HISTORY
LEGACY
The Klondike Gold Rush is an iconic piece of Canadian history that people all over the world know about. This amazing historical event came to represent relief from the Depression in the U.S., a way to get rich quickly, and the American belief in opportunities that the frontier could provide. It also changed the public’s perception of the North from a frozen wasteland to a land of adventure and prosperity. The gold rush rapidly advanced the development of Yukon as well, which would have been much slower otherwise. If gold hadn’t been discovered there, people probably wouldn’t have rushed to build towns in that part of Canada.
Robert Service
The Klondike Gold Rush became a part of North American culture, and was the subject of many poems, books, photos, and even several movies. One of the most well-known writers and poets who told stories about the gold rush was Robert Service. He was a banker who was sent to work up in Yukon in 1904, where he was so inspired by the events of the gold rush that he began writing poems about them. His two most well known poems, “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee” were praised for their portrayal of life in the Klondike.
Robert Service posing in front of his cabin in Dawson City.
Source: Gillis, A.J. Robert Service and His Cabin. Circa 1908-1912. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Turner Collection. Yukon Archives.
Robert Service’s words influenced how a lot of people thought about Dawson City and the gold rush. But while there might be some truth to those poems, it’s important to remember that his stories were just that: stories. Service arrived after the gold rush was already over, so he wasn’t writing from personal experience. His work was a mix of reality and fantasy. The dangerous, “shoot ‘em up” Dawson City that he described never existed, since it was actually illegal to carry firearms there.
Impacts on Indigenous Peoples
The initial arrival of miners in Yukon brought a bit of prosperity to some Indigenous people, because they were hired as packers or day-workers, and they could sell fish and meat to the miners. But overall, the Klondike Gold Rush had many negative long-term impacts for the Indigenous peoples of Yukon.
Two First Nations packers and Lloyd V. Winter (a photographer), pulling sleds over a makeshift bridge across the Dyea River, which was along the Chilkoot Pass route to the Klondike gold fields.
Source: The centre figure is Lloyd V. Winter, the photographer. Circa 1895-1898. Yukon Archives.
One of the biggest changes brought about by the gold rush was the decline in the fur trade. Indigenous people had great control over the fur trade, because they were the ones who provided most of the furs. But once mining became the major economic activity in Yukon, Indigenous people weren’t really allowed to take part, even though the co-discoverers of the gold at Bonanza Creek were Indigenous.
Unfortunately many miners had prejudiced attitudes towards Indigenous people, and didn’t want them involved in the mining activities. Because of this, Indigenous people had no influence over how those mining activities were carried out, and so they were pretty much pushed to the side as the mining frontier developed around them.
Portrait of a First Nations family.
Source: Indians in the Yukon. Circa 1897-1904. Ernest Brown Collection. Yukon Archives.
The Klondike Gold Rush particularly impacted the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, because Dawson City was built on their traditional territory. A traditional fishing camp of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, known as Tr’ochëk, was located just north of Dawson City, where the Yukon and Klondike Rivers meet. This camp was very active in the summer when Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people used it to catch salmon and hunt moose.
During the gold rush, as thousands of newcomers arrived in Dawson City, Chief Isaac, the chief of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, moved his entire community north to Moosehide Creek. He negotiated with the Government of Canada to get some land to set up a reserve there, so that his people could be away from the stampeders who were disrupting their traditional way of life.
Map of the Klondike region. Note Moosehead Creek and the reserve (labelled as “Indian Village”) just above Dawson City.
Source: Adney, T. Klondike and the Indian River Gold Fields. 1898. Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection. Stanford University Libraries.
He saw the influence that the newcomers to Dawson City were having on his people, and he worried that the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in culture would be lost. To preserve some of that heritage, Chief Isaac shared the group’s language and many of their songs and dances with another First Nations group in Alaska, so that one day they could give these traditions back to the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in. In the 1950s the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in moved from Moosehide back to Dawson City and began working with the people in Alaska to reclaim those parts of their traditional culture.
Chief Isaac (wearing the hat and glasses) with a group of First Nations people.
Source: Champagne Aishihik First Nations people. Circa 1940. Elsie Smith Collection. Yukon Archives.
Faced with prejudiced attitudes, the spread of diseases, and a disruption to their traditional way of life, most other First Nations groups preferred to avoid the mining communities as much as possible. The gold rush is often considered the beginning of the end for traditional Indigenous ways of life, as many groups were pushed out of their hunting areas by the increasing settler population. They were moved to reserves of protected land, which were much smaller than their traditional territories. However, years later, many of the Yukon First Nations began the process of reclaiming their land by negotiating for land rights with the Canadian government.
From left to right: George P. MacKenzie, Chief Jim Boss, Skookum Jim (a co-discoverer of the gold at Bonanza Creek), and Reverend W.G. Blackwell.
Source: Hamacher, E.J. George P. MacKenzie, Chief Jim Boss, Skookum Jim Mason, and Reverend W.G. Blackwell. Circa 1910-1916. Rev. W.G. Blackwell Collection. Yukon Archives.
Today most of these First Nations govern themselves, and are working to protect and pass on knowledge of their traditional heritage and culture.
Environmental Impacts
The arrival of hundreds of thousands of new people in the area put pressure on Yukon’s natural resources in a way that the fur trade era never did. Tons of trees were cut down for stampeders to use as firewood, shelter, and boats as they made their way up to Dawson. Around Dawson City, the forest disappeared as trees were cut down to build houses, saloons, dance halls, and other buildings, as well as in the mines to make fires and thaw the soil that miners would dig up and sluice later in the year.
The stampeders also over-hunted the local wildlife. Unlike the Indigenous people, who would hunt different animals at different times of year, and who always made sure to leave enough to keep the animal populations going, stampeders didn’t care about these things, and just hunted whatever they could find. As the animals began to disappear, moose and caribou especially, Indingeous hunters had to travel further to hunt, often outside of their traditional hunting territories.
The mining activities themselves also greatly affected the landscape. During the summer, miners would reroute parts of the streams so that the water would flow into sluice boxes to sort out the gold. The dirt and soil that were washed through these sluice boxes were then placed in huge waste piles known as tailings. Tailings were also produced from the dredges that were used for mining later on. These waste piles are still seen in the Klondike today. Hydraulic mining also had an impact. The high-pressure hoses changed the hillsides by stripping away the dirt and gravel.
A creek in the Klondike. The piles of dirt in the middle of the creek are dredge tailings.
Source: A creek with dredge tailings in the Klondike Gold Fields. Circa 1920. Garry Trew Collection. Yukon Archives.
“The first Yukon land claim began in 1902 when Chief Jim Boss of the Ta’an Kwäch’än wrote to the Department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa and demanded that his people be compensated for their lost land and the decrease in wildlife caused by the newcomers to Yukon.”
Water pollution was another problem that resulted from the gold rush. Runoff from the mines and hydraulic mining in the hills, along with human and animal waste, ran into the rivers and streams. This affected the plants that grew in the water, as well as the fish.
“Runoff is extra water that isn’t absorbed back into the earth. Natural runoff occurs when snow melts. Runoff can also be caused by human activity, and often carries chemicals or other pollutants with it.”