The Discovery Claim

The group had been prospecting together for eight years when they finally made their big gold discovery. That day on August 16, 1896, after gathering up a bit of the gold they had found, the four of them made camp for the night.

The next morning, known as Discovery Day, George Carmack wrote out the first notice of claim—the Discovery Claim.

A mining claim is an area of land that a miner has claimed as their own, giving them the right to take minerals from that portion of land. To stake a mining claim means to mark out the area of land that is being claimed. Usually this was done by staking posts into the ground all around the area. The process of staking claims began during the California Gold Rush of 1849. Before there were any laws about property rights in the gold fields, miners had to come up with their own way of marking the land they were mining as their own. Over time the informal rules of mining claims were actually turned into legal regulations.

In Yukon at the time of the big discovery, claims could be 2,000 ft (609 m) and 500 ft (152.5 m) wide—that’s as long as 11 school buses in a row! Most miners were only allowed to stake one claim at a time in an area, unless they were the first ones to discover gold there—then they could stake two. George Carmack said he was the “official discoverer” of gold at Rabbit Creek so that he could stake the two claims for himself. His male partners, Jim and Charlie, each made one. Kate Carmack did not stake a claim. 

After the four claims had been staked, Carmack wrote the word “bonanza” on a strip of bark and attached it to one of his claim stakes. From that day on, Rabbit Creek was renamed as Bonanza Creek.

George Carmack and Charlie then set off in their boat down the Yukon River, to go register their claims at Forty Mile. Jim stayed to keep an eye on the claims. On the way, they shared the good news with any prospectors they ran into. Many of the other miners laughed at their story; Carmack had a reputation for exaggerating about gold he’d discovered in the past (many miners called him “Lyin’ George”). But once he showed one of the gold nuggets he’d taken from Bonanza, the other miners believed him and began making their way to the creek too.

Overnight, the settlement of Forty Mile was emptied as all the miners rushed to Bonanza. Practically every miner in Yukon had heard the news and wanted to stake their own claim there. 

The first part of the Klondike Gold Rush had officially begun!

The Controversy

There is a lot of controversy over who actually discovered the gold at Bonanza Creek. Who saw it first? This is still up for debate today.

George Carmack insisted he was the one to initially spot the gold, but Jim and Charlie both said it was Jim who did, and in some versions of their stories, they said that Carmack was actually taking a nap at the time. Carmack reportedly told them Canadian mining regulations didn’t consider Indigenous peoples to be legitimate discoverers, which is why he should be the one to claim the discovery. He convinced Jim and Charlie of this, and so they let him sign the discovery application.

There are also several accounts that say Kate made the actual discovery.

Robert Henderson

To make things more complicated, another miner threw his name into the mix, saying that he should be credited with the discovery that started the Klondike Gold Rush. This man was Robert Henderson, an experienced miner from Nova Scotia. (By 1896 he had been hunting for gold for over 20 years.)

In July of 1896, George Carmack, Jim, Kate, and Charlie passed by Henderson along the Klondike River. He told Carmack he had found some promising traces of gold at Gold Bottom Creek—this was part of the “unwritten code” of the miners, that they would share information about potential gold spots with each other. But he said that while Carmack was welcome to stake a claim there, his Indigenous partners were not. This prejudice would cost Henderson a fortune, literally. 

Carmack, Jim, and Charlie did check out Gold Bottom Creek, but they didn’t find anything worthwhile there. It wasn’t until they made their way to nearby Rabbit Creek (later renamed Bonanza Creek) in August that they made their big discovery.

Even though Henderson wasn’t the one to actually find the gold at Bonanza, he said that he should be given credit for the major discovery because he’s the one who told George Cormack and his companions about the potential for gold in the Klondike region. But the reality is, Henderson wasn’t the one to find the gold. And he hadn’t suggested Carmack try prospecting at Bonanza Creek. If he had thought the creek had potential, he would’ve been there himself. 

But Henderson hadn’t staked his own claim on Bonanza Creek earlier, and he would never get the chance to, because no one told him about the big gold discovery. Even though he was nearby, and Jim, Charlie, and Carmack could have easily found and told him, they didn’t. Most likely this was because of his negative attitude towards Jim and Charlie. By the time Henderson showed up at Bonanza Creek, three weeks after the big discovery, all of the best locations had already been claimed by other miners. 

Over the next four years, Carmack, Jim, and Charlie worked their claims and found nearly $1 million worth of gold between them (that’s over $30 million today!) Henderson got nothing. 

Nevertheless, Henderson was at one time recognized as the official discoverer by the Canadian government. (Today he is credited as a co-discoverer.) Whether this was because he was a Canadian citizen and George Carmack was an American, or because the government refused to recognize Jim or Charlie as the official discoverers, since they were Indigenous, is still uncertain.