Klondike Gold Rush - Background

Background

The indigenous peoples in north-west America had traded in copper nuggets prior to European expansion. Most of the tribes were aware that gold existed in region but the metal was not valued by them. The Russians and the Hudson Bay Company had both explored the Yukon in the first half of the 19th century, but ignored the rumours of gold in favour of fur trading, which offered more immediate profits. In the second half of the 19th century, however, American prospectors began to spread into the peninsula. Making deals with the Native Tlingit and Tagish tribes, the early prospectors succeeded in opening up the important routes of Chilkoot and White Pass to reach the Yukon valley between 1870–90. Here, they encountered the Hän people, semi-nomadic hunters and fishermen who lived along the Yukon and Klondike Rivers. The Hän did not appear to know about the extent of the gold deposits in the region.

In 1883, Ed Schieffelin identified gold deposits along the Yukon River, and an expedition up the Fortymile River returned having discovered considerable amounts of it. By the late 1880s, several hundred miners were working their way along the Yukon valley and on both sides of the Klondike, living in small mining camps and trading with the Hän.