Talk:Klondike Gold Rush

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This article is part of WikiProject Alaska, an effort to create, expand, organize, and improve Alaska-related articles to a feature-quality standard.

Was all of the gold in the Yukon, or was some of it in Alaska? -- Nik42 19:40, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

• Before the gold rush, there was (and still is) mining along a number of the tributaries of the Yukon River, notably the Stewart River, the Fortymile River — both in the Yukon. After the Klondike gold rush, there was a mini gold rush in Nome, Alaska in 1899 and gold is found along other tributaries of the Yukon in Alaska. However, the big gold find was in the Klondike, entirely in the Yukon. Luigizanasi 21:12, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

how did people live in the gold rush

I don't think this should be part of Project Alaska, as it isn't Alaskan. It is certainly related to the gold booms in Alaska, and important to them, but technically, it happened in another country! Deirdre 14:40, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

As a Yukoner, I have no objection to the Gold Rush being part of Wiki Project Alaska. It was an event that had an important impact on the development of Alaska. While the gold was in the Yukon, part of it did happen in Alaska: Skagway, Alaska and Dyea, Alaska owe their existence to it, and it did lead to the Nome Gold Rush, etc. And there is a US Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park mostly in Alaska. Not to speak of the popular misconception that it did occur in Alaska. Luigizanasi 16:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

It also precipatated the settlement/bulldogging of the Alaska Boundary Dispute and its resolution by the Hay-Herbert Treaty.Skookum1 06:33, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BC & Pacific Northwest History Forum

Please see RE BC & Pacific Northwest History Forum re: Talk:List of United States military history events#Border Commission troops in the Pacific Northwest. If you think maybe I should also move some or copy some of my other stuff from NW history and BC history pages and various Indigenous peoples project article/talk pages let me know; I never mean to blog, but I'm voluble and to me everything's interconnected; never meaning to dominate a page so have made this area to post my historical rambles on. Thoughts?Skookum1 03:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment on my posting of this: if anyone has any questions or wants to debate any issues relating to Oregon Country/Columbia District/Pacific Northwest history/historical geography, colonialist or aboriginal/indigenous or other matters (here YT and AK), please feel free to drop by the forum and start a thread/topic, or just butt in at yer leisure.Skookum1 05:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Item on Flack

- The mining records in Dawson City find that Thomas Flack located two placer mining claims in 1896; He wrote a Power of Attorney in June, 1897; Then returned to Vancouver, Canada where he built a four story office building in 1898, located at 163 West Hastings Street.

Saw Luigizanasi's removal of this and, while I agree, thought it was worth placing here in case anybody digs up anything else on this guy; who sounds like a con man. Don't recall mention of this in Berton, and Berton, for all his flummery, is pretty thorough. The discovery at Rabbit/Bonanza Creek is so thoroughly documented and celebrated that it's hard to believe this didn't make it into any of the main histories of the rush. 163 West Hastings...hmmm, there's a Fleck Bros Block, the one that spans the corner of Hastings and Cambie and has the MoneyMart in it; but it's not four stories anyway (kind of a trendy building; has/had the Directors' Guild offices in it, plus other film offices); there are two four-story buildings just east of it on Hastings; given the number I'd say it's the one with the elegant framed-oval window on the top floor.Skookum1 18:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Thomas Flack doesn't seem to have been especially notable. I only found two references to him on Google other than Wikipedia mirrors. One was from a British artist who was artist in residence in Dawson, and the other on the Flack building. There is currently an application for a Heritage Building Rehabilitation in Vancouver for the Flack building, which probably is where the comment above came from. See [1] (PDF). Interstingly, I also ran into a babelfish type translation into Italian of that and other Wikipedia articles at an Italian casino site. Luigizanasi 20:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edmonton contradiction?

"The gold rush is an important event in the history of the city of Edmonton" vs. "The tenuous, and arguably fraudulent, connection of Edmonton with the Klondike Gold Rush"

So... which is it? -- TheMightyQuill 07:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The latter. Edmonton may have its Klondike Days, but AFAIK only one party - if one - made it from Edmonton to the Klondike. Edmonton was, like other places of dubious viability, touted as the best way to get to the Klondike....I'm not sure how many hundreds of miles it is - well over a 1000 I think - and there were NO TRAILS (never mind roads) plus the infamous weather of the Liard-Yukon basins. Exactly how many miles of muskeg can a conestoga make it through anyway? (answer: none; I mention the Conestoga because it's part of Edmonton's Klondike Days imagery). None of the overland expeditions that set out from Edmonton made it even as far as Fort Nelson - a straggler or two maybe made it to Teslin or Tagish - a few years later - and the infamous Red River of the Arctic expedition, which voyaged down the Athabasca and Mackenzie to come back up the Red River of the Arctic (which runs NE into the Mac near Aklavik, from the northern Yukon), did see two survivors stumble into Dawson City - about 1904 or so; they'd eaten most of their shipmates, or so the story goes, and the vessel itself was burned for firewood. Edmonton's claim to any connection with the Klondike mostly has to do with a real-estate boom connected with the rush; but nothing of consequence directly connected to the rush actually ever happened. Similar blowhard histories are connected with Barkerville/Cariboo Gold Rush, which badly-written public histories/pamphlets tout as the reason that BC became a colony; nope that was the Fraser Canyon Rush and in point of fact the logistics of the Cariboo Gold Rush helped bankrupt the gold colony (infrastructure costs, namely the Cariboo Wagon Road), thereby driving it into union with the island colony, and then union with Canada. And we're still looking for bailouts on infrastructure we get ourselves into, then look for someone else to pay for it (Hwy 99 anyone?...Evergreen Line, too).Skookum1 19:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

And as for the most important event in the history of Edmonton, you'd think that would be either its designation as provincial capital, or the construction of the Grand Trunk/Canadian National mainline.Skookum1 19:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)