For everyday folks, the gold rush was a chance to turn their lives around the potential discovery of gold promised a better life for families plagued by financial insecurity and recovering from the Panic of 1893 and Panic of 1896. Thousands of eager, ordinary people made their way north in search of gold. “Klondike Fever” reached its height in the United States in mid-July 1897. Both of our most recent exhibitions, Bending Lines and America Transformed, emphasize how maps have long been used not only as a tool to claim territory, but also to find and exploit resources, attain wealth, and even gain control of people. Maps, of course, have always played a role in the exploration of new lands. The rush would bring an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region between 18, and had a profound impact on land, economic development, and native communities. The last great gold rush of the American West had begun: the Great Klondike Gold Rush.

News of the gold strike spread fast across Canada and the United States Rabbit Creek was renamed Bonanza Creek, and even more gold was discovered in a nearby Klondike tributary named Eldorado.

The men staked their claim on that plot of land the following day. It’s unclear which man made the discovery of the gold nuggets most historians believe that Skookum Jim spotted it first, but that Carmack was named as the “official” finder, as the men feared authorities would not recognize an indigenous claimant. On August 16, 1896, three men discovered gold nuggets in the river while camping and fishing near Rabbit Creek in the Klondike River territory: American prospector George Carmack, and two Tagish people, Keish (Skookum Jim), who was Carmack’s brother-in-law, and Káa Goox (Dawson Charlie).

Prospectors bound for the Klondike gold fields, in Chilkoot Pass, Alaska, 1898.

Klondike gold rush games free online