SNOWSTORMS, SOURDOUGHS, AND SLUICES: AN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF THE KLONDIKE GOLD RUSH, 1896-1900

by

Heather A. Longworth

Thesis

submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the Degree of

Bachelor of Arts with

Honours in History

Acadia University

February, 2007

© Copyright by Heather A Longworth, 2007.

ii

This thesis by Heather A. Longworth

is accepted in its present form by the

Department of History and Classics

as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree of

Bachelor of Arts with Honours

Approved by the Thesis Supervisor

______Dr. David F. Duke Date

Approved by the Head of the Department

______Dr. Beert Verstraete Date

Approved by the Honours Committee

______Dr. Robert Perrins Date

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I, Heather A. Longworth, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to reproduce, loan or distribute copies of my thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats on a non-profit basis. I however, retain the copyright in my thesis.

______Signature of Author

______Date

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Acknowledgements

This thesis has been my long journey to the Klondike and back and while I did not go through the same challenges as the stampeders of ’98, like them, I had a lot of people that helped and supported me along the way. These people are too numerous to mention them all, but there are some who must be acknowledged:

• Dr. David F. Duke, my supervisor, who got me interested in the field of environmental history, patiently answered my never-ending stream of questions, and constantly encouraged me.

• My parents, Dave and Anne Longworth, who constantly supported me in every way and who made my family trip to the Klondike in August 2006 possible so that I could experience the land of the gold rush first hand and do research there.

• My twin sister, Susan Longworth, who continually motivated me and listened to all my struggles, triumphs, and random facts and stories about the Klondike while I was researching and writing this thesis.

Lastly, this thesis is dedicated to all those miners, adventurers, women, children, and entrepreneurs who made the trip to the Klondike, especially those whom I have come to know and appreciate throughout my research. Your strength, courage, and spirit through all you endured are still incredible and inspirational today.

HAL

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Table of Contents Acknowledgements...... iv Abstract...... vii Chapter I...... 1 Introduction and Historiography...... 1 Chapter II ...... 21 Richer for the Adventure: The Environment’s Impact on Humans...... 21 Chapter III...... 53 Deforestation, Mining, and Disease: Impact on the Environment...... 53 Conclusion ...... 77 Maps and Images ...... 81 Bibliography ...... 94

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Map of the Routes taken during the Klondike Gold Rush ...... 81 Figure 2: Map of Chilkoot Pass and White Pass...... 82 Figure 3: Klondikers at the Scales, Ascending the Chilkoot Pass, Alaska, 1898...... 83 Figure 4 Digging Bodies out of Snow Slide on Chilkoot Pass, 3 April, 1898 ...... 83 Figure 5: Blockade of Klondikers on Porcupine Hill, White Pass Trail, Alaska, 1898.... 84 Figure 6: Precarious Road Built Along the Side of the Canyon Wall, White Pass, 1899 84 Figure 7: Whipsawing Lumber on Lake Lindeman, 1899...... 85 Figure 8: Bennett Lake, June 1, 1898 ...... 85 Figure 9: View of White Water Funnelling through Miles Canyon, 1900 ...... 86 Figure 10: Boat Floundering in White Horse Rapids, 1900 ...... 86 Figure 11: Aftermath of a Fire in Dawson, October 14, 1898...... 87 Figure 12: Horse Drawn Cart Hauling Lumber Stuck in Mud on Front Street, Dawson . 87 Figure 13: Looking up Pine from Willow Slide, 1900 ...... 88 Figure 14: Five Men at Mining Operation, No. 5 Below Bonanza Creek, 1898...... 88 Figure 15: Miners Working Sluice, 1899 ...... 89 Figure 16: Mining Claim No. 8 Above Bonanza Creek ...... 89 Figure 17: Miners Working Sluice on Spruce Creek, Atlin Mining District, 1899...... 90 Figure 18: Mining Claim No. 2 Bonanza Creek, 1898...... 90 Figure 19: Mining Operations on Eldorado Creek, Yukon Territory, ca. 1898...... 91 Figure 20: Three Miners Using Pickaxes in Underground Gold Mine...... 91 Figure 21: Winter Dumps on Eldorado Mining Claims ...... 92 Figure 22: Packtrain at a Mining Claim, Cheechako Hill, 1898...... 92 Figure 23: Dredge Tailings around Dawson, 2006...... 93 Figure 24: Diagram of a Rocker ...... 93

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Abstract

The Klondike gold rush stood out from the other gold rushes prior to its time because it took place in a unique climate where miners had to make adjustments not only to living in the cold climate but to mining techniques as well. By studying the Klondike gold rush from an environmental perspective, it becomes obvious that the relationship between the people and the environment in the Klondike was two-fold: people had an effect on the environment through mining, deforestation, and settlement, and the environment likewise had an effect on people through the hardships of the weather and the trails to Dawson City. These hardships challenged and changed people physically and likely changed many internally as well. The Klondike gold rush had a lasting impact on people as many carried the memories of the rush with them for the rest of their lives. It had a profound impact on the environment through deforestation, diversion of water, and the destruction caused by mining on a small scale and later on a large scale with the use of dredges. The rush also affected the Yukon as it opened it up to white settlement, tourism, and mining and had a huge impact on the economy.

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Chapter I Introduction and Historiography

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic Trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights… 1

Robert W. Service wrote these lines in commemoration of an event that changed the

Yukon as well as the lives of many men and women who headed north to participate in the quest for gold. Before the end of the nineteenth century the world saw many gold rushes beginning with the California rush and including stampedes north to the Fraser

River and the Cariboo in British Columbia, as well as rushes to South Africa, Australia, and across the United States. The Klondike rush was the last of these and was remembered so distinctly not because it was the biggest but because it was quite different from the others. Images of men in heavy coats bent over while struggling to carry packs of one hundred pounds up the steep, snowy incline of the Chilkoot Pass have stuck in the minds of many people as symbolic of this stampede; so too have descriptions of dead horses along the White Pass and pictures of gold mining creeks criss-crossed with sluice works, stacks of wood, and mounds of gravel. These lingering images, along with photographs, reports, and personal accounts of the Klondike gold rush show how the unique climate and environment of the Yukon made this an experience not to be forgotten.

The gold rush of 1896-1900 transformed the Klondike from a region based primarily on the fur trade to one that revolved around mining. This change in the economy had a large man-made impact on the environment. However, the environment

1 Robert W. Service, “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” in Songs of a Sourdough , 13 th ed. (Toronto: William Briggs, 1908), 55. 2 also had an equally large effect on the men and women travelling the trails to Dawson through the impact of weather, geography, and hardships. The environment also made mining difficult because of permafrost, shortages of wood and long winter seasons. This thesis examines the impact of the northern environment on humans as well as the human impact on the environment during the Klondike gold rush. It argues that the environment changed people physically and internally and people in turn despoiled the environment through mining and deforestation as many did not realize what they were doing because their faces were to the grindstone. It is important to look at the Klondike gold rush from an environmental perspective because like all previous rushes it had a lasting impact on the land and the participants, but it stands out from the others because it took place in an unusually difficult climate. The cold weather that forced the miners to come up with techniques to melt the permafrost, did not allow for supplies to get through easily in the winter, and also limited the time that miners could sluice gold in the summer. The rush also had a lasting impression on the economy of the Yukon as mining and tourism based on the rush generate most of the Yukon’s revenue today.

Environmental history allows us to study the relationship between human history and natural history and how they affect each other. It is a useful tool for understanding the past and the consequences of decisions made at that time. Knowledge gained from studying the Klondike gold rush from an environmental perspective can be directly applied to current mining controversies and issues such as the cleanup of abandoned mining sites. Although the techniques used during the Klondike gold rush were less technologically sophisticated and industrial than mining today, studying them reveals 3 what the consequences of gold mining were on the environment then, and what they may be in the future.

It is important to look at both the effect of the environment on the travellers and miners as well as the impact of these people on the environment as the relationship works both ways. To research only the impact on the environment would be to disregard the importance of the environment to the lives of the people who came to the Yukon and thus the research would be incomplete. It is therefore important to look at both sides of the research in order to see how one side influences the other.

The environment of the north had a significant impact on the miners and others who went north: this will be examined in the second chapter. People went to the Klondike because there was gold to be found in this region, gold that would make them rich. But there was more: the area was not yet industrialized so miners were infused with the ideas of adventure and frontier freedom. The experiences men encountered on the many routes to Dawson – snowstorms, avalanches, difficult treks, dead horses, rapids and canyons, and mosquitoes – showed the people that this environment was one to be reckoned with physically. But many still found the region beautiful and captivating in its own way through sunsets, gorgeous views, and the aurora borealis. Dawson, as a rapidly developing mining town, is worth examining from the perspective of environmental history because of its rapid growth, geographic location, floods, fires, and sanitation problems. The demographics of the miners and the larger Dawson community were also important as they show that people came from all over the world to try their hands at mining in the Klondike and made it a multicultural community. Temperature had an enormous impact on the trails to Dawson as few were prepared for the cold or were used 4 to living in tents in extreme weather. Disease, such as typhoid, dysentery, and measles, played a role in wiping out much of the native population of the Yukon as well as affecting miners. The latter were especially troubled by scurvy. Many people took pride in their achievement of reaching Dawson and surviving the rough environment for a year to become an old timer or sourdough. Some people stayed because they loved the community or they continued to profit well from their mines whereas others simply fell under the spell of the Yukon.

Just as the environment had an impact on the people, likewise the people made an imprint on the environment. This will be examined in the third chapter. Trees at the riverheads were cut down, especially around Lake Lindeman and Lake Bennett, by those travelling to Dawson from the White Pass or the Chilkoot Pass by water. This resulted in deforestation and the degradation of the sandy soil around Lake Bennett as well as later deforestation along the riverbanks to Dawson when steamboat operators cut down wood for fuel. The largest human impact during the Klondike gold rush was that of the mining itself. Digging displaced the earth and left piles of tailings along the creeks. Fire and steam thawing consumed many trees resulting in deforestation of the creeks. Clearing the overburden removed plants and trees, and resulted in flooding. Flumes and sluice works diverted streams. Settlement in areas like Dawson and Whitehorse also had an effect on the environment as people moved permanently into areas previously used seasonally by the natives, causing problems in terms of hunting, deforestation, and sewage. 2

To understand how different the Klondike rush was from the others that preceded it, it is important to compare it to other, earlier stampedes. The 1848-49 California rush

2 Charlene L. Porsild, Gamblers and Dreamers: Women, Men, and Community in the Klondike (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998), 8, 59, 150. 5 was the first big one, which began after James Marshall found gold on John Sutter’s land.

Men flocked from the east either by boat around Cape Horn; by boat to Panama, then overland across Panama, and by second boat to California; or overland by wagon train to

California. Like those seeking gold years later in the Klondike, those heading to

California suffered from diseases such as cholera, struggled over muddy wagon trails by land and “daily struggled with climatic changes and other challenges.” 3 Mining techniques, such as panning for gold and using rockers to separate gold from gravel were developed there. 4 California set a precedent for other rushes in terms of new technology, overcoming hardships on trails, and showing that with hard work, poor men could become rich.

Australia was the next big nineteenth-century rush. Gold was found there in the late 1850s in Queensland and then in the late 1880s and early 1890s in Western Australia.

Supplies were packed in by horses and tent cities sprung up as they would later in the

Klondike. As in the Klondike too, mosquitoes were bad and it was difficult to get food especially meat, dairy products, fresh vegetables, and fruit. Prospectors came from around the world, but most were British. Like other gold rushes, the Australian rush was seen as bringing civilization to a primitive wilderness and creating a “modern Australia.” 5

In Western Australia, Kalgoorlie more specifically, the ground was so moist that miners used fires to dry it and then dug out pits and shafts. 6 The miners in the Klondike later refined this method to thaw the permafrost. Thus, the Australian rushes had much in

3 Paula Mitchell Marks, Precious Dust: The American Gold Rush Era (New York: Morrow, 1994), 63. 4 W.P. Morrell, The Gold Rushes (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1940), 98. 5 George Fetherling, The Gold Crusades: A Social History of the Gold Rushes, 1849- 1929, rev. ed (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 43. 6 Morrell, 300-301. 6 common with the Klondike including difficult soil, little access to a varied diet, and being seen as a civilizing event.

The Fraser River rush in British Columbia began in 1858 after gold discoveries made in 1856-57 had been kept secret. Americans flocked north and Governor James

Douglas, anticipating problems, made sure that the Americans knew this was British territory and made it a controlled event. 7 The Fraser River rush had environmental challenges like the Klondike; by the middle of summer the river overflowed its banks because of snow melting at the river’s source and swelled over bars, preventing mining activities from being carried out. 8 Thus, the miners could not reach gold until the water level fell in the autumn. Many were impatient and gave up and returned to the United

States. Victoria grew as a trade centre to supply miners with goods. Travelling up the

Fraser River proved to be a challenge because of the cliffs, tides, rapids, gulfs, and high water levels in the spring and summer. 9 The rush to the Fraser River is seen as having an important role in bringing British Columbia into confederation in 1871 partly because many people in British Columbia wanted to remain British despite the nearby American influence. The rush also “provided Britain’s West Coast possessions with the basis for sustained economic vitality.” 10 The Klondike rush had similar outcomes as the Yukon became an official Canadian Territory in 1898, and mining became its main economic base.

The Colorado gold rush of 1858-59 had a lot of participants as it was closer to the east and was not in the desert or the most difficult mountains like other rushes in the

7 Tony Hollihan, Gold Rushes (Edmonton: Folklore Books, 2001), 80-83. 8 Rosemary Neering, Gold Rush (Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1974), 23. 9 Hollihan, 85. 10 Robert Ficken, Unsettled Boundaries: Fraser Gold and the British-American Northwest (Pullman, Washington: Washington State University Press, 2003), 156. 7

United States. Rushes to the Rocky Mountains and Nebraska left travellers to deal with sunburn, prairie storms, and heat during the day, and bitter cold at night. Like the Yukon there were lies about the routes being well marked and easy to travel. Unlike the first years of the Yukon rush, railroads helped to move people faster and more easily to the site of the rush.

The Cariboo rush was the second gold rush in what is today Canada and was smaller than the Fraser River rush. It began in 1862 and was made more accessible by the

Cariboo Road built by Royal Engineers in 1865 which allowed easier transportation of goods and thus reduced the price of supplies. Barkerville, a wooden boom town, burned down in 1868, a fate shared before and later by many other mining cities such as Dawson.

As in other rushes, wood was important for shelter and mining equipment such as sluices, waterwheels, and shafts, and thus much deforestation took place.

The Black Hills rush of 1876 took place during a nationwide depression in

America in the early 1870s; similarly, the Klondike took place during the depression of the 1890s. Like other rushes, there were difficulties with the natives living in the region

(especially the Sioux) which, unlike other rushes, resulted in war. 11 Deadwood City sprang up and was much wilder than places like Dawson, but it had to deal with catastrophic fire too.

In 1886, there was a gold rush to the Rand in South Africa. Unlike the Klondike and other rushes, the gold of the Rand was contained in subterranean reefs that stretched to a great depth underground and twisted for miles. 12 This meant that the mining process

11 Morrell, 186. 12 Fetherling, 106. 8 was beyond ordinary placer mining 13 methods and thus big companies moved in early.

There was little wood available in the region so the mines switched to using the chemical process based on potassium cyanide to separate gold. There was racial tension between

Africans and whites in the mines. Like other mining areas, the Rand had environmental problems: a “characteristic sight on the Rand was the mine dumps, the mountains of sandy waste that were left after the ore had been crushed and the gold extracted.” 14 Thus, although Africa was very different in terms of its mining development, it still shared many environmental-impact characteristics with the Klondike and other mining regions.

The Klondike gold rush had the following in common with most of the previous rushes. There were financial reasons behind the rush as the United States was in the middle of the depression of the 1890s. Technology from previous rushes was used and was adapted to the climate and then improved over the next twenty years. Many who went north saw the rush as an adventure and a life-changing experience: “In the gold rushes tens of thousands of men took part, and though many faltered or fell by the wayside, the best of them evolved a new type of self-reliant character, a new free, careless social life.” 15 In most cases, apart from South Africa, big mining companies began to take over claims after two or three years. Boom towns rose so fast that they often did not have adequate sanitation, and as they were made of wood they were very susceptible to fires. Because gold rushes took place in primarily unsettled areas, food was often difficult to obtain and was very expensive. Improved transportation methods resolved this problem and thus the prices of supplies decreased. In all cases, many more

13 Placer mining is the mining of mineral deposits on the surface which were formed by the concentration of heavy minerals (in this case gold) in gravel or sand. 14 Fetherling, 117. 15 Morrell, 415. 9 prospectors and travellers set out than actually made it or tried mining when they reached their destination due to the difficulties of the routes and roughing it.

The diaries and memoirs of these prospectors and dreamers who went to the

Klondike are important to study because they show what life was really like on the trails and by the mining creeks. These accounts show that the people who participated in this rush went north with very little idea of what to expect. These people recorded their reasons for why they made this journey, lists of supplies they brought with them, and accounts of the routes they took and the troubles they faced. They recorded the exhaustion, monotony, and sorrow they faced as well as the joys and triumphs of their adventures. Their descriptions of mining hardships, the isolation, and life in mining towns provide insight into how these people managed to survive. The letters of these prospectors show how they tried to keep their families from knowing all the dangers they faced and how they tried to reassure their loved ones that they were safe. Most significantly, these accounts show how these people learned and matured, developed new skills, and adapted to their new environment.

Unlike the personal accounts, the guidebooks of 1897-1899 provide a look at the recruitment literature that brought some people north. One of the most famous books was

Klondyke Facts: being a complete guidebook to the gold regions of the Yukon and North

West Territories , written by Joseph Ladue, the founder of Dawson City. Ladue had lived at Fortymile for a few years before the rush broke out so he had a fair amount of experience living in the Yukon. Unlike some guidebooks, Ladue did not deny that there were hardships, ranging from mosquitoes and other insects to geographical elements like rapids. However, he recorded these hardships with little further comment other than that 10 they were difficult. His view must be described as being overly positive, especially in terms of the snow which he said was never over three feet at any time and the weather which he claimed was rarely extremely cold for more than a few days. 16 Ladue also exaggerated the amount of gold to be found and the fact that the land was barely claimed.

He was optimistic as he was motivated to get people to go north and buy his book. His guide is important because it shows the gulf between the idealism of the recruitment literature and the reality shown in personal accounts of the gold rush. This also allows us to speculate that people went because they thought that the journey was not that difficult and that there were a lot of free claims where they could strike it rich.

Since the end of the nineteenth century, many important works have been published on the Klondike Gold Rush, from short journal articles explaining the basic facts of the rush to photographic essays and longer works covering more intricate details.

These sources will be presented from a broad base and then focussing in on the narrow base of environmental history. This also follows the chronology of the historiography of the gold rush. One of the first important works was Tappan Adney’s The Klondike

Stampede . Adney was a correspondent for Harper’s Weekly in the Yukon and later

Alaska between 1897 and 1900 and he recorded his experience along with facts and stories of fellow travellers to make a general history of the stampede. Although his work is primarily autobiographical, it is useful as one of the first general histories of the rush.

He is one of the earliest writers to record the true nature of the dangers people would face in choosing to go north. Adney was also one of the first writers to argue that there were

16 Joseph Ladue, Klondyke Facts: being a complete guide book to the gold regions of the Yukon and North West Territories (Montreal: J. Lovell & Son, 1897), 121.

11 many more Americans in the Klondike than any other nationality. 17 Unlike Adney, this thesis will dig deeper into the environmental aspects of the rush which have been largely ignored until the later half of the twenty first century.

Pierre Berton’s Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 is probably the best known book written about the rush. Berton contrasts the order and good government on the Canadian side with the lawlessness and violence on the Alaskan side. 18 His history of the gold rush also focuses on particular individuals. Like Adney, he argues that there were more Americans than other nationalities involved in the rush. Berton is one of a few historians who discusses every possible route taken to the Klondike. This book is one of the best overviews as it covers the history of mining in the Yukon before the rush, the origins of the rush, the trails travelled, life in mining towns, mining techniques, and a summary of the outcome of the rush. Berton wisely points out that although few people got rich, few emerged

from it unchanged, and those who survived it were never quite the same again. It brutalized some and ennobled others, but the majority neither sank to the depths nor rose to the heights; instead, their characters were tempered in the hot flame of an experience which was as much emotional as it was physical. 19

His argument is useful for examining how the rush changed people internally as well as physically; however, he downplays the role of the environment in doing this. Berton’s companion photographic essay, The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay, 1897-1899 , is a useful aid in visualizing the dangers and environment of the Yukon. It allows the

17 Tappan Adney, The Klondike Stampede (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1900), 432. 18 Pierre Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , rev. ed. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972). 19 Berton, 408. 12 reader to appreciate the toll that the trails took on people and animals as well as the environmental damage done to the creeks through mining, sluicing, and deforestation.

Social history is important for understanding the reasons why people went to

Dawson and how they adapted to life in the north. As a result, its techniques will be woven into the analysis found in this thesis. Charlene Porsild examines the Klondike gold rush from a purely social perspective. Her social history focuses primarily on “a mining camp [Dawson] created in a few weeks which then developed into a permanent settlement and a complex society over the next few years.” 20 Porsild argues that many kinds of history such as social, environmental, gender, and ethnic history, need to be applied to fully understand others’ experiences in the past. She also puts to rest many

Klondike myths and uses censuses to argue controversially that Dawson was cosmopolitan and not predominantly American. 21 Porsild looks at the social history of

Natives, miners and their families, prostitutes and dance hall girls, social and religious workers, and professional and business sectors in order to give a comprehensive picture of life in Dawson City. Her work is important to understand the impact of the rush on different groups of individuals.

Although it is about British Columbia, Adele Perry’s On the Edge of Empire:

Gender, Race, and the Making of British Columbia, 1849-1871 is important for investigating settlement in Western Canada, especially in regards to how it was shaped by the Fraser River and Cariboo gold rushes. She explains the progression of settlement in

British Columbia:

Between 1849 and 1871 British Columbia’s gender and racial character challenged normative standards of nineteenth-century, Anglo-American

20 Porsild, 8. 21 Porsild, 18. 13

social life. First Nations people outnumbered whites dramatically, and within the small white community, males outnumbered females even more sharply. 22

This gender-ethnic imbalance was similar in the Yukon prior to and during the Klondike gold rush. Perry, however, mostly ignores the role of climate in the settlement of British

Columbia except to mention that its mild climate was suitable for the constitution of the

English who settled there. 23 The environment had a lot to do with the gender imbalance noted by Perry but she downplays its role. The cold climate and lack of civilization had a lot to do with how and who settled in the Yukon. Those who fell in love with the region and who could withstand the long cold winters with pride chose to settle there permanently.

Even though women were in a minority, Frances Blackhouse investigates the women who did go the Klondike and, like Porsild, argues that women played important roles in the rush through their social work, business ownership and operation, the support offered to their mining husbands, and their role in entertainment. 24 She shows that women had to deal with the same challenges as the men who went north and that they were affected by the rush in similar ways.

It is important to consider how the Klondike gold rush fits into the history of the

Yukon as a whole. Kenneth Coates and William Morrison seek to understand this in their

Land of the Midnight Sun: a History of the Yukon . They argue that there is more to the history of the Yukon than the gold rush and the building of the Alaska Highway. There are several themes that they have found in studying this region: “native persistence, the

22 Adele Perry, On the Edge of Empire: Gender, Race, and the Making of British Columbia, 1849-1871 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 3. 23 Perry, 136. 24 Frances Blackhouse, “Women of the Klondike,” The Beaver , 68, no. 6 (December 1988-January 1989): 30-36. 14 transiency of the white population, formal and informal processes of racial segregation, the boom-and-bust cycles of the economy, the debilitating effects of colonial status, and the Yukon’s inability to control its own destiny.” 25 It is clear from the themes of this work that the gold rush has had a lasting influence on the Yukon in terms of racial segregation, Native rights, and the impact of mining on the economy, but the environment is largely ignored once again.

Julie Cruickshank also placed the gold rush in a larger context for the Yukon:

The paradox, of course, is that the Klondike gold rush was part of a much larger, less glamorous process: the expansion of the new Canadian state to the margins of northwestern North America… The most permanent effect of the gold rush was a new regional infrastructure, comprising forms of legal, political, economic, and social administration that continue to have far-reaching consequences for everyone living in the Yukon.26

Her work is useful for examining the impact of the gold rush on Natives through changes in hunting and disease although she also downplays the role of environmental change in the lives of the Natives.

To understand how mining techniques and the Yukon have changed since the days of the gold rush, it is important to examine sources on mining in the twenty-first century. Tom Morrison’s experiences at various mines across North America show that, although mining today is taking place on a much larger scale underground, miners still face many of the same challenges from techniques to dealing with the cold. 27 However, his account is not useful in giving information on the Klondike, past or present, or the physical environment except to make these general comparisons.

25 Kenneth Coates and William R. Morrison, Land of the Midnight Sun: a History of the Yukon (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988), preface. 26 Julie Cruickshank, “Images of Society in Klondike Gold Rush Narratives: Skookum Jim and the Discovery of Gold,” Ethnohistory , 39, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 25. 27 Tom Morrison, Hardrock Gold: A Miner's Tale (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992). 15

Phillip Allen provides insight into what the Yukon was like fifty years after the gold rush took place. Using planes, boats, dogsled, riverboat and his own two feet, he retraced the trails of ’98. He experienced many of the same difficulties and emotions that the prospectors did in the gold rush: “I can best describe the North as a challenge… to be out in the open, free to commune mentally and physically with Mother Nature who gives no mercy: she is your best friend and worst enemy.” 28 He notes the environmental destruction still remaining from the first phase of the gold rush: abandoned cabins and deforestation. From the second, more industrial phase of gold mining in the Yukon between 1905 and 1950, Allen notes that there are tailing piles left by dredges which dug up the creek beds on a large scale to find gold.

The myth of the north is another important aspect to look at when discussing settlement in the north. Carl Berger argues that “Canada’s unique character derived from her northern location, her severe winters and her heritage of ‘northern races.” 29 Although his article is on Canada in general, it can be applied to the Yukon. He also goes on to say that people through northern climate and geography created a more rugged and physically active kind of person. This is also evident in the pride the stampeders took in overcoming challenges on the trail to Dawson.

John Sandlos has also written on the romanticism of the northern territories especially in the case of wildlife. He argues that “Clearly, a new romanticism has been ascribed to the North – a landscape that had once been characterized as harsh…. in the early decades of the 19th century now had a certain sentimental appeal as a landscape of

28 Phillip Allen, One Came Late . (Edmonton: Quality Color Press, 1992), 18. 29 Carl Berger, “The True North Strong and Free,” Nationalism in Canada ed. Peter Russell (Toronto: McGraw Hill, 1966), 4. 16 plenty that was teeming with herds of wildlife.” 30 However, in terms of wildlife this was only the case in the Klondike until the gold rush began and herds began to migrate eastwards as their habitat was destroyed. Many stampeders did note the beauty and appeal of the landscape and that influenced their decision to stay in the north. By the end of the gold rush there were also game laws in place to protect what was left of the herds and ensure meat for future generations.

The Canadian historian Harold Innis argued as part of his staples theory (which explained economic development in Canada) that the Canadian frontier expanded westward because of a reliance on different staples. Canadian environmental historians are interested in discussing Innis’ staples thesis because it intersects with some of their own historiographic trajectories in a way that it does not for Canadian mainstream history because they have found alternative explanations for Canadian regional development such as an emphasis on agriculture, immigration, or relations with the United States. 31

Environmental historians are interested in re-vivifying Innis’ theory because it explains regional development for them and they have expanded on the list of staples that Innis had identified. Innis argued that the expansion began with the cod fishery in the Atlantic, and then it moved inland with dried cod, and expanded westward with the fur trade, wheat production, iron and steel industry, and mining. 32 The exploitation of staples led to the development of Canadian institutions and accounted for the different development of

30 John Sandlos, “Landscaping Desire: Poetics, Politics in the Early Biological Surveys of the Canadian North,” Space and Culture 6 (2003): 399. 31 Historian Doug McCalla argues that staples (wheat) were not the basis of Ontario’s economy and thus you cannot explain economic development in Innis’ way. Doug McCalla, Planting the Province: The Economic History of Upper Canada, 1784-1870 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993). 32 Harold A Innis, Problems of Staple Production in Canada (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1933), 11- 13. 17 distinct regions. Innis also argued that transportation and technology played a large role in this process:

It is in fact difficult to summarize the importance of transportation as a factor in Canadian economic history… Cheap water transportation favoured the rapid exploitation of staples and dependence on more highly industrialized countries for finished products. It favoured the position of Canada as an exporter of staples to more highly industrialized areas in terms of fur, lumber and finally wheat, pulp and paper and minerals. 33

Innis also applied his theory to the Klondike gold rush. He argued that newspaper accounts about the gold rush spread the news and efficient transportation by steamboats and railways allowed for people and supplies to be rapidly transported to the Klondike. 34

I would argue that there are two problems with this theory in application to the gold rush.

First of all, the importance and efficiency of transportation does not fit the characteristics found in the first two years of the gold rush: then people had to depend on pack animals, sleds, roughly constructed boats or rafts, and their own two feet to travel from Skagway or Dyea to Dawson. It was not until late 1898 that the first steamboats appeared on the scene to take people from Bennett Lake to Whitehorse and then from Whitehorse to

Dawson. The White Pass and Yukon railway from Skagway to Whitehorse was not completed until July 1900 although it did operate from Skagway to Lake Bennett as of

July 1899. 35 Secondly, supplies were never efficiently transported to Dawson throughout the gold rush. Many people nearly starved because of a shortage of supplies in 1898 and were forced to leave Dawson and try to escape to the south. Even when steamboats and the railway came into operation, it was extremely difficult to get supplies during winter

33 Innis, 14. 34 Harold A. Innis, “Settlement and the Mining Frontier,” in Canadian Frontiers of Settlement Vol. IX, eds. W.A MacIntosh and W.L.G. Joerg (Toronto: Macmillan, 1936), 184-185. 35 Kathryn Morse, The Nature of Gold: An Environmental History of the Klondike Gold Rush (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003), 61. 18 as the only reliable method was by dogsled. Thus, while it is possible to apply Innis’ staples theory, in limited form, to the later years of the gold rush and gold mining in the

Yukon as improved transportation and mining techniques were implemented, it is difficult to say that it applies to the 1897-98 rush when the majority of gold seekers went north.

The most important studies to look at the gold rush from an environmental perspective are the environmental and technical sources. Mining methods in the Yukon is the topic of John Gould’s treatise on the technology of the rush. He examines the geographical and historical factors that led to the establishment of placer mining in the

Yukon. He clearly explains how mining methods were used and how they were adapted to the northern climate. He also looks at the problems of logistics, government relations, and expenses related to mining. 36 This is an important work for examining the environmental consequences of the gold rush as Gould explains mining techniques in understandable terms as well as their impact on the environment.

David Hems and Peter Nieuwhof have written a report on the impact of the

Klondike gold rush and tourism on the edge of Bennett Lake where stampeders built boats to travel to Dawson. This is a useful report because it shows that the long term impact of the gold rush is still present there today through erosion of the sandy soil. 37

Historian T.A. Rickard argues that the geographic position to the Arctic Circle made the Klondike rush interesting although it was smaller than previous rushes such as

36 John A Gould, Frozen Gold: A Treatise on Early Klondike Mining Technology, Methods and History (Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories, 2001). 37 David Hems and Peter Nieuwhof, Bennett City: a God Rush Phenomenon (Ottawa: Parks Canada, 1994), 19

California. 38 He sees the climate, snow, wretched living conditions, the packing of a years’ worth of goods over the difficult passes, and the establishment of cities in remote places as what made the Klondike gold rush unique.

The most significant of the environmental studies is Kathryn Morse’s recent monograph The Nature of Gold . It is, in fact, the only published in-depth examination of the environmental history of the Klondike gold rush. Morse studies the historical, cultural, economic, and environmental contexts that made the Klondike gold rush possible. She shows that the historic context of transportation, technology and supply and production techniques allowed this gold rush to take place and dictated its course. She examines the importance of gold’s cultural relationships, especially those that lead to its remarkable intrinsic value. She outlines the ways in which the economic depression of the 1890s and contemporary monetary policy provided a ready market for gold. Most importantly, she shows how miners developed relationships with nature through their travels and labour and how they had an impact on the environment. 39 My work here will expand on Morse’s significant contribution to this field and will focus less on the role of technology as an agent of environment change and more on the role of people. This investigation will outline the ways in which the gold rush affected the individual in terms of hardships they encountered as well as how they had an impact on the environment. It will show how the environment affected people mentally, physically, emotionally, and how the people saw the environment in return. Unlike Morse, this thesis will treat the

Klondike gold rush as a Canadian event as much as it was an American one.

38 T. A.Rickard, “The Klondike Gold Rush,” The Beaver , 26, no. 2 (Sept. 1946): 6-11. 39 Kathryn Morse, The Nature of Gold: An Environmental History of the Klondike Gold Rush (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003).

20

In using the sources listed above along with diaries and memoirs, this thesis shall attempt to explain the history of the Klondike gold rush from an environmental perspective that focuses on both the impact of the rush on the individual and the landscape of the Yukon.

The following chapter will investigate the preparedness of people to go to the

Klondike, the various routes to Dawson and the hardships encountered along the way, the environment and community of Dawson City, how the gold rush changed people physically and internally and why many people chose to settle permanently in the region. 21

Chapter II Richer for the Adventure: The Environment’s Impact on Humans

This chapter will examine the trails to Dawson, the demographics of the people who went north to search for gold, life in Dawson, how people changed, and the reasons why some of those people stayed. Environmental history examines the impact of the environment on people as well as the impact of people on the environment and this allows us to account for environmental change as well as social and cultural changes that result from the environment’s impact on humans. The first part of this chapter will look at two examples of the impact of the environment on people: the experience of the trails and the experience of living in Dawson. The last part of the chapter will focus on how the gold rush experience changed people. It is impossible to look at the impact of environment on people without seeing how the people coped with the environment and had an effect on it in return. The environment changed people physically through the challenges of the trails and mentally in the triumph of overcoming difficulties and adapting to the environment.

The climate of the Yukon was quite different from what most gold seekers experienced at home. Between October and April, it was cold, the land was frozen, and the land was covered in snow. Few people risked travelling from Dawson to Lake

Bennett and the outside world. By March or April the snow began to melt and turn to slush. This was the worst time to travel as it was dangerous to cross any expanse of ice.

Winter brought many days of 40° to 60° Fahrenheit below zero weather. 40 If people dressed properly, then the weather was bearable. If they did not, then many suffered from

40 Amos Entheus Ball and Hazel T Procter, Tenderfoot to Sourdough : the true adventures of Amos Entheus Ball in the Klondike Gold Rush as told in his own words (New Holland, Pennsylvania: Edward C. Procter, 1975), 18. 22 frostbite, illnesses, death and hypothermia. On occasion, the temperature could drop to

70° below zero, but this would not last longer than a few days. 41 These winter lows were countered by high temperatures in the summer. Ella Hall, later Mrs. J.A. Van Winkle, recorded her experiences with weather in her account of the gold rush:

In the summer we have had heat of ninety degrees while in winter the thermometer has dropped as low as eighty degrees below zero. However with proper clothing one does not feel the cold as the air is very dry and still… For eight months of the year the entire country is held tight in the grip of icy winter and quite short days most of the time. While the other four months are very nice and warm, and like Norway and Sweden they enjoy the pleasures of the mid-night sun having three months of nights that real[l]y could be called days on account of the sun never setting. 42

Unlike Miss Hall, many people were utterly unprepared to face this extremely cold weather. This was in part because information in guide books represented it as bearable in order to induce more people to come north. One guide book claimed that “the altitude is very high and the air extremely dry, so that the cold is not felt so much” 43

Guide books also described the trip in terms of the time it would take and the costs involved, instead of in terms of the actual distance covered, which deceived the stampeders. 44 Most people knew little about the climate of the Klondike and relied on outfits purchased at stores along the west coast to see them through. Prior to 1898, stampeders had been able to get into the Klondike with less than a year’s supply of goods. Many of these people came close to starvation as expectations of a short journey led to packing insufficient food and other supplies. Margaret Lawrence, who lived near the Peace River Crossing in Alberta, noted that those taking the all-Canadian river route

41 E. Hazard Wells, Magnificence and Misery: A Firsthand Account of the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush , ed. Randall M. Dodd. (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1984), 147. 42 Ella Hall, Life in the Klondike or adventures of Mrs. J.A. Van Winkle and Sister 1898 . Library and Archives Canada MG29-C49, 14-15. 43 Ladue, 121. 44 Morse, 47. 23 to Dawson were unprepared for what was to come: “Many had exhausted their food supply before reaching our place. All we could do, however, was give them a little bran and flour and send them ten miles further to the Hudson’s Bay store at Fort

Vermillion.” 45 Therefore, lack of preparation for a long journey and cold climate led to starvation, frostbite, and other problems inflicted on stampeders by the harsh environment.

George Carmack’s discovery of large amounts of gold on Bonanza Creek, a strike that was based on a tip from Nova Scotian Robert Henderson, launched the gold rush in

1896. Prospectors all over the Yukon stampeded to stake claims along the Bonanza. It was not until July 1897 that news of the rush reached the outside world when those who had struck it rich returned to San Francisco on the steamboat Excelsior . Suddenly the world was struck by gold fever or “Klondicitis.” 46 Many people were taken with the idea of becoming wealthy, so they bought outfits and passage to the Klondike. Even women like Ella Hall and her sister Mrs. Lizzie Cheever left to get rich and travelled unchaperoned, which was quite unusual for women going to the Klondike. 47 Most women went for the same reasons as men: to become wealthy, or for the promise of adventure. 48

The economic problems of Canada and the United States also made the Klondike gold rush attractive to many people. There was a drop in the production and circulation of gold. As gold dollars grew scarcer and people began to hoard gold, the United States

Treasury’s gold reserve was reduced and both the United States and Canada were thrown into a depression in the 1890s. The economy was stagnant and people wanted to go north

45 Margaret Ham Lawrence, Across Canada’s Pioneer Trails . As told to H.S. Holden, 1931. Library and Archives Canada MG30-C19, 43. 46 Berton, 107. 47 Hall, 1. 48 Blackhouse, 30. 24 to find gold: “Remembering at the time of the gold strike there was a world depression that had begun in 1893, it was little wonder that people from all climes struck out for the

Far North.” 49

Others were taken up with the idea of adventure and escaping the monotony of industrial society. They got caught up in the excitement of the rush and became infected with gold fever. William Shape wrote in August 1897, “I had heard and read so much about the gold fields, that I began to think seriously of joining the horde of gold hunters flocking to the far north and two weeks later had fully made up my mind [to go].” 50

Other people, especially women and children, went to accompany menfolk who were going or to meet up a couple of years later with their husbands who had come during the rush. This was the case with Velma Lung who travelled to Dawson with her four-year-old son in 1899 to meet her husband, Edward. 51 Some went for entrepreneurship reasons and set up restaurants, shops, mills, transportation companies, and food stands in Dyea, Skagway, or Dawson. Others, such as the photographer E.A.

Hegg and the Scripps-McRae newspaper correspondent E.H. Wells went as newspaper correspondents.

All who went had to make a crucial decision: which of the many possible routes to take to the Klondike. The decision was partially based on financial reasons as well as on distance and, surprisingly, patriotism [Figure 1]. The rich man’s route, also known as the all-water route, was by steamship from a port in the western United States or Canada

49 W.H.T. Olive, The Right Way On: Adventures in the Klondyke of 1898 (Langley, B.C.: Timberholme Books, 1999), 13. 50 William Shape, Faith of Fools: A Journal of the Klondike Gold Rush (Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 1998), 1. 51 Velma D. Lung, Trail to North Star Gold , as told to Ella Lung Martinsen (Portland, Oregon: Metropolitan Press, 1969). 25 and around Alaska to St. Michael. Then a sternwheeler would take these passengers along the Yukon River to Dawson. Few could afford this route as tickets cost between

$300 and $500. 52 The biggest problem with the route, especially for those who left in the summer of 1897 after hearing news of the rush, was that the navigation season was short.

The Yukon River froze quickly that year, and few who left made it to Dawson city. The passage was also not nearly as luxurious as many imagined: people had to help cut wood for the steamers and some boats became trapped in the ice. 53

The major and most commonly-employed route was to take a steamship north from Seattle, San Francisco, Victoria, or Vancouver to either Skagway or Dyea in

Alaska. As thousands of people rushed north between 1897 and 1899, steamboat companies brought old ships back into service in order to meet the demand. These old ships were roughly patched up and were then overcrowded with people. 54 Many ships had dirty and unhealthy environments in which their passengers were forced to stay. Most passengers experienced some sea sickness. Velma Lung boarded the Rosalie in 1899 and survived a hazardous trip. The ship “began twisting and turning like a tortured thing” and later when the seas were calm the ship “passed the rusting hulls of shipwrecked steamers.

The sight of these was certainly not reassuring! No one could tell how many lives had been lost thus far in the gold-rush but they were estimated in the hundreds!” 55 Boats going north faced everything from the dynamite explosion on the Clara Nevada to grounding on a reef, which was the unfortunate fate of the Princess Sophia during a

52 Morse, 43. 53 Berton, 190. 54 Berton, 125. 55 Velma Lung, 7, 13. 26 snowstorm. 56 The S.S. Islander sank twenty minutes after colliding with an iceberg; 40 people died. 57 Nevertheless, the majority of the ships made it to Alaska despite encountering storms and other natural hazards but on arrival found there were no wharves at Dyea for the first few months of the rush. Goods were taken to the beach on small boats and the prospectors then had to get their possessions off the long beach before the tide came in. Some people did not complete the task in time and ended up with soaked goods and spoiled provisions.

Those who landed at Dyea then faced the Chilkoot Pass [Figure 2]. The beginning of the Chilkoot Pass was deceptively easy compared to the final ascent. From Dyea, prospectors travelled to Finnegan’s Point and then to Canyon City along the Dyea River.

From Canyon City they walked to Sheep Camp which was at the base of the mountain.

Sheep Camp was the last stop at which lumber, warm meals and pack horses could be secured. The tree line ended there and “not a speck of timber… not even shrubbery” could be found afterwards. 58 Sheep Camp was the last bit of civilization before the prospectors reached the community at Lake Bennett. There were hotels, supply stores, a post office, and emporia. Sheep Camp was crowded with prospectors who slowly began the steep ascent one pack at a time. The path after Sheep Camp was too difficult for horses:

By the time the snow began to fall, early in the autumn of ’97, Sheep Camp had become a bedlam of sweating men, howling dogs, and abandoned horses. Cut adrift by their masters, who could not get them over the pass, these starving creatures hobbled about the camp, their backs

56 Velma Lung, 10. 57 Letter from Senior Purser of the Canadian Pacific Navigation Co. to E.S. Busby, Esq. Canadian Custom Officer Aug. 17, 1901. Internet; Collections Canada http://www.collectionscanada.ca/sos/shipwrecks/002031-119.01- e.php?&document_code=002031-5&page=1&q. Accessed 5 June 2006. 58 Shape, 35. 27

raw from wet blankets, their legs lacerated by the rocks, stumbling into tents, tripping on guy ropes, seeking food, shelter, and companionship. In the end they were rounded up and shot and their bodies hidden under the swiftly falling snow.59

The Chilkoot Pass was shorter than the alternate White Pass route, at thirty miles compared to fifty, 60 but it was the Chilkoot’s steep ascent that persuaded many prospectors to try the White Pass first. The trail rose from Sheep Camp with one resting place: an overhanging boulder called Stone House. After Stone House the grade of the trail was too steep to use sleds. 61 The path did not flatten out until a ledge called the

Scales offered a resting place before the final ascent.

This ascent was the most brutal experience, yet remained the most popular image of the rush: George Coffey, a prospector who negotiated the pass in 1898 noted laconically that “The Summit from Scales is reached by climbing series of steps in 2 sections. 1 st one about 2000 ft. and at an angle of about 50 or 60 degrees. Then a distance of 4 or 5 hundred feet of about 10 or 15 degrees. Then the 2 nd series of steps about 1000 ft…” 62 The Scales appeared to be nearly vertical so that men bent over under the weight of their goods appeared to be upright [Figure 3]. Travellers struggled up this final ascent already weary from weeks on the trail and poorly cooked food. Those who travelled in the winter had the luxury of a staircase consisting of 1500 steps carved out of the ice by local Natives. However, those travelling in spring or fall dealt with a muddy trail and

“one step forward might literally mean two steps back and a nasty fall against one of the

59 Berton, 242. 60 Morse, 50. 61 Shape, 37. Edward Lung also wrote about the difficulty of the trail after Sheep Camp: “The trail immediately crooked up, narrow and slippery. As we climbed, we threw our weight toward the inside of the trail, hugging the precipitous walls. The fact that we must make several trips over this trail for the rest of our supplies was hard to bear.” Edward B. Lung, Black Sand and Gold , as told to Ella Lung Martinsen. (New York: Vantage Press, 1956), 21. 62 George Coffey, Diary, April 1898. Library and Archives Canada MG29-C46. 28 many boulders that littered the trail. A miner could expect to spend three months lugging his gear to the summit.” 63 The average man had to make the ascent thirty or forty times carrying fifty to one hundred pounds of his goods in stages. Each time these “men half- fed, unwashed, and stinking with diarrhoea became links in an iron-willed human chain dragging itself up the Chilkoot Pass.” 64 In addition to loads of fifty to one hundred pounds, men were also burdened down by their layers of heavy clothing.

For those who were not strong enough to pack their goods or who could afford it, there were Native packers who could be hired. These packers could often carry two to three times more then the white men. Later on, five different tramway systems were installed to send people’s goods over the pass at a fee. 65

Those who carried their own goods faced many hardships. Edward Lung recollected:

It was an arduous, dangerous trail all the way to the top… The Indian packers had chiselled out steps in the frozen snow, which helped a little, but it was dangerous and slippery, testing the stamina and grit of every one of us… Our tremendous loads cut into our backs and weighed heavy against our straining muscles. … Some of the fellows couldn’t take it and slid back down the mountain to The Scales, a place where the Indian packers weighed freight. Some even fainted and died on the trail, but most of us pressed on with unbelievable, almost superhuman strength. 66

Lung later lost consciousness on a trip up the Chilkoot Pass after experiencing stomach pain and was rescued by an Indian guide who told his partner where he was. Packs had to be properly adjusted on the prospectors’ backs or they would feel like they weighed more

63 Hollihan, 230, 232. 64 Jim Hicks, “Gold Rush to the Klondike,” The British Empire BBC TV Time-Life Books 31 (1972): 860-861. 65 Berton, 247. 66 Edward Lung, 22. 29 than they did. 67 Each traveller had to keep up with the man in front and if a traveller stepped off the path it may be a considerable length of time before he could join the line again. Goods were left at the summit and then the travellers would either slide down on the seat of their pants to get the next load or walk in ruts. Stormy days were spent in tents and prolonged people’s stays on the pass.

The Chilkoot Pass was the most successful route to the Klondike in terms of numbers of people who made it: “20,000 miners negotiated the Chilkoot Trail. It’s not know how many thousands more were bested by it.” 68 Although it was steeper and longer than the White Pass, for many it was preferable as one only had to rely on one’s own strength and not on horses.

The Chilkoot Pass was home to two big natural disasters during the gold rush. In

September 1897 a glacier fell on the pass:

During the summer the warm weather and heavy rains had caused a lake to form within the heart of the glacier. The autumn winds… tore half an acre of ice from the edge of the mass… a wall of water descended upon the pass. The reverberations woke the twenty-five campers who had pitched their tents on the dry ground of an old gorge, and these raced for the hills as a wave twenty feet high tore down upon them. The roaring waters picked up the Stone House as if it were a pebble and moved it a quarter of a mile down the valley, smashing to pieces about forty tents and outfits… [despite this] there were only three deaths.” 69

The people who lost their outfits most likely gave up as there was no point in going on without goods and they would not have had enough money to buy new supplies.

The worst disaster, which made newspaper headlines across North America, was the Palm Sunday Avalanche of April 3, 1898. The weather was stormy for the two preceding months and wet snow had fallen and built up on the peaks for two weeks.

67 Shape, 40. 68 Hollihan, 232. 69 Berton, 256. 30

Native packers refused to climb on April 3 as they guessed what was about to happen but those who decided not to waste another day on the pass faced disaster. There were several avalanches that day. H.H. Scott recorded in his diary on April 3 that there was

“Heavy snow all day; Snow slides, Lots of people lost their lives. I went up to Stone

House and saw men dug out, all dead, terrible day here, had 14 in the morgue dead at night. 27 dug out alive.” 70 The outside world heard of the news six days later. The New

York Evening Star described the events of the day: “About 2… in the morning a small slide occurred…The alarm was spread, and many people were endeavoring to work back to Sheep Camp, when the big one came. The snow storm was blinding, and crowds were coming down… when overtaken.” 71 An exact total of the loss of life is impossible to determine, but approximately sixty or more people died that day. Some were miraculously rescued from the deep drifts but many others slipped into asphyxia. The avalanche buried outfits and created delays for stampeders trying to cross the pass:

It is estimated that 10,000 tons of outfits are buried under the snow and ice…The exact location is given at two and one-half miles above Sheep Camp… [where] an immense gorge rises at a very steep incline into the hills…One slide covered the trail for several hundred yards and to a depth of fifty feet in many places. It has effectually blocked the travel for the present and it will be some time before it can be resumed. 72

Men helped to dig out corpses which were then taken to Dyea for burial or buried under the snow until spring [Figure 4]. Those at home hearing about the rush worried desperately about their loved ones. Alden Smith wrote to reassure his family: “I found the goods all right. We thought they would be wiped out of existence… if they had been lost, it would have meant go home for many of us. I expect you will hear of this storm and

70 H.H. Scott, Diary, April 3 1898. Clayton J. Scoins Collection, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C62. 71 “Tall Tale of a Trail,” The Evening Star , April 9, 1898, 8. 72 “Awful Calamity,” Winnipeg Free Press, April 9, 1898, 1. 31 worry about me, but don’t do that as I will try to take care of myself.” 73 The avalanche showed how difficult and unpredictable the northern climate could be.

The climate created other problems along various trails, especially frostbite and snowblindness. Ebenezer McAdam and his companions, who travelled the all-Canadian route from Edmonton along rivers to Dawson, suffered from frostbite numerous times:

“We had to contend with a bitterly cold wind the whole way, and most of us suffered from frost bites. Maltby had his chin frozen, McGinnis his nose, and myself my cheeks…. My moose skin suit protects my body, but I suffer… in my face and hands.” 74

He was not alone; others had trouble with their noses, cheeks, and hands turning white with frostbite. Snowblindness was more painful than frostbite. It was caused by the glare of the sun reflected on snow. William Shape suffered from this and described it this way:

Imagine your eyes filled with grains of sand and the lids grinding against that – the agony of snow blindness cannot be better illustrated. This irritation makes one blink frequently and every time the lid closes you suffer intense pain. For 3 days and nights I remained inside the tent, unable to get a wink of sleep. I sat up nights resting my head in my hands, tears streaming from my eyes and [I] cannot accurately describe what I suffered. 75

Boracic acid was used to relieve the symptoms of snowblindness and goggles or black masks with eye holes could be used to avert its effects.

The White Pass began at Skagway, a larger but rougher town than Dyea with more warehouses and a larger wharf. Many chose the White Pass because it had a lower elevation and travellers could use horses to carry their goods for the whole trip [Figure 2].

73 Alden R. Smith, Letter, April 3 1898, Clayton J. Scoins Collection, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C62. 74 Ebenezer McAdam, From Duck Lake to Dawson City: The Diary of Eben McAdam’s Journey to the Klondike, 1898-1899 , Edited by R.G. Moyles. (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1977), 82. 75 Shape, 46. 32

They thought the pass would be easier despite rumours of hardships. These were attributed to the inexperience of those who had gone before. 76 The trail began as a wide wagon road which made the travellers think that the entire trail would be wide and easy.

However, most of the trail was extremely narrow with barely enough room for two horses to pass:

From this point we could see, looking back, a long string of sleds, with men pulling and tugging them; some had dogs. At the very back, single horses were hitched to narrow sleighs to preserve the trail and avoid capsizing. When anyone got into a difficult situation and had to stop, everyone behind had to stop, as the trail was so narrow one could not pass without an upset in the deep snow. Night and day thousands were continuously on the trail, making caches five or ten miles apart, or shorter, depending on the nature of the going [Figure 5].77

Some men had brought horses with them, but even horses purchased on the west coast were not necessarily the strongest beasts because many were broken-down nags purchased from glue factories and sold to those going north. Men also treated their horses cruelly and took out their frustrations on them. Other travellers were ignorant and did not saddle their horses properly so that their heavy goods cut sores in the horses’ backs. 78

Horses were also worked until they dropped and they sometimes starved as their owners ran out of feed or could not afford to buy more. Horses were constantly dying: “We are told that fifty horses a day fall here. No one thinks anything about it…”79 Humans were not the only ones responsible for these deaths, the conditions of the path itself were also dangerous for the horses:

The trail became extremely difficult and at times quite dangerous. The thin covering of moss and earth had been disturbed by the hooves of the horses and in numerous places slanting surfaces of rocks were exposed,

76 Adney, 46. 77 Olive, 47. 78 Berton, The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay, 1897-1899 , 40. 79 Adney, 63. 33

down which the pack animals which we led were compelled to slide. This feat was much more hazardous by the narrowness of the trail, which, winding along the mountainsides, often followed dizzy precipices, over which a single misstep would throw man or beast [Figure 6].80

Regular rainfall made the path muddy; this often caused horses to slip over the edge.

Horse carcasses littered the valley along the path and many travellers could not forget the stench of rotting horseflesh or the screaming of horses as they went over the precipice.

Mud and slippery rocks could also cause horses to break their legs, which rendered them useless and required them to be shot to put them out of their misery. It was not uncommon for men to have to guide their horses over carcasses. Over three thousand horses died on this trail and the White Pass soon became known as the Dead Horse

Trail. 81

Sleds and abandoned goods littered the trail along with the horse carcasses. Few people bothered to pick up these goods because they would add to the burdens that had to be dragged over the trail. Thus, the sides of the trails were often filthy with discarded packs, rotting food, and mining equipment. It was not uncommon for people like Phillip

Allan to find remnants of the goods left behind by these travellers fifty years later along the Chilkoot and the White Passes as well as the Yukon River. 82

The White Pass Summit was the steepest part of the ascent. Few remained there long because of snow and blizzards. The North West Mounted Police, who were stationed there as customs agents, often suffered from health problems caused by living in this environment. 83 Due to the hardships and problems with horses, it was not unusual

80 Wells, 34. 81 Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 142. 82 Allen. 83 Berton, The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay, 1897-1899 , 59. 34 for travellers to quit White Pass and try the Chilkoot. Either way, it seemed to be a no- win situation: as one man told Tappan Adney “Whichever way you go, you will wish you had gone the other.”84

The White Pass and Yukon Railroad was not begun until two years into the gold rush. William Ogilvie, a surveyor and later the Commissioner of the Yukon in 1898, commented on the environmental difficulties encountered in selecting a possible route for the railway. The White Pass, he reported,

is probably 35 miles and in this distance an ascent of 2600 feet and descent of 400 has to be made. The grade in both cases [White Pass and Chilkoot Pass] is out of the question – part way at least – for an ordinary rail road, but this very obstacle may yet be made to defeat itself for down both passes flow streams of water which can with little trouble be made; either by developing electricity, or by a cable system to hand hooks up and let them down. The principal difficulty would be finding a suitable road bed. 85

The White Pass was chosen as the best route for the railway. Because the location was in a remote and challenging region, no heavy construction equipment was available.

Thousands of trees were cut to make wooden rails and two men died building the railway after being hit by a boulder. In July 1899, the railway opened from Skagway to Lake

Bennett and reached Whitehorse in 1900. When Velma Lung took the train in September

1899, she could see dead horses everywhere as well as men struggling to carry their supplies. 86 The railway greatly facilitated the journey: the thirty-mile trip could be completed in five hours at twenty-five cents a mile instead of the weeks or months it would take on the trail. 87 The railway represented “a victory over primitive nature, and

84 Adney, 47. 85 William Ogilvie, Letter, May 22, 1897. William Ogilvie Fonds. Library and Archives Canada MG30-B22. 86 Velma Lung, 34-5. 87 Morse, 62. 35 the triumphant arrival of a civilized, consumer relationship with that nature.” 88 Thus, many saw the railway as a technological success over nature as it made their struggle easier as they no longer had to deal with the elements or rely on horses.

At Lake Bennett at the end of the Chilkoot and White Passes, travellers had to build their own boats and sail down a series of lakes and rivers to reach Dawson. It was not until 1898 that passage on the Bennett Lake and Klondike Navigation Company steamers, Ora , Nora , and Flora could be purchased – and even then some questioned if steamers could negotiate these difficult waters. 89 All boats left Lake Bennett and travelled through the Big and Little Windy Arms of Tagish Lake. These were so named because of sudden high winds that swept across the lake. Charles Mosier recalled that he became sick in Little Windy Arm, and had to pull his boat in because of high wind in Big Windy

Arm. 90 Boats sailed on to Marsh Lake, also called Mud Lake because of its shallow muddy waters and then on to the Yukon River.

Even then travellers were not yet out of danger. Miles Canyon was the first obstacle. The river was deceptively calm leading around the bend into the canyon, but quickly a strong current and many dangerous whirlpools threatened to smash boats to matchwood [Figure 9]. Those travellers who stopped before entering the canyon were often warned about boats that had been torn to bits and men who had lost their supplies or drowned. Edward Lung decided to shoot the rapids with his group: “With sudden fury, the current gripped our boat and, in a few split seconds, we were being funnelled into a mad torrent of rushing waters, forced between high, perpendicular cliffs against which

88 Morse, 64. 89 Olive, 120. 90 Charles P. Mosier, Diary, June 2, 1898. Clayton J. Scoins Collection, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C62. 36 the raging waters boiled and roared.” 91 The Squaw Rapids were the next immediate challenge. Boats were rushed “through a foaming gauntlet of hissing waves and huge black rocks.” 92 It was not uncommon to see the remains of wrecked boats from Miles

Canyon all the way down the river to Whitehorse.

One of the worst dangers was the Whitehorse Rapids. Amos Entheus Ball described them: “Whitehorse Rapids are so dashed on the rocky stream bed that the water is lashed into a fury of white spume, like the flashing manes of white stallions galloping free” [Figure 10]. 93 If a boat shot these rapids then the men were risking the supplies that they so desperately needed for their very lives: “It was rough and we got near the rapids and took a look at them. We saw one scow go through in fine shape, but when they got past the worst place and the foot of the rapids they struck a rock and sank. One boat tipped over and they lost nearly everything.” 94 However, travellers could hire pilots who knew the rapids well to take their boats through instead of facing a day-long portage.

These geographical challenges were so perilous that Sam Steele of the North West

Mounted Police ruled that boats must be inspected, only experienced pilots could shoot the rapids, and women and children had to take the portage. Steele’s ruling worked, as the number of wrecks and deaths fell through the summer of 1898. 95

Boats then faced a different set of challenges along the Lewes River section of the

Yukon River to Lake Laberge. 96 Sand bars caused difficulty for many boats and some

91 Edward Lung, 51. 92 Edward Lung, 63. 93 Ball and Procter, 15. 94 Albert C. Bower, Diary, June 1, 1897. Clayton J. Scoins Collection, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C62. 95 Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 273. 96 Lake Laberge is the correct name of the lake commonly referred to as Lake Labarge largely because of Robert W. Service’s misidentification of it in his The Cremation of Sam McGee . 37 became stuck for several hours until another boat could rescue them or until the water level rose. Lake Laberge also had a swift current and several large rocks. Boats were at the mercy of the elements; they had to survive wind, storms, rocks, shallow water, mud, sandbars, and low hanging branches which could damage their masts. Travellers had to deal with seasickness, dangers that could result in drowning, and mosquitoes. Mosier, like many travellers before and after, wrote that mosquitoes on the Yukon River were “a terror, worst of any place yet.” 97 High temperatures, gnats, and black flies also plagued travellers when they slept on shore at night.

The Thirty Mile stretch of the Yukon River was rocky and many boats were wrecked on these rocks and passengers lost their outfits. The Five Finger Rapids were among four huge pillars of rock spread across the Yukon River forming five channels.

Few people had problems clearing this geographical challenge, but only if they took the right hand channel and were careful to avoid a “cross current which comes tearing around the rock… [and could] swing the boat” and swamp it. 98 The Rink Rapids were the least dangerous obstacle if boats stuck to the right hand side. Boats then reached Fort Selkirk and finally Dawson City. The arduous journey took two to three weeks by boat and all travellers were at the mercy of winds, storms, rocks, and rapids.

Steamboats reduced the journey’s length and the exposure of the passengers, although many passengers were required to help cut timber for fuel. Velma Lung travelled on the Nora to Miles Canyon and the Flora from Whitehorse to Dawson. She had to hike around Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids as did all other passengers while their goods were taken by tramway. The downside to the steamers was that they

97 Mosier, June 13 1898. 98 Shape, 63. 38 were overcrowded, the food was not varied, and the ships had to deal with the same gales, navigational challenges, and the threat of the water freezing that faced the other boats. 99

There were two all-Canadian routes through Edmonton. One was the overland route through the Peace River District and then various river routes to the Yukon. The other was the Hudson’s Bay Company trail from Athabasca Landing to Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River into one of the many rivers in the Yukon. These routes were tortuous and could take one to three years to complete. There were many difficulties that could be encountered: boats could get stuck on rocks or sandbars or could be damaged in rapids. Alphonso Waterer travelled along the Athabasca in a scow and wrote that the

“water of the Athabaska River was lower than it had ever been previously known and this state of affairs added greatly to the dangers, as huge rocks appeared in places where none were supposed to exist and miniature rapids exhibited themselves between the great ones.” 100 People often had to step into water to push their boats off rocks which resulted in having wet feet for the whole day and it was not common for them “to disappear out of sight by stepping into a deep hole or on a soft muddy spot.” 101 Mosquitoes and other insects continuously harassed these travellers as did the weather. 102 Many also became confused about which river they were on and bickered with their parties over which direction to sail. These travellers also had to spend long cold winter months in tents far

99 Velma Lung, 40-54. 100 Alphonso Waterer, Diary, Summer 1897. Library and Archives Canada MG30-C59. 101 Waterer, Summer 1897. 102 Waterer noted how the weather made their journey dreadful: “it never ceased to rain and on two occasions we were compelled to tie up the boats owing to strong head winds… that dreadful rain continued to descend for several days after our arrival. The general situation and the unsanitary condition of this place beggars description: no firewood, and not a drop of water fit to drink, excepting it were procured by rowing the boat out into the middle of the river.” Waterer, Summer 1897. 39 away from settlements. Their goods easily got wet and they were often short on provisions and suffered from scurvy. On some rivers, the boats had to be tracked

(whereby men walked on the banks with guidelines and pulled the boats upstream). This could be a dangerous procedure: “Tim Orchard was drowned... [when] The bridle of the track line broke, and the boat shot out into the current, drawing Orchard in. He was in the water about 20 minutes and was dead when taken out. It is supposed the line hooked on to a stone and held him down.” 103 Although many took these trails for patriotic reasons and so that they would not have to clear customs, these routes were some of the least successful to the Klondike.

The least-travelled routes were those of the Stikine River, the Dalton Trail, and the all-American route. The Stikine River route, also known as the Teslin Trail, was a native trail and later become a telegraph route in the 1860s but was soon abandoned. It was a muddy, marshy and wet route but allowed people to take pack animals through northern British Columbia to Wrangell, Alaska and then to Skagway. It was nearly impossible to cross this trail:

Prospectors met impassable bogs and muskeg in the spring of 1898; thousands of tons of merchandise were abandoned that could not be taken in or brought out again… Many did “their all” on this trail – and didn’t come back. Some of those who did lose everything returned to Vancouver or Victoria to purchase outfits again and book passage for Skagway or Dyea, the starting points of the more feasible routes. 104

Most travellers had difficulties transporting all their supplies, especially food for their animals. The environment of this trail harboured challenges such as ice, mud, marsh, bugs, and heat that caused most travellers to give up.

103 McAdam, 58. 104 Olive, 31. 40

Dalton Trail, also known as the Chilkat Pass, was another native trading route.

Jack Dalton made it into a pack horse trail to expand trade in the interior of the Yukon.

William Shape and his party used oxen on this narrow, muddy route to transport their supplies from Haines Mission to the Klondike. Shape’s oxen often got stuck in the mud and the men had to rescue them. This trail also had sharp stones that cut into the animals’ hooves and animals often fell over steep grades and injured or killed themselves. 105 Shape recalled that the mudflats along the Chilkat River were the worst:

It was here that treacherous quicksand was encountered and several times our cattle got right into the worst of it. Quick work was required to keep them moving along, for a minute’s delay might mean the loss of an ox or two. Standing on one spot for a few moments only, once could see the ground slowly receding and the water oozing out all around. In less than ten minute’s time you would be covered up and disappear entirely under the surface. 106

Eventually all of Shape’s oxen died and he gave up as they made little progress: “In the last stretch of 10 miles, we waded some 40 odd channels. The total distance covered thus far was 20 miles of the worst trail imaginable.” 107 Defeated by the Dalton, he took the

Chilkoot Pass instead.

The all-American route was the worst route of them all. It also denied the fact that the Klondike was in Canadian territory. Many Americans assumed that the Klondike was part of Alaska and did not realize that the gold creeks were in Canadian territory and thus subject to Canadian law. There were three routes across Alaska to the Tanana and Yukon

Rivers. People on all three of these routes suffered from snowblindness on glaciers as well as from avalanches, blizzards, and melting snow. Many lost their goods as well as

105 Shape, 9, 11. 106 Shape, 13. 107 Shape, 14. 41 their eyesight and even their lives. Only 200 of 3,000 made it by the Valdez Glacier and

41 of 100 men who attempted it died on the Malaspina Glacier route. 108

The trails to Dawson tested the people physically and mentally. Some quit while others contemplated suicide. All were tested by the cold climate and storms they encountered as well as by heat, insects, and starvation. The geographical challenges of the land – mud, water, rocks, cliffs, and steep ascents – also tested them. However, their trouble did not end when they arrived at Dawson.

Dawson was built at the confluence of the Yukon River and the Klondike River on the mudflats which was the site of the Han’s summer village. It began as a small mining town established by Joseph Ladue and then progressed “to the position of a great commercial and social center.” 109 Dawson developed from a muddy city of hastily constructed buildings, tents, boats, and jumbled lumber in 1896-97 to one with schools, lumber mills, churches, libraries, stores, hospitals, courts, hotels, piped water, and electric light by 1899. 110 There was little room for those arriving in 1897-1898 to stay in town.

Many had to camp out on their boats or in tents. Dawson grew from a small mining camp in 1896 to a small town of 500 in the winter of 1896-97 to a busy town of 30,000 in the summer of 1898 and then decreased to 10,000 in 1900 when many left for the rush to

Nome, Alaska. 111

The travellers who arrived in 1897 faced a winter of starvation when several supply boats never made it to Dawson and new arrivals failed to bring enough supplies with them. Food became worth more than gold that winter:

108 Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 200-203. 109 “History of Dawson,” The Daily Klondike Nugget , December 25, 1900, 1. 110 Ibid, 1. 111 Porsild, 8. 42

Flour, bacon and beans could not be bought at any price. The doors of the trading companies had now been closed for many days. With grave forebodings, we watched the shelves of the stores grow rapidly bare before the trading companies finally closed their doors. Toward the end, all a fellow could buy were spices, sugar, and a little dried fruit. The very last flour had sold for $2 a pound! 112

People who had few supplies in 1897 were told to get out of Dawson and try to reach the outside. Many suffered terribly from scurvy and starvation on their way out. Because of this crisis, the North West Mounted Police introduced the concept of bringing in a year’s supply of goods so that people would be able to survive a year without starving. This meant that nobody could enter the Yukon without bringing approximately eleven hundred and fifty pounds of food which equalled about a ton of goods once other supplies, tents, utensils and tools were added. 113

While Dawson’s location was convenient for those travelling into the goldfields and to the outside by water, it posed several problems for the town itself. The town site was built on a frozen bog. In the spring when the ice broke up, the riverside streets of the town would by flooded by waters held up by ice jams. The streets would not completely dry until fall. One miner warned Velma Lung: “It’s very muddy during the rainy season.

That’s why you’ll see so many high boardwalks. I’ve seen horses get stuck and mire down in the mud, clear to their knees, and have helped pull ‘em out!”114 Horses and wagons were often stuck in a foot of mud and men wore rubber boots to their knees

[Figure 12]. The break up of ice created difficulties as it crashed into buildings along the

112 Edward Lung, 204. 113 Berton , Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 154. 114 Velma Lung, 61. 43 water on Front Street and damaged them. 115 The yearly flooding continued to create problems until a dyke was constructed in the 1980s.

Like many other rush towns before it, fires were a constant problem for Dawson because most of the buildings were made of wood and there were canvas tents everywhere before people built homes or moved to the gold creeks. Sections of Dawson burned four times between 1897 and 1900. The first fire was started November 25, 1897 by actress Belle Mitchell who threw a kerosene lamp. The resulting fire “swept along the waterfront of Dawson, destroying many cabins, hotels and saloons… There had been almost nothing the miners could do to stop the raging fire, as Dawson’s main water supply, the Yukon was frozen over solid.” 116 The same dance hall girl began the fire of

October 14, 1898 when she left a candle burning [Figure 11]. After the second fire, the people of Dawson established a fire department and a finance company paid for fire- fighting equipment. 117 This fire burned the post office and buildings along Front Street,

Paradise Ave, and Second Ave. 118 A third, and relatively unknown, fire occurred in

February 1899 and burned nine buildings. The most famous fire of them all occurred at

Dawson’s peak on April 16, 1899 when the fire department was on strike for better wages. Like the November 1897 fire, the river was frozen over and Front Street burned quickly. Inhabitants tried to crack the ice in order to reach the water below and pump it to

Front Street. The temperature was 45º below and when the icy water was pumped

115 Stanley Cohen, Queen City of the North: Dawson City, Yukon, A Pictoral History (Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., 1990), 10. 116 Edward Lung, 321. 117 Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 187. 118 Graham Wilson , The Klondike Gold Rush: Photographs from 1896-1899 , 2nd ed. (Whitehorse: Wolf Creek Books, 1992), 97. 44 through the hoses it froze before it could come out the nozzles. 119 The townspeople realized the only way they could extinguish the fire and minimize the damage was to blow up nearby buildings to contain the fire. One hundred and seventeen buildings, including the Bank of British North America and its vault, were destroyed and the damage was estimated to be over one million dollars. 120 Thus, many people suffered from loss of wealth, businesses, and possessions due to fires that often could not easily be extinguished because of the northern environment. It was frustrating to many that fires which could be easily extinguished in southern cities could not be extinguished in the winter in Dawson due to the cold. It was also difficult, not to mention expensive, to get supplies to rebuild and reopen businesses due to the remoteness of Dawson and those who did rebuild were constantly threatened with the possibility of another fire.

The rapid construction of Dawson city also led to severe garbage disposal problems. Governing Dawson was difficult at first because the population grew and changed so rapidly. It was difficult to provide basic services such as roads, fire protection, and removal of sewage because of this and because of Dawson’s remote location. In 1897 residents of Dawson dumped their garbage on the river during the winter so that when the ice melted it was carried away. However, in the summer of 1898 things did not go as planned: “the garbage was all dumped at the foot of Eighth Street and while it entered the water and disappeared from sight, because of the reverse flow of the current in that area, it sank to the bottom and remained there.” 121 This caused an outbreak of disease which will be discussed later in this study. As a result, it was recommended

119 Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 387-388. 120 Ibid, 389 and Cohen, 13. 121 Arthur E. Knutson, Gung Ho! The Klondike: Art tells little known facts about Dawson City (Kirkland, Washington: Knutson Enterprises, 1992), 104. 45 that garbage should be transported further into the river on boats so that the current would carry it away. Dawson’s cleanup was still timed with the break-up of the ice as winter trash was sent out with the ice and “fines were levied if the winter accumulation was not cleaned up and disposed of properly. The ordinance fixed May 10 th as the date when all trash, filth and debris that naturally remained after the melting of the snow shall be cleaned away.” 122 The plan to use boats to carry garbage away also failed and in June

1901 the government built a road downstream so that people could dump garbage off a chute into swifter water. 123 The Yukon and Klondike Rivers became polluted in 1897-

1898 because of the garbage and they spread diseases such as typhoid, thus contaminating Dawson’s water supply.

Ethnicity also played a large role in life in Dawson. Thousands arrived from around the world and represented many ethnic backgrounds. Tappan Adney, one of the first to write a history of the gold rush and his experiences in it, states that

During the winter of 1897-98 only ten per cent of the population of Dawson were Canadians; a considerable percentage were of English birth, but the overwhelming majority were Americans, or foreigners who had lingered in the United States long enough to imbibe American ideas. In the crowd which poured in later the percentage of Canadian citizens, or British subjects, was probably still smaller. 124

It is possible that the idea that Americans dominated the gold rush began with his work.

Charlene Porsild is the only author who challenges the idea of an overwhelming

American presence and at best a minor Canadian one, and backs up her evidence with statistics: “By comparing three sets of quantitative data, I discovered that the majority of

Klondikers were not Americans at all. They accounted for 40 percent, a high ratio to be

122 Knutson, 104. 123 Ibid, 105-106. 124 Adney, 432. 46 sure but balanced by an equal proportion of Canadian and British Klondikers.” 125 The people in the Klondike represented more than forty different nationalities and made

Dawson an immensely cosmopolitan town. 126 People made social connections based on ethnicity and culture, as well as on class. It was not unusual for people to record meeting others of the same nationality in their diaries; subsequent nationally-based networks were established. Dawson also had many women and children (although most of the population was male) because many families travelled north as a unit. 127 Regardless of the background of those who came seeking gold, the fact is that many stayed even when they did not make money as they fell in love with the north.

The people who participated in the Klondike gold rush underwent a “baptism of cold.” They encountered hardships that changed them physically, yet it is likely that many of them were changed internally as well. This possible inner transformation often came from a sense of accomplishment in reaching Dawson (which many failed to do), even if most of the gold claims had been staked by that time and these people had been unable to strike it rich. Others fell in love with the northern environment. The stark beauty of the land and the experience of adventure, comradeship, and personal triumphs were summed up by Robert Service in The Spell of the Yukon :

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting; It’s luring me on as of old; Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting So much as just finding the gold. It’s the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder, It’s the forests where silence has lease; It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder, It’s the stillness that fills me with peace. 128

125 Porsild, 18 and censes in appendix 203-204. 126 Porsild, 18, 194. 127 Porsild, 194. 128 Service, 24. 47

Many who left the Klondike in the few months after reaching Dawson still expressed the ways in which the experience had changed them both internally and externally. William

Shape concluded in his diary:

While it [the trip] was not a profitable one financially, I shall never regret the experience. It was one of great benefit to my health (having gained 15 lbs. in weight) and that after all, is worth more than all the gold in Alaska. Now that the trip is at an end, all seems like a dream to me. I would not hesitate to make the same trip again, providing I had something profitable to look forward to. It is a fine country – all it needs is transportation facilities and better development. 129

Everyone learned a great deal throughout their experience from suffering physical difficulties on the long trail to more personal things such as dealing with isolation and getting along with their travel and mining companions. Albert C. Bower wrote to his mother saying “It is a good experience for a young man and will show whether he has any ‘git’ to him or not. He will know more about life when he gets out but they musn’t think that they can come in here and help themselves to a pile of gold without any risk or exertion.” 130 Likewise Basil Austin wrote “There was always pleasure, satisfaction and often excitement in overcoming difficulties, weathering storms, building boats, navigating rivers or crossing divides – and in finding gold.” 131 There was pride in arriving in Dawson and in spending a year in the Klondike to become a sourdough. The

129 Shape, 93-94. 130 Albert C. Bower, letter, October 24, 1897, Clayton J. Scoins Collection, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C62. Berton also echoes the fact that stampeders learned more about themselves: “In the brief span of the gold rush they learned more about life, more about their fellows, and more about themselves than many mortals absorb in threescore years and ten.” Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 412. 131 Basil Austin,. The Diary of a Ninety-Eighter (Michigan: John Cumming, 1968), 190-191. 48

Klondike experience shaped human character: it “had taught all these men that they were capable of a kind of achievement they had never dreamed possible.” 132

Ella Hall wrote a short memoir reflecting on her experiences in the Klondike. She noted the personal triumph of overcoming difficulties that she and her sister, Mrs. Lizzie

Cheever, faced as two women travelling alone to the Klondike. She also noted the beauty of the land on the hike to Sheep Camp. She did not downplay difficulties such as the lack of variety in food, but showed how they overcame it at Christmastime. 133 Ella Hall and her sister did not remain in Dawson for long because Lizzie had to return to her husband, who had refused to go with them, but her account shows the spirit of adventure and comradeship she experienced in the Yukon.

Others who made it to the Klondike did not remain long because they only went for short period of time on business. This group included journalists and photographers who went to cover the rush for newspapers, as well as people like builder W.H.T. Olive who went to construct steamboats for transportation companies. Others did not record why they chose to go home but it is likely that most wanted to return to their families.

Those who remained for an extended period of time, or for their entire lives, had to accept the challenge of living in the north. Those who stayed did so out of choice and not because they had no money to get out. It was costly to live in the Yukon year round and thus it was much easier to leave than to make enough money to support oneself through another winter. Food and supplies were expensive, as was staking a claim, hiring workers, and buying equipment to work it. The environment had more of an effect on people than is realized. Southerners who had little or no experience in the north were

132 Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 413. 133 Hall, 2-3, 34-35. 49 transformed by the power of nature and decided to live there. The defining characteristic of those who adapted to the north, to the new climate and lifestyle, is one of pride. A sense of rugged individuality and pride amongst the people of Dawson in surviving and thriving in this environment during the winter were still evident when I visited to Dawson to do research this past summer. The post-rush economic system of the Yukon was based on the history of the gold rush and on the environment and the sense of accomplishment in dealing with their rugged environment is portrayed through museums, historic sites, and the people themselves.

Arriving in Dawson was a huge triumph in itself. Eben McAdam wrote to his parents expressing his feelings about completing his journey:

Some men thought (I don’t know why) that all they had to do was to come to this place and they would have their fortunes fly into their arms. Poor fools! What a disappointment! I do not regret the trip, however, and intend giving the place and surroundings a trial. The trip has cost me a lot of time and a little money, but I still have hopes of making a stake, however small. If I do not succeed I will have to be satisfied with the experience. 134

He became a clerk with the North American Transportation and Trading Company and by the time of his death in Dawson in 1927, he was “well-loved and greatly respected in the Yukon Territory.” 135

Edward Lung also stayed in the Yukon for years. He went home briefly but was unable to find work and was lured back by the idea to search for gold in old creek beds.

His wife, Velma, joined him in 1899. She barely recognized him at first as his clothes were too large for him, he had a thick beard, tired lines on his face and his hair was thinning. 136 Velma, like Edward, fell in love with the north. She adored the Aurora

134 McAdam, 134. 135 McAdam, 133. 136 Velma Lung, 65. 50

Borealis and evening sleigh rides but struggled with cooking, washing in frigid weather, and isolation as there were few women along the gold creeks. Velma also gave birth twice up north, both times in frigid weather. 137 She lived up north for five years until returning to the south to raise her children. Ed and his partner struck enough gold to make their claim more than profitable before she left. 138 Her memoirs end with a celebration of their determination which prevented them from giving up during hardships and struggles.

Most saw the stampede as one of the most significant experiences in their lifetimes and did not regret going. As Pierre Berton concluded:

It was impossible to emerge from it unchanged, and those who survived it were never quite the same again. It brutalized some and ennobled others, but the majority neither sank to the depths nor rose to the heights; instead, their characters were tempered in the hot flame of an experience which was as much emotional as it was physical. 139

The environment played an enormous role in this, one that is underplayed by Berton. It was the environment that created these hardships and took a physical toll on people through climate, geographic obstacles and catastrophes, weariness, injuries, disease, and even death. It was overcoming these obstacles and making it to Dawson that gave people an inner sense of accomplishment and confidence. Meeting the challenges posed by the environment was part of the adventure and forged strong bonds of community between people who learned a great deal about cooperation and getting along. Martha Purdy

Black, who left her first husband to travel to the Klondike with her brother and who later discovered she was pregnant when she made the trip, enjoyed the community. She recalled the time miners gave her food and presents after the birth of her baby:

137 Ibid, 196 and 267. 138 Ibid, 328. 139 Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 408. 51

“Showered with kindness like these, I learned to love my fellow-men of the North, who, although I did not know it at the time, were to be my people for the rest of my life.” 140

The beauty of the northern environment also played a role in having people fall in love with the land. Basil Austin remembered:

After all the ensuing years I can look back to the adventure with pleasure, getting much satisfaction in the remembrance of those majestic white mountains, the wastes of snow, flaming auroras, roaring rapids and the… men with hearts as good as the gold they found, or missed. Even that smell of crushed spruce boughs in the tent; all those things I can never forget. 141

Martha Black was also attracted by the beauty and the freedom of the north. She returned to her parents in Kansas after the birth of her son but could not get the Klondike out of her mind:

I could not shake off the lure of the Klondyke. My thoughts were continually of that vast new rugged country, its stark and splendid mountains, its lordly Yukon River, with all its streams and deep blue lakes, its midnight sun, its gold and green of summer, its never-ending dark of winter, illuminated by golden stars and flaming northern lights. What I wanted was not shelter and safety, but liberty and opportunity. 142

Martha later went back to the Klondike and married George Black who became the

Commissioner of the Yukon in 1911. Both would serve as the Member of Parliament for the Yukon and spend their lives in Dawson.

Those who stayed chose to do so because of a love of adventure, the spell of the

Yukon, the creation of community, a desire to strike it rich, and a determination to overcome any challenge related to the environment. The physical environment changed people both physically and likely internally as well and thus had an enormous impact on

140 Martha Black, My Seventy Years . As told to Elizabeth Bailey Price (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1938), 130. 141 Austin, 191. 142 Black, 158. 52 the life of all who participated in the Klondike gold rush as well as those who live there today.

53

Chapter III Deforestation, Mining, and Disease: Impact on the Environment

One of the main purposes of environmental history is to study the human impact on the environment. In many diaries as well as books on the Klondike Gold Rush, mining and the rush itself have been seen as symbolizing progress and technological triumph because mining technology improved, wealth and gold reserves increased, and the North was opened to settlement. However, environmental history allows us to see that this triumphalist, progressivist vision is not necessarily accurate; the progress came at a cost of the landscape, the animals and fish of the region, the lives of Natives, and not least, the lives of the stampeders themselves. This chapter will examine the deforestation, the impact of mining techniques and processes, and the nature of disease in and around

Dawson. The first part of this chapter will examine the impact of deforestation in terms of building boats to sail along the Yukon River to Dawson and the use of wood as fuel for steamboats on this route. The second part of this chapter will look at the impact of mining on the environment. The last part of this chapter will investigate the impact of settlement on the environment, Natives, and the settlers themselves through reference to deforestation, game depletion, water pollution, and disease.

Deforestation had a huge impact on the environment not only along the gold creeks but along the shores of Lake Lindeman 143 and Lake Bennett where people built their boats after completing the Chilkoot Pass or White Pass. The once-forested hillside was soon ripped apart for lumber to build boats [Figure 7-8]. The shores of Lake

Lindeman and then Lake Bennett echoed with the sound of hammers, whipsaws, and

143 Lake Lindeman is the proper spelling for the lake also known as Lindemann, Linderman, and Lindermann. 54 falling trees; the tree line was quickly pushed back from the shores of the lake into the surrounding hills:

Lindemann was now almost deserted, but in January [1899] camps were being erected on the shore that was now denuded of trees. Mute evidence of the busy scenes of the spring before was now the funeral scenes and silence over everything. Frames of old sawpits and frames of poles stood like sentinels watching the dead post. Silence would occasionally be broken by the ring of an axe, as some virile voyageur felled another tree which had been too far away for the stampeders of 1898 to bother with.” 144

As Lake Bennett grew to become the centre of boat building, a small cluster of tents became a town with shops, services, and businesses for people who were building boats while the landscape of the lakeshore changed drastically:

from the hills above, the lakeshore had the appearance of a vast lumberyard. Planks were stacked like cordwood in towering heaps, or up- ended in wigwam shapes, or strewn haphazardly like toothpicks among the rocks and stumps. Boats by the thousands, of every size, shape, and description, lay bottom-up in various stages of construction, most of them still in skeletal form…145

The construction of boats consumed a lot of timber; William Shape needed 230 feet of sawed boards to build his twenty-two foot boat between May 6 and 11, 1898. 146 In addition to small boats, large steamboats were built by the Bennett Lake and Klondyke

Navigation Company which felled timber on a large scale and erected sawmills to build the Ora , Nora , and Flora that were approximately seventy to eighty feet in length. 147 The

Lake Bennett Sawmill was running by 1898 for those who did not want to go through the

144 Olive, 293. People moved on from Lake Lindeman in late 1897-1898: “As wood became scarce at Lindeman, others mushed on to the shores of Bennett Lake.” Robert Booth, “Yukon Fever: Call of the North,” National Geographic 153 (April 1978), 558. 145 Berton, Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 263. Berton is one of the few non- environmental historians who noted the deforestation of the landscape and damage done by mining, due in great part because he had seen it first hand growing up in the Yukon. 146 Shape, 52. 147 Olive, 83-84. 55 trials of whipsawing timber. It was capable of turning out enough wood to make three boats per day. 148 Within a few months, an entire forest was felled at Lake Bennett. 149 This deforestation is evident in photographs taken of the lake and its surroundings between

1897 and 1898. By 1898 boat builders had to go “several miles up the valleys to find the trees, spruce and pine, and then float the logs down the stream.” 150 The shores of the once isolated lakes were torn up to make “a flotilla of small boats, nearly seven thousand by

June 1898.” 151 Chopping trees for lumber was not the only cause of deforestation along

Lake Bennett. Forest fires set accidentally by humans also did significant damage.

William Shape’s partner, George Hartmann, did not put out the campfire properly before they left for Dawson from their camp along the shores of the lake:

pretty soon the entire woods were one roaring mass of flame, eating its way up the hill-side, to the mountain beyond…. A heavy punishment is meted out [by the North West Mounted Police] to anyone leaving a fire behind him when breaking camp and such gross carelessness is just what caused the tremendous forest fires all along the route…152

Hartmann was not punished as another party that had camped near their campsite did not reveal their names to the Mounted Police. Forest fires similar to that started by Shape and

Hartmann destroyed many trees along the water route to Dawson, a result of the stampeders’ carelessness.

At the time of the gold rush, the vegetation at Lake Bennett was “poor and sparse, not at all what one would desire to see on a place upon which he was thinking of settling.

At the lower end of the lake there… [was an] extensive flat of sandy soil, thinly clad with

148 Wells, 41-50. 149 Berton, The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay, 1897-1899 , 97. 150 Rickard, 11. 151 Morse, 51. 152 Shape, 54. 56 small poplars and pines.” 153 The depletion of trees likely made this soil situation even worse. The deforestation of Lake Bennett at the time of the gold rush had a long-term impact on the lakeshore. The destruction of trees and overgrowth has affected the appearance of the lakeshore today: “The general terrain around Bennett is rolling and rugged. The [old] town itself was constructed on a hillside which slopes steeply upward from Lake Bennett. The unstable sandy soil and thin vegetation cover on the slope contributes to erosion and the creation of sand dunes.”154 Present day visitors can still see remnants of the town and wooden docking posts. Today, there is a need to maintain “the stabilizing vegetation which helps hold the loose sandy soil in place.” 155 The deforestation carried out by the stampeders aggravated the problem of sandy soil and erosion and still has consequences for Lake Bennett over a century later.

Cutting wood for steamboat fuel along the Yukon River on the route to Dawson was the last instance of deforestation on a large scale before the deforestation found around the gold creeks themselves. Oil and coal were not easily available in the Yukon so the steamboats depended on wood. Wood was cut into standard cords four feet high, four feet wide, and eight feet long. Cords were stacked along the river by both Natives and white men desperate for work. Massive amounts of wood were used on the journey to

Dawson: “Most steamers consumed at least 120 cords of wood to make the round-trip journey from Whitehorse to Dawson City and back.” 156 Steamer companies cut trees close to the river but the more timber that was cut, the bigger the gap between the bank

153 Ladue, 112. 154 Hems and Nieuwhof, 1. 155 Ibid, 10. 156 Graham Wilson, Paddlewheelers of Alaska and the Yukon (Whitehorse: Wolf Creek Books, 1999), 49. 57 and the tree line and the more difficult transporting timber to the steamboats became. 157

Thus, the transportation of the stampeders by steamboat led to deforestation on a commercial scale by the steamer companies.

Mining produced the largest human impact on the environment of the entire

Klondike gold rush. The first step in mining involved simple prospecting using a pick, gold pan, and shovel. The miner would shovel some dirt and gravel in the pan to test for colours. He would dip the pan in water and shake the dirt so some of it would wash out with the water. 158 Eventually, the water would wash all the dirt away and (if the miner was lucky) specks of gold, which is nineteen times heavier than water, would remain.

The miner would then repeat the process at other spots along the creek. If there was enough gold (or colour) in several pans, then the miner would stake a claim in that area.

Miners paid ten dollars to obtain a mining licence and fifteen for the recording fee. 159 The miner then received a certificate with language similar to the following:

This is to Certify that Alden R. Smith of Clifton Springs, N.Y . has paid me this day the sum of ten dollars and is entitled to all the rights and privileges of a Free Miner, under any Mining Regulations of the Government of Canada, for one year from the eighth day of March 18 90 . This certificate shall also grant to the holder thereof the privilege of Fishing and Shooting, subject to the provisions of any act which has been passed, or which may hereafter be passed for the protection of game and fish; also the privileges of Cutting Timber for actual necessities, for building houses, boats, and for general mining operations; such timber, however, to be for the exclusive use of the miner himself, but such permission shall not extend to timber which may have been heretofore or which may hereafter be granted to other persons or operations. 160

157 Morse, 84. 158 The motion used to pan is not swirling, as is commonly seen in movies, but is more of a shaking or sifting motion. 159 Porsild, 74. 160 Alden R. Smith, Mining Certificate, Clayton J. Scoins Collection, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C62. 58

This certificate granted the miner significant power to begin taking apart the environment through deforestation, hunting, and fishing as well as mining. Timber would be used to make a house for the miner (and possibly living areas for anyone employed on his claim) as well as to line the shafts of his mines and to make mining equipment such as rockers and sluice boxes.

The easiest way to hit pay dirt was to dig a shaft down to bedrock. To begin this process, miners had to clear the overburden from the area where they wanted to dig their shafts. A prospector would “clear an area of the insulating layer of moss and brush to the size of the shaft that would be sunk, usually three feet by five feet.” 161 Every time a new shaft was begun, this process was repeated, resulting in more vegetation being stripped from the earth. This had a negative impact that will be discussed further later in this chapter.

The second step was to dig out the shaft. The Klondike was unique in that it was simply impossible to dig a shaft as the earth was mostly frozen year round except for a thin layer of soil in the summer. The first miners in the Yukon before the gold rush began in earnest used the sun’s thawing effect in the summer and would slowly dig out a little more dirt each day. 162 Later they progressed to using fires to thaw the ground, a practice that allowed them to mine year-round resulting in further deforestation:

That meant logging the nearby streams or going up the mountainside to cut firewood and packing it to the claim. Then a hole was scraped in the surface moss and debris and a fire built on the cleared surface. When the fire died, the ashes and thawed dirt were dug out and another fire built. The process was repeated until bedrock was reached. 163

161 Gould,9. 162 Berton, Klondike: the Last Great Gold Rush , 1896-1899, 18. 163 Murray Morgan, One Man’s Gold Rush: A Klondike Album , Photographs by E.H. Hegg (Vancouver: J.J. Douglas, 1967), 136. 59

Shafts were usually dug vertically, and thawing the ground was slow work: “Each fire thaws from 7 to 15 inches of the surrounding soil, which must then be removed, and another fire kindled to thaw more soil.” 164 Digging a shaft could take up to a month as bedrock was located five to twenty five feet below the surface in most cases.165 The roof and walls of the shaft stayed frozen all winter, but in summer they could collapse, so most miners sluiced their gold in the summer rather than engaged in shaft mining. Adney estimated that two men would use thirty cords of wood for one winter of burning and digging out a shaft. 166 As the shafts grew deeper, the miners used wood to line the shafts for more support. A windlass was used to hoist the dirt out of a deep shaft. Paydirt would be stacked in piles waiting to be cleaned and sluiced in the spring. Entheus Ball had experience surveying so unlike other miners he chose not to tunnel directly downwards.

He tunnelled into a hill “at a decline of 20 feet to the 100 feet.” 167 He struck gold and others who had once scoffed at him began to copy his methods because it covered more ground and thus resulted in more paydirt.

In addition to dealing with severe weather while mining, the miners had to face other dangers. Those who risked working underground in late spring and late summer could be killed when the roof caved in. Ball writes about his dangerous encounter:

On August 23… while working on our mine, I was nearly crushed by a large fall of frozen muck which scraped my shoulder, knocked the lantern out of my hand and mashed it flat, and so left me in total darkness. The

164 Wells, 147-150. Morgan said a foot was the average amount of soil removed. Morgan, 136. 165 Morgan, 136. Ken Martin noted “that the deepest shaft [recorded] in the Klondike as of April 1, 1898, was 104 feet in Skookum Gulch. The ground was frozen all the way down and bedrock had not yet been reached.” Ken Martin, "Nineteenth Century Gold Rushes," International California Mining Journal 67, no. 10 (June 1998): 31. 166 Adney, 243. 167 Ball and Procter, 35. 60

terrific noise so badly frightened me that I became instantly nauseated with shock and could not stand [Figure 20]. 168

Luckily he saw light from the shaft and managed to get out and his mine did not collapse.

The other big danger came from gas in the mine. Charles P. Mosier wrote “I was laid up with sore eyes caused from gas in hole – was blindfolded all day.” 169 His father developed the same condition. Entheus Ball saved two men out of three who had been gassed at another mine by hoisting them with the windlass before he was overcome with gas and passed out. He received an award from the Canadian government for his actions. 170 Mining in deep shafts without good ventilation could affect the miners’ health chronically too. As Martin pointed out in regards to nineteenth-century rush mining in general, “residual smoke fumes resulted in respiratory problems of immediate and long- term consequences” 171

In the late spring when the ice melted, the miners turned their attention to cleaning their large piles of paydirt accumulated through the winter. In the winter miners were able to clean small amounts of gold in their cabins. They sampled about five pans each day in winter to estimate how much gold that day’s work had produced. 172 The next mechanism, bigger than a gold pan, to separate gold from gravel and dirt was a rocker.

The rocker consisted of “a square box with a tin bottom, which had a number of holes punched in it, so as to permit the dirt to flow through, when the gravel was washed.

168 Ibid, 40. 169 Charles P. Mosier, Diary, March 17, 1899. Clayton J. Scoins Collection, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C62. 170 Ball and Procter, 61-2. J.G. McJury also records a man being asphyxiated in the hole. J.G. McJury, Diary, August 20, 1898. Clayton J. Scoins Collection, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C62. 171 Ken Martin, "Nineteenth Century Gold Rushes," International California Mining Journal 67, no. 10 (June 1998): 46. 172 Gould, 10. 61

Under the box was a slide, over which the dirt and water must flow to the bottom of the rocker and then out at the end.” 173 Beneath the slide there were burlap mats to catch the gold which sank as it was heavier than dirt, gravel, and water. The extra dirt was washed out the end of the rocker [Figure 24]. The leftover dirt and rocks that had been cleaned once by rockers or sluicing became known as tailings. Rockers were more appropriate for smaller mining operations as they were simpler to build and required less wood than sluice works. Miners could simply dump buckets of water into rockers instead of having to divert streams into sluice boxes.

Sluicing produced one of the most obvious visual impacts on the environment. 174

The sluice box was primary and most widespread method of cleaning paydirt and worked like this:

[they were] usually about ten inches high and twelve or fourteen inches across the bottom. They varied in length according to the number of men working the diggings and the amount of muck to be washed, but usually ran about fifty feet for two men. Across the bottom lay successive riffles. These were small, round poles set lengthwise in frames so that they lay [sic] an inch and a half or two inches apart. At the lower end of the box was another set of riffles with slats about an inch square… water was diverted to the sluices. The pay dirt… was shovelled in. The earth was washed away, the gold and small gravel settled in the riffles. The catch in the tail riffles was then panned for gold [Figures 15 and 17]. 175

173 Shape, 76. 174 Historian Richard Francaviglia has written extensively on the visual effects of hard rock mining, both by individuals and by companies, on the environment. This is an interesting aspect of environmental history – looking at effects of mining from a purely physical standpoint without going into detail about other environmental consequences. He writes “Visually, mining produces some of the most dramatic landscapes on the earth. The already stark, barren western landscapes have been made to appear even more barren and inhospitable.” Richard V. Francaviglia, “Hardrock Mining’s Effects on the Visual Environment of the West,” Journal of the West 43, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 42. 175 Morgan, 138. 62

Claims up and down all the gold creeks were covered in flumes and sluices. Combined, the miners ran millions of gallons of water down sluice boxes to separate gold and dirt. 176

Long Toms, similar to sluice boxes, were also used. The first section of a Long Tom was lined with metal and sorted out the fine material from the coarse material, and the last section trapped the gold in riffles like a sluice. 177 Both sluices and Long Toms cleaned gold faster and on a larger scale than the other methods.

Long wooden flumes were used to direct water to where the miners needed it to process gold in sluice boxes. Both flumes and sluices were built primarily from wood.

Because flumes could stretch for miles from a water source to a sluice, their construction resulted in deforestation on a large scale. In addition to the requirements for wood for sluices and rockers and fuel for thawing soil, flumes consumed an enormous quantity of wood:

Soon, every available saw, axe, and hatchet were in use for taking the timber adjacent to the claims to build the flumes, sluices, and rockers needed to get the new diggings operational. Experienced miners with entrepreneurial leanings also applied to the federal government for timber leases in order to earn extra money. They then sold timber to neighbouring miners for fuel for the winter diggings. 178

An examination of pictures depicting mining operations clearly demonstrates that thousands of trees were cut down along the primary gold creeks [Figure 22].

Miners like H.H. Scott often built dams to store water for cleaning and sluicing gold. This could be dangerous when the water level reached its highest in the spring and dams had to be monitored carefully. 179 Miners also used ditches as well as flumes to

176 Berton, The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay, 1897-1899 , 154. 177 Gould, 60. 178 Porsild, 72. 179 H.H. Scott, Diary, May 15, 1899. Clayton J. Scoins Collection, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C62. 63 direct water to where it was needed. They also often diverted streams into their flumes. It was easier to build miles of flumes to carry water from a distant source above the claim than it was to transport water from below the claim. Diverting streams had a devastating impact on the environment: “When miners altered one element of the system, such as flowing water, that water often reappeared in frustrating ways or disappeared just when it was needed.” 180 In spring, creeks could overflow their banks due to large-scale deforestation, and in late summer the miners could have used up all the water on their claim. The spring runoff lasted two to six weeks depending on the methods used to collect water, and miners at the upper end of the creek tended to have very little water compared to those at the lower end. 181 Thus, those at the lower end had an easier time cleaning gold and could accomplish more work. 182

As the years passed in the Klondike, mining techniques improved and new technology was brought in at the turn of the century. John McDougal wrote that the

“primitive methods of working ground in 1897 and 1898 by thawing by wood fires…gave away to the steam thawer.” 183 Clarence Berry discovered steam thawing when he noticed that steam from his engine was thawing the ground. He experimented by attaching a rifle barrel to the hose and driving it into the ground and thereby discovered

180 Morse, 92. 181 Gould, 29. 182 It is interesting to note that only Morse, an environmental historian, and Gould, who is interested in mining technology and techniques, comment in depth on the water diversions and shortages in the gold creeks. They, unlike some other historians, see the gold mining more as a destructive event than as a generally progressive phenomenon. Some historians, and indeed most miners, only note the destruction in passing or as an after-the-fact effect of the rush. 183 John McDougal, Report on Mining Conditions in Klondike to Wilfred Thibeaudeau, January 31, 1906, John A. McDougal Fonds, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C90. 64 that he could thaw more gravel faster than wood fires. 184 William Ogilvie, the

Commissioner of the Yukon, explained the process as follows:

The steam is applied through the medium of ‘points’ that is length[s] of half inch heavy pipe about five feet long, on one end of which a heavy head is put, with connection for the hose. On the other end a steel point is put through which two or three one eighth inch holes are bored. Connection being made with the boiler through the hose the point is held against the surface to be thawed…. [for 8-12 hours]… The stuff… brought out is piled, by various devices according to the means of the miner, in great heaps.185

Steam fire was safer as there was less wood smoke to deal with and miners could thaw eight to ten feet a day. 186 Steam thawing was also better for the forests because “it took a third less wood to the same amount of yardage than wood fire thawing had taken.” 187

Steam thawing also changed the fact that miners could only dig shafts in winter:

With the importation of mining machinery and with improved methods of mining gained by experience, it has been demonstrated that a great deal of ground can be worked both in winter and summer while ground which formerly it was thought, could be worked on in winter, can really be worked more advantageously in summer. 188

Now mining could take place in the summer as well if miners timbered their shafts to ensure their safety.

Hydraulic mining was another new technique used after the turn of the century.

Miners used high pressure hoses to wash away all loose material from hillsides and the high pressure separated gold from the gravel. It “was capital intensive and the per-ton cleanup was low, but it meant that huge tonnages could be handled at low cost because

184 Gould, 48. 185 William Ogilvie, Some Notes on Gold Mining in the Yukon Territory, William Ogilvie Fonds, Library and Archives Canada MG30-B22. 186 Gould, 48. 187 Gould, 51. 188 Dufferin Patiullo, “Mining.” The Daily Klondike Nugget , December 25, 1900, 4. 65 there was no need for elaborate machinery; water did all the work.” 189 There were two problems at first: the lack of water and the frozen ground but these were later overcome by using dams. Hydraulic mining had significant and obvious environmental impacts. It destroyed the landscape utterly. Pierre Berton noted that, decades after the rush ended,

“hills, still bare of trees, are marked by the hesitant lines of old ditches and broken flumes and the scars left by hydraulic nozzles.” 190

The railway played an important role in transporting new, heavier machinery to the Klondike as the old methods became less profitable: “The introduction of machinery

[also] coincided with the depletion of exceptionally rich deposits: it is unlikely that the lower grade gravels could have been worked profitably much longer by hand methods.” 191 The introduction of large scale methods that began to replace mining on an individual level accelerated after 1900 and eventually claims were consolidated and large companies were granted claims to large sections of the creeks for dredging purposes.

Although it is beyond the scope of this thesis, which concentrates on the years of the

Klondike Rush, it should be noted that dredging became common after 1904 and this had a very significant environmental impact as well [Figure 23].192

Striking it rich was mostly a matter of chance. Cheechakos (greenhorns) were as likely to strike it rich as sourdoughs. However, the early arrivals in 1896 were more likely to find gold than those who came later. Albert Bower explained to his mother:

189 Gould, 83. 190 Berton, Klondike: the Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 415. 191 G.W. Gilbert, A Brief History of Placer Mining in the Yukon , Published under the authority of Hon. John C. Munro, Minister of Northern Affairs and Northern Development (Whitehorse: Minister of Supply and Services,1983), 10. 192 In Dawson today, the most obvious effect of the human impact on the environment are the piles of dredge tailings that surround the city. 66

You hear about those who make fortunes but not much about the greater majority who make failures. There are people who have not been in here over a year or two who have got from 10 to 100 and 200 thousand dollar [sic], and there are some who have been here from 8 to 15 or 20 years and haven’t enough to buy their winter provisions… Some men have worked all summer putting down holes and found nothing. 193

The richest claims could be found side-by-side with some of the poorest: “The great gamble of the Klondike was that an average-producing claim might overnight turn into an

Eldorado of huge proportions, and no one knew who was going to be next.” 194 Some miners sold off their claims to try their luck elsewhere and the new owners became rich.

When William Ogilvie, the Gold Commissioner of the Yukon, re-surveyed the haphazard stakes on the creeks, some small gaps between claims opened up. While the largest a claim could be was 500 feet, one wedge shaped claim that was only 86 feet at its widest spot, eventually paid out half a million dollars and was the richest claim in the

Klondike. 195 Some Cheechakos risked the ridicule of the sourdoughs and searched the hillsides above the creeks for ancient creek beds where they staked claims and struck it rich. 196 Most, however, never struck it rich and they were lucky to make enough to continue living in the north.

The combination of clearing the overburden, fire and steam thawing, digging shafts, cleaning gold, leaving tailing piles of rocks behind, hydraulic mining, and later dredging led to destruction of the overall environment on a large scale. The more technology that developed, the greater the impact on the gold creeks: “landscapes associated with mining suggest an increasingly rapid pace and larger scale of that activity

193 Albert C. Bower, Letter, October 24, 1897, Clayton J. Scoins Collection, Library and Archives Canada MG29-C62. 194 Porsild, 71. 195 Berton, Klondike: the Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 , 72-73. 196 Ibid, 177-180. 67 through time.” 197 The appearance of the creeks since George Carmack’s discovery of gold that led to the Klondike gold rush had changed so much that they were hardly recognizable. Gone were the forested hillsides and clear water and the creeks began to look like this:

The once verdant floors were now glistening deserts of black mud. Mountains of [bleached] gravel [which contained gold], thrown up from the bench diggings, stained the slopes white. Flumes and sluice boxes fingered their way between hundreds of log cabins strewn helter-skelter from creek mouth to canyon. 198

From above, the creeks looked like a chaotic mess of timber piles, cabins, long flumes and sluices, and heaps of tailings surrounded by dirt [Figures 13-23]. Miners disassembled the landscape to try and direct everything towards finding and processing gold as quickly as possible. This caused problems for flora and fauna around the creeks:

As miners stripped vegetation from the river, corridors, dug up stream beds, and diverted the creeks themselves, they took those ecosystems apart, separated plants from the soil and soil from water, and put each to other uses. This disassembly affected the cycle of water flow itself, changing the creeks themselves. 199

Droughts resulted from miners diverting streams or consuming too much water to process gold. Floods and soil erosion occurred due to lack of trees, moss, and other vegetation that would normally regulate stream flow and absorb precipitation. 200 Streams dried up faster and water turbidity increased. This made it more difficult for plants, fish, and insects to survive in the many small streams that criss-crossed the landscape. Mining affected some creeks to the extent that they could no longer “produce the range of

197 Francaviglia, 39. 198 Berton, The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay, 1897-1899 , 155. 199 Morse, 107. 200 Morse, 109. 68 biological life present before 1896.” 201 Thus, by tearing the creeks apart to get gold, the miners had an impact on the environment through deforestation, clearing the overburden, and redirecting water. This not only affected the vegetation and animals of the Klondike, but the lives of the miners and the mining process itself.

Although miners learned how to take earth apart to find gold they “paid little attention to the consequences of disassembling creeks, even when those consequences hindered their ability to produce gold itself.” 202 Because of the practice of diverting streams, not all miners along a given creek had fair access to water. Timber also was increasingly hard to access and miners had to travel further to get timber for winter fuel or to build new gold processing tools. Most miners failed to see their destructive environmental impact because they did not realize what they were doing. However, some miners, before they became part of the mining process, noted the impact of mining on the creeks:

Dams of crib-work filled with stones, flumes, and sluice-boxes lay across our path; heaps of “tailings” glistened in the sunlight beside yawning holes with windlasses tumbled in; cabins were deserted – the whole creek, wherever work had been done, was ripped and gutted. Nothing but flood and fire is so ruthless as the miner. 203

This was Tappan Adney’s observation in one of the first books published on the

Klondike. However, despite the fact that he was describing a scene of destruction, Adney saw the beauty of the destruction in the glistening piles of tailings and seems proud that

201 Morse, 113. 202 Morse, 92. Unlike any other Klondike gold rush historian, Morse repeatedly emphasizes the destructive nature of the mining process. However, when one looks at photographs of the rush [Figures 13-23] it is easy to understand why. The mining process itself was irreversible even though today the land is much improved with the planting of new trees. 203 Adney, 404. 69 the miners are so ruthless and progressive. On the other hand, the first observation of

Edward Lung, another miner, was not a positive one:

The rivers wound in and out like tortured things, running the gauntlet of miles and miles of sluice boxes which speared out from the many claims. Gravel dumps and tailings mounded the valley and many tents and a few shacks dotted the outer edges of the claims. A few tents were stuck in among the dumps, looking like dirty toadstools sprung up overnight. 204

Even though he made this observation looking down on the goldfields, Ed Lung was in awe of this process and eager to get gold dust to pay back the money he had borrowed to travel to the Klondike. He quickly became part of the mining process whose activities had shocked him when he first saw them. Other travellers to the Klondike noticed the destruction. Velma Lung was astonished by the sight of the gold creeks when she travelled north to meet her husband:

At last we came within view of the miles and miles of sluice boxes, crossing and criss-crossing of the great Bonanza Valley. And there were mound and mounds of grey gravel, heaped high, everywhere we looked, with tents and shacks wedged in between all these. Edward hastened to explain that the gravel-mounds contained paydirt of glittering gold and nuggets. 205

Now that Edward Lung was a miner himself, he was quick to defend the destruction.

E. Hazard Wells, a newspaper correspondent, also observed the deforestation by the miners to process gold and to build the town of Dawson: “The work of building cabins is going forward briskly, but the supply of timber suitable for that purpose is growing scanty in the immediate neighbourhood of Dawson.” 206 But, unlike more generally disinterested observers, miners had their face to the grindstone and most could not see what they were doing from a broader perspective. Most saw their work as

204 Edward Lung, 131. 205 Velma Lung, 83-84. 206 Wells, 94. 70 progress, especially with the invention of improved technology, and were in a rush to get to the gold.

The environmental impact that settlement had on Dawson itself was enormous. In less than four years, Dawson had gone from being a summer fishing village where the

Han caught salmon, to being the largest Canadian city west of Winnipeg. 207 The rapid arrival of miners disrupted the lives of the Natives who lived in that area. Because of the garbage disposal problems outlined in chapter two, the polluted water had an effect on the Han; they were relocated to a reserve downstream from Dawson where contaminated water flowing downstream from the city led to outbreaks of typhoid and diphtheria. 208

Disease had a huge impact on both Natives as they had previously only had limited contact with Europeans through the fur trade, missionaries, and early prospectors. When the rush broke out, many more Native groups had more frequent contact with stampeders through trade and labour relationships. Some Natives participated in the gold rush chopping wood, or as guides, or by selling fish and game. Natives faced diseases on a large scale “that in combination with shifting subsistence patterns and food supplies, left them susceptible to ill health and social disintegration. Yukon Indians had had no historical exposure to Euro-American diseases, and thus no biological immunities.”209

The Han, who lived closest to Dawson, were nearly wiped out by disease; however, many other Native groups had little to no contact with the stampeders and were not affected. 210

Beyond disease, native peoples were also affected by white settlement:

As the prospectors moved east, the interior people built boats, acted as guides and pilots, and provided meat, skins, clothing and wood. In return,

207 Berton, Klondike: the Last Great Gold Rush , 290. 208 Porsild, 50. 209 Morse, 162. 210 Coates, 112. 71

their land burned under raging forest fires, their game was overhunted, their drinking water was contaminated, and by 1914 huge tailing piles [from dredges] lay where creeks had always run. 211

Hunting and depletion of game was, thus, another environmental problem that grew throughout the period of the gold rush and had an impact on the availability of animals.

This in turn affected the human population. As thousands of stampeders moved into the area in and around Dawson, more fish and game were required to feed them. The Han increased their hunting, trapping, and fishing to sell their surplus food to the miners. Even by 1897, a year before the majority of the stampeders arrived, there were shortages in game due in part to the fur trade: “The supply of large game is very limited indeed. Very lengthy trips have to be taken for hunting purposes.” 212 It was evidently a serious problem if Ladue, the founder of Dawson, felt he had to write this in his guide to the

Klondike. The influx of ravenous miners only made an already bad situation worse.

Overhunting became a problem: “Game became scarce in densely occupied areas, particularly around Dawson City. The moose population first increased as the caribou shifted elsewhere, but then the moose came under greater hunting pressure.” 213 By disrupting the ecosystem, miners forced game to move elsewhere. In addition, deforestation, forest fires, and clearing of overburden destroyed animal habitats.

Diverting streams to clean gold rendered them too muddy for fish and insects to survive in. As game decreased, Natives were forced to become increasingly reliant on the most inexpensive Euro-American food they could afford (primarily flour, bacon, pork, and

211 Porsild, 59. It is interesting to note that many historians (Coates and Porsild amongst them) take a greater interest in the environmental history of the north when it applies to people like Natives. They see the how the manmade environmental problems had repercussions for Natives and settlers alike in terms of disease and shortages of game and lumber. 212 Ladue, 110. 213 Morse, 160. 72 beans, a poor diet for the northern climate) and thus their diet and health deteriorated. 214

By 1900 there were several laws in place which set up hunting seasons for several animals and restricted the number of beasts that could be killed by one person in a season, with fines for violations. 215 It is likely that these were enacted because of increasingly significant shortages of game. Therefore, settlement made the hunting shortages worse by scattering and decreasing the animal population and this had impacts for both the Natives and the white settlers.

Settlement in Dawson led to deforestation just as it had on the gold creeks and the shores of Lake Bennett. The Klondike did not have much in the way of large timber resources, but small timber was at least plentiful before the gold rush. 216 Large amounts of wood were needed to build houses, hotels, stores, restaurants, and other services in

Dawson. Wood was the easiest building material to employ as it did not have to be shipped in. Responding to the iron laws of supply and demand, by 1898 there were seven sawmills in the area around Dawson. 217 As Dawson rapidly expanded and sections had to be rebuilt because of fire, wood had to be floated in from further and further afield. In any case, building was exorbitantly expensive: “It cost a small fortune to build cabins at

Dawson, One of average size costs in the neighborhood of one thousand dollars. Building

214 Morse, 162. 215 “Varieties of Game and Game Laws,” The Daily Klondike Nugget , December 25, 1900, 7. 216 Ladue, 110. The NWMP also had trouble getting enough large dry timber at Fort Constantine in 1896 at the beginning of the rush: “The men found it very hard work, as the wood had to be carried or rolled from where it was felled, distances varying from 50 to 300 yards. In only one place was wood found in any great quality, an island about 50 miles from here which had 100 cords on it; this was thoroughly cleaned out. I may say that there is no dry wood left along the Yukon that can be obtained by hand for at least 75 miles above here.” C. Constantine, “Report on the Yukon Detachment,” http://www.explorenorth.com/library/yafeatures/bl-NWMP1896.htm (accessed November 29, 2006). 217 Knutson, 94. 73 timber is scarce in the neighborhood of the town, logs being brought down the Yukon from ten to fifteen miles [away].” 218 By 1898 thousands of cords of wood were being floated to Dawson; however, a crowd of boats or early river ice jams often blocked the shoreline, making it difficult to get the timber ashore. This could even result in the loss of timber itself. 219 By 1900 the hills around Dawson were nearly totally stripped of timber.

Even though single cords of wood cost between fourteen and eighteen dollars that year

“the supply of wood in Dawson exceeded that of any previous year, and it was being hauled into town from all sides.” 220 Wood was also used for fuel for heat and cooking in the long winters and was eventually mostly replaced by coal shipped in from nearby mines after local forests had been felled. Thus, in constructing a large, permanent settlement, the people of Dawson stripped their hillsides of timber which destroyed the habitat of animals, pushed up the price of building supplies, and made it more difficult to construct and heat their homes and cook their food.

A perennial problem haunting Dawson was the issue of the contamination of the water supply, a situation that was complicated by the city’s blithe attitude towards its garbage disposal. J.W. Good was appointed as Dawson’s medical officer in 1898. He issued instructions for people to boil water and clean their privies properly. He also

“ordered the immediate construction of board sidewalks and a system of drainage to prevent the knee-deep mud in the streets in the spring. The implementation of these orders improved transportation and public health simultaneously.” 221 The living conditions created by the people of Dawson had repercussions on their health. They

218 Haskell, William B Haskell, Two Years in the Klondike and Alaskan Gold-Fields, 1896-1898 (Fairbanks, Alaska: University of Alaska Press, 1998), 357. 219 Knutson, 95-97. 220 Knutson, 96. 221 Porsild, 150. 74 created an environment with unsafe drinking water, disease, sanitation problems, and garbage disposal problems that resulted in the death of many people. Outbreaks of disease were common: “All the previous summer [1898], the steaming undrained swamp on which the town was built, rank with undisposed sewage, had spread typhoid, malaria, and dysentery among the unwitting stampeders.” 222 The conditions worsened in the fall of 1898 when germs spread quickly in a population that had been weakened by the difficulties and inadequate food of their journey north as well as the hardships of mining.

Medical services were needed to attend to the weak and dying. These needs were first met by the church. Father Judge, a Jesuit priest, set up St. Mary’s Hospital in 1898 along with the Sisters of Ste. Anne and accepted everyone, of whom less than half could pay. 223

This hospital dealt with several typhoid epidemics. Father Judge did what he could to help these suffering people:

In the end, he gave his life for others. In the short space of twelve months, hundreds were brought to his little hospital; suffering from fever, scurvy, and all the ills flesh is heir to. For some this was the last rest before they were laid in graves, with none to mourn him but this saintly man. 224

Father Judge was weakened by overwork and died of pneumonia on January 16, 1899.

The second hospital in Dawson to deal with these diseases was the Good Samaritan

Hospital. The Victorian Order of Nurses also came north later to help the suffering as did

Canadian doctors. 225 One typhoid epidemic of many in the summer of 1898 claimed

“three to four [lives] a day, in one day reaching a total of nine.” 226 Thus, the human

222 Berton, Klondike: the Last Great Gold Rush , 375. 223 Porsild, 145-148. 224 Olive, 152. 225 American doctors could not practice in the Yukon as their licenses did not bear “the stamp of the crown.” Porsild, 152. 226 Adney, 430. Berton estimates that the population of Dawson and surrounding area was approximately 30000 in the summer of 1898. Berton, The Klondike Quest: A Photographic Essay, 75 created environment had repercussions for many Dawsonites through disease and loss of loved ones due to disease.

Scurvy was one disease not caused by a constructed environment, but by the stampeders’ poor diets. Many stampeders were unaware of the cause of scurvy but assumed it was from an unvaried diet: “scurvy threatens to break out with great violence on the Klondike this winter. Insufficient provisions and the lack of a varied diet are the causes which are expected to lead to the trouble. By next spring it is believed that there will be fully 500 cases in camp.” 227 It was difficult to bring a variety of food to the

Klondike and nearly impossible to obtain fresh fruit apart from ripened berries on bushes; thus many stampeders suffered from the effects of scurvy. Alphonso Waterer and his partner, who travelled the all-Canadian route by water, volunteered to attend men with scurvy near Destruction City for three months. He described scurvy as follows:

[The] swollen parts [of these men] turn red and become inflamed, gradually spreading upward and downward, when it assumes a purple color and finally turns black. Sometimes the discoloration is composed of a number of spots and the mouth is often the last part to be attacked. I have nevertheless seen cases where men have been attacked in the mouth alone about the teeth and gums. 228

One of their two charges died from blood poisoning and scurvy and his death affected

Waterer: the patient “spoke of his loving wife and dear little daughter whom he would never see again. I cannot describe the pang of grief which penetrated to the depths of my heart as he relinquished his embrace.” 229 Scurvy affected many travellers who tried to

1897-1899 , 125. This would mean that in 60 days, 245 people of a fluctuating population of 30000 or 0.82% died. 227 Wells, 130. McAdam added “The doctors recognize the symptoms, but cannot account for the sickness breaking out.” McAdam, 71. 228 Alphonso Waterer, Diary, January-March 1898. Library and Archives Canada MG30-C59. 229 Ibid. 76 vary their diets with fruit, lime juice, citric acid, and boiled spruce boughs to recover.

Those who could not vary their diets suffered from the disease and some died.

The destruction of the environment in the north was accelerated by the Klondike

Gold Rush and the influx of stampeders. These people cut down massive amounts of trees to make boats and to power steamboats which resulted in deforestation and soil erosion. To mine and clean gold, miners cleared overburden, deforested the hillsides to thaw the ground and build rockers, sluices, and flumes, and dug holes in the ground.

They also diverted streams, which had implications for the flora and fauna as well as for mining itself. Their environmental destruction and deforestation also had an impact on the Natives and on the settlers through disease, loss of game, and difficulty obtaining wood for building and fuel. Thus, the impact of humans on the environment during the gold rush was tremendous and with advances in technology, the landscape was torn up even further through hydraulic mining and dredging. Not only did human destruction have a negative effect on the environment, but it affected the lives of the miners and settlers as well.

77

Conclusion

The Klondike gold rush has stuck prominently in the hearts and minds of

Canadians and Americans because it was last big gold rush and had a lasting impact on the people who took part in it and on many of their descendents who live in the Yukon today.

To reach Dawson was a great accomplishment in itself. Each trail had its own difficulties and forced many to give up their quest. The environment played a role in shaping the experience of stampeders on these trails. It did so in the form of geographic challenges like mountains and rapids, and the cold northern climate and deadly winter storms. All were tested physically and the vast majority were forced to endure exhaustion, starvation, isolation, and disease. However, there were rewards for coming north as well: the chance to experience beautiful and memorable scenery, to enjoy the comradeship and community that resulted from common experiences in a difficult land, to live a life of freedom and adventure, and of course the possibility, however small, of striking gold and achieving riches. In reality, of course, the likelihood of reaching

Dawson or striking it rich was vanishingly small:

One hundred thousand persons, it is estimated, actually set out on the trail; some thirty or forty thousand reached Dawson. Only about one half of this number bothered to look for gold, and of these only four thousand found any. Of the four thousand, a few hundred found gold in quantities large enough to call themselves rich. And out of these fortunate men only the merest handful managed to keep their wealth. 230

Were the tens of thousands who did not strike gold failures? Not in their eyes. They took pride in their survival in the harsh and unforgiving northern environment, becoming

230 Berton , Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush , 1896-1899, 396. 78 enamoured by the land and the promise of tightly-knit community. Those stampeders may not have found gold, but they founded the Yukon instead.

The environment of the Yukon underwent massive changes as a consequence of both the Klondike rush and the settlement that persisted after it ended. Trees were felled to build boats, buildings, and sluices as well as to fuel those same boats, and to defrost soil and heat cabins. Mining disrupted the environment in numerous ways: vegetation was cleared, shafts were dug, streams were diverted, and piles of tailings scarred the landscape. This destruction produced a poorer water supply and had consequences for fish, animal, and plant life. Mining, which continued after the rush and is still carried on today, had an increasingly deep environmental footprint and only those who were distanced from the process of mining were able to see the process as destructive rather than progressive.

The Klondike gold rush has left a legacy which has had implications for the economy of the Yukon. This is based on mining and on the tourist trade that has grown up around the gold rush. Gold is still mined in the Yukon by small family affairs and by giant multinational corporations, but no longer by individuals. Metals such as zinc, lead, silver, and copper together with other materials are also mined. The tourism surrounding the rush is also a large part of the economy and portrays the pride of the people who live in the Yukon as permanent inhabitants.

The Klondike gold rush also opened up the north to white settlement.

Communities like Dawson and Whitehorse sprung up during the gold rush and although their populations dropped with the rush to Nome, Alaska, they continued to slowly grow over the beginning of the twentieth century. The frontiers of Alaska, the Yukon, and the 79

North West Territories were the last “white” frontiers in the world. The gold rushes to

Dawson and to Nome, Alaska and later the building of the Alaska Highway brought increasing numbers of white people to the north, many of whom chose to settle there.

It is beyond the scope of this thesis to undertake three things that would take this environmental history of the Klondike gold rush further. First, it would be interesting to examine in more depth the all-Canadian routes to the Klondike and explore the effects of the environment on people on those trails. Their history is less well known than that of the Chilkoot Pass and White Pass. Travellers also had a more difficult time navigating these routes and dealing with isolation found along them. Secondly, the area I would most like to see explored further by other historians is the argument that the experiences and environment of the Klondike gold rush changed people internally as well as physically. I was able to go this far with what I found, but it would be good for other historians to go further into internal change by focussing exclusively on the writings of the gold rush and by looking at people’s lives before and after the gold rush. A stronger case could be made for this argument on this foundation. Lastly, there is a need for an environmental history that stretches past the Klondike gold rush and into the mining practices of the twentieth century. This would enable people to appreciate the changes in mining technology and practices, and how they have produced an increasingly destructive effect on the environment through most of the twentieth century. Recently policies in

Canada have changed: today mining corporations have to take responsibility for their actions and rebuild the landscape when they are finished mining in that area. But this ameliorative function is imposed by law, and it is not widely practised outside Canada or

Western Europe. Canadian companies, and most others operating in the developing 80 world, frequently act in ways that would not have been out of place a hundred years ago – but they do so on a far vaster and therefore more damaging scale.

By examining the Klondike gold rush from an environmental perspective and through the eyes of the people who participated in this event, it is clear that the relationship between participants and the northern environment made this gold rush unique in the annals of similar events that occurred previously or contemporaneously.

The environment was indeed affected by the rush and many parts of the Yukon will never fully return to the pristine state that existed before the rush occurred. However, that is only half the story as the people too were affected by the environment. Stampeders were constantly tested by the northern climate, geography, and frozen ground as well as by the challenges posed by isolation from civilization. Their work mining and surviving in the north had a large impact on the environment, but the environment also took a toll on them. All who travelled to Dawson were affected by their experience. Most stampeders treasured the adventure, the beauty of the north, the community they found, and revelled in the pride of overcoming obstacles. These feelings stayed with them for the rest of their lives, whether they settled in the Yukon or not. Robert Service captured this feeling in

The Spell of the Yukon :

There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still; There’s a land – oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back – and I will. 231

231 Service, 24. 81

Maps and Images

Figure 1: Map of the Routes taken during the Klondike Gold Rush (Source: http://www.classbrain.com/artmonument/publish/klondike_gold_rush_routes_map. shtml)

82

Figure 2: Map of Chilkoot Pass and White Pass (Source: Olive Diary)

83

Figure 3: Klondikers at the Scales, Ascending the Chilkoot Pass, Alaska, 1898 (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections)

Figure 4 Digging Bodies out of Snow Slide on Chilkoot Pass, 3 April, 1898 (Anton Vogee) (Source: Yukon Archives Images Database) 84

Figure 5: Blockade of Klondikers on Porcupine Hill, White Pass Trail, Alaska, 1898 (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections)

Figure 6: Precarious Road Built Along the Side of the Canyon Wall, White Pass, 1899 (Anton Vogee) (Source: Yukon Archives Images Database) 85

Figure 7: Whipsawing Lumber on Lake Lindeman, 1899 (Anton Vogee) (Source: Yukon Archives Images Database)

Figure 8: Bennett Lake, June 1, 1898 (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection) 86

Figure 9: View of White Water Funnelling through Miles Canyon, 1900 (Anton Vogee) (Source: Yukon Archives Images Database)

Figure 10: Boat Floundering in White Horse Rapids, 1900 (Anton Vogee) (Source: Yukon Archives Images Database) 87

Figure 11: Aftermath of a Fire in Dawson, October 14, 1898 (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections)

Figure 12: Horse Drawn Cart Hauling Lumber Stuck in Mud on Front Street, Dawson, 1899 (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections) 88

Figure 13: Looking up Pine from Willow Slide, 1900 (Anton Vogee) (Source: Yukon Archives Images Database)

Figure 14: Five Men at Mining Operation, No. 5 Below Bonanza Creek, 1898 (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection) 89

Figure 15: Miners Working Sluice, 1899 (Anton Vogee) (Source: Yukon Archives Images Database)

Figure 16: Mining Claim No. 8 Above Bonanza Creek Showing Grand Forks, Mouth of Eldorado, Gold Hill, and Big Skookum, 1898 (E. A Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection) 90

Figure 17: Miners Working Sluice on Spruce Creek, Atlin Mining District, 1899 (Anton Vogee) (Source: Yukon Archives Images Database)

Figure 18: Mining Claim No. 2 Bonanza Creek, 1898 (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection) 91

Figure 19: Mining Operations on Eldorado Creek, Yukon Territory, ca. 1898 (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections)

Figure 20: Three Miners Using Pickaxes in Underground Gold Mine Lit by Candlelight (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections) 92

Figure 21: Winter Dumps on Eldorado Mining Claims Waiting to Be Washed in the Spring (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections)

Figure 22: Packtrain at a Mining Claim, Cheechako Hill, 1898 (E.A. Hegg) (Source: University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections) 93

Figure 23: Dredge Tailings around Dawson, 2006 (Heather Longworth)

Figure 24: Diagram of a Rocker (William Shape Diary, 77) 94

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