectors in the Yukon.

But while the odysseys of people like Belinda Mulrooney and Tappan Adney will end in success, most who make it to Dawson will fall short of their dreams. By the time the wave of migrants reach the Klondike River, most of the gold will already be gone. But the event’s impact on the region’s environment and Indigenous peoples will last long after the stampeders are gone, leaving Alaska and Canada’s First Nation leaders to raise their voices against the abuse suffered by the land and its original people.

Act Three: Chief Isaac

It’s December 1911 in Dawson City, more than a decade after stampeders began flocking to the area. 

Chief Isaac, a Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in chief, stands in front of a crowd gathered to hear him speak. As usual, he wears a mix of indigenous and Western clothing, sporting a beautifully embroidered and fringed buckskin jacket with wool pants. The chief is no longer young, but he still stands tall, and it’s easy to tell he was once quite strong and handsome.

Chief Isaac has long been honored by his people for his efforts to protect their way of life. Over the years, he’s also earned the respect of many white settlers who have come to live in his people's ancestral home. Before the Gold Rush, Chief Isaac treated these white newcomers with kindness, and he instructed his people to do the same. But a lot has changed since then.

When the Gold Rush brought tens of thousands of migrants to the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s land, Chief Isaac and his people were displaced. Unable to keep his tribe in their original home, Chief Isaac was forced to move them to a new village down the river. But even after the stampeders’ departure, the land and resources they once depended on were left degraded and depleted, spurring Chief Isaac to remain a vocal advocate for his people and their land.

Today, as he prepares to share his reflections on the changes he’s seen, his heart is heavy. He begins his speech by recounting life before the white men arrived, speaking in English so any journalists present can catch and publish every word. He recalls the land, the water, the wildlife, the place his people once called their home. Then, he describes what happened when the stampeders arrived. They not only took all the gold, they killed all the moose and the caribou. And now, when native people go hunting, they come back empty-handed and hungry. 

Chief Isaac’s words are recorded by a reporter and reprinted in the Dawson Daily News, but infringement on the area’s native people will not end with one speech. For the rest of his life, Chief Isaac will fight for the preservation of his people’s traditions and their land, both of which were deeply damaged by the Klondike Gold Rush. And, in the end, their destruction resulted in little reward. Of the hundred thousand men and women who sought their fortunes in the Yukon, only the tiniest fraction actually found gold. An even smaller number found enough to change their lives. Many of those who did strike it rich lost it all to gambling, booze, and fraud in Dawson City.

Ultimately, the Klondike Gold Rush will make very few people truly wealthy. Still, the era of the stampeders will be remembered long after its end, growing into a mythical movement as stories of entrepreneurs like Belinda Mulrooney and adventurers like Tappan Adney are passed on, along with the tales of the thousands of frenzied prospectors who rushed to the Klondike after gold was discovered in Rabbit Creek on August 16th, 1896.

Outro

Next on History Daily. August 17th, 1998. US President Bill Clinton admits to having had an inappropriate relationship with former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Emily Burke.

Sound design by Mischa Stanton

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Ruben Abrahams Brosbe.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.