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Waiting for the ice to break at Lake Bennett.

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Waiting for the ice to break at Lake Bennett.

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A Cornish Wheel -designed to use water power to operate a pump.

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A Cornish Wheel -designed to use water power to operate a pump.

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The rapids on the Yukon River were dangerous!

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The rapids on the Yukon River were dangerous!

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Not everyone was in a rush to brave the fierce water and soon a small town known as Canyon City came to life at the bend in the river above the rapids. Boats lined up as people waited for their pilot, or better conditions, or even the courage to run the rapids.

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Staking a claim -an area staked where only you may look for gold after you register it.

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Staking a claim -an area staked where only you may look for gold after you register it.

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A flume -an open wooden pipe to carry water from a source somewhere above.

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A flume -an open wooden pipe to carry water from a source somewhere above.

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Gold Poke - a heavy cloth drawstring bag to carry your gold.

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Gold Poke - a heavy cloth drawstring bag to carry your gold.

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Miners used many different methods and equipment to wrest the gold out of the rivers and ground of British Columbia.

The basic tool of the solitary miner was the gold pan, supplemented at times by a rocker. Once miners started to band together, they would build other equipment such as sluice boxes, and flumes. Tunnels and shafts often had to be constructed to get at the gold deep in the ground. However, the basic principle of separating the "gold" from the "dirt" relied on the fact that the gold was heavier than anything else.

Gold Panning
Prospectors would use gold panning to both find the gold in creeks and streams, as well as to recover it.

A shovelful of dirt and gravel would be placed into the pan. The pan would then be lowered into the water and gently moved in circles. Large stones in the pan would thrown out, and the dirt broken up using the miner's fingers. As the pan moved in circles, muddy water and sand would float out of the pan, with the much heavier gold remaining at the bottom of the pan.

Cradles or Rockers
Faster and more productive than panning, but still easily moved around was the cradle or rocker. These devices were similar to a baby's cradle in that they could be rocked back and forth using a handle.

Dirt and gravel and water would be placed onto a box on top of the cradle that had holes in it. Underneath the box on top was a sloping and rounded surface covered in canvas called the "slide or apron". As the cradle was rocked, the finer gold and sand, would wash through the holes in the top box and be caught by ridges and canvas on the apron. The larger rocks caught by the hopper would be thrown out, and the process repeated with a new batch of dirt and gravel.

Flumes
Water was not always right at hand where the miner needed it. Long wooden troughs called "flumes" used gravity to bring the water down to the site of the diggings. The flumes would be often be held up and supported off the ground by timbers. Flumes sometimes had to run long distances and even span over deep gorges.

Sluicing

Sluicing was even better than using a cradle as a flow of running water did most most of the work of separating the gold from the dirt and gravel.

A sluice box was an long open wooden trough that got narrower and lower at one end. Dirt and gravel would be placed at the top and washed down the length of the sluice by a constant stream of water, usually from a flume. Gold would be caught either by "riffles" (ridges on the bottom of the sluice box) or by a false bottom with holes in it. Mud and the larger chunks of rock would wash out the lower end leaving the gold behind.

Shafts and Tunnels

To get to gold that was deep in the ground, miners had to "sink shafts" down into the ground and "run tunnels" into the side of a hill.

Shafts went straight down like a well. Miners raised the rock and gravel up to the surface using a windlass and a bucket or tub.
Tunnels were dug horizontally into the side of a hill or at the bottom of a gulch or a ravine. The sides and the roof of the tunnel had to be supported against cave-ins by the use of heavy timbers. Rock and gravel would be removed from the tunnel using either wheelbarrows, or a narrow track of rails and a rail car.

Cornish Wheel

Miners who had dug shafts into the ground were often faced with water seeping into the shaft and flooding it.

The "Cornish Wheel" consisted of a large wooden wheel with shelves. Water would be fed to the wheel using flumes and then allowed to fall onto the top of the wheel and its shelves, making it turn. The wheel would then drive a rocker arm, which in turn would pump water from the mine shaft.

Hydraulic Mining

The quickest way of mining gold from hills was the use of hydraulic mining, but it was not used in British Columbia until later years.

Water would be carried to the mining site via canals and ditches where it would go into a hose. The beginning of the hose was larger and higher than the other end which would have a pipe attached to it, so the weight of the water going into the hose would force it out the other end at great pressure. It was like mining using a fire engine hose, as the jet of water would cut into the hillside, washing the dirt and gravel down into a sluice box.

Unfortunately, this could also be quite dangerous. It was not uncommon for overly eager miners to be buried when the bank of a hillside caved down on top of them. The quickest method of attempting a rescue was to "sluice them out" using the same jet of water.

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THE EQUIPMENT AND MACHINES - THE CARIBOO GOLD RUSH - BC ARCHIVES TIME MACHINE

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Miners used many different methods and equipment to wrest the gold out of the rivers and ground of British Columbia. The basic tool of the solitary miner was the gold pan, supplemented at times by a rocker. Once miners started to band together, they would build other equipment such as sluice boxes, and flumes.

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a faster way to get at gold bearing gravel .

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like a flume with riffles in the bottom to catch gold .

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Klondike Gold Rush

Other names

Alaska Gold Rush, Yukon Gold Rush

Centre

Dawson City at Klondike River, Yukon, Canada

Duration

1896-99 (stampede: 1897-98)

Discovery

August 16, 1896, Bonanza Creek

Discoverers

George Carmack and Skookum Jim

Prospectors

100,000 of whom 30,000 arrived

Routes

Dyea/ Skagway route and others

The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896, and, when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in photographs, books, films, and artifacts.

To reach the gold fields, most took the route through the ports of Dyea and Skagway in Southeast Alaska. Here, the Klondikers could follow either the Chilkoot or the White Pass trails to the Yukon River and sail down to the Klondike.

Each of them was required to bring a year's supply of food by the Canadian authorities in order to prevent starvation. In all, their equipment weighed close to a ton, which for most had to be carried in stages by themselves. Together with mountainous terrain and cold climate, this meant that those who persisted did not arrive until summer 1898. Once there, they found few opportunities, and many left disappointed.

Mining was challenging as the ore was distributed in an uneven manner and digging was made slow by permafrost. As a result, some miners chose to buy and sell claims, building up huge investments and letting others do the work. To accommodate the prospectors, boom towns sprang up along the routes and at their end Dawson City was founded at the meeting of the Klondike and the Yukon River.

From a population of 500 in 1896, the town grew to house around 30,000 people by summer 1898. Built of wood, isolated and unsanitary, Dawson suffered from fires, high prices, and epidemics. Despite this, the wealthiest prospectors spent extravagantly gambling and drinking in the saloons. The Native Hän people, on the other hand, suffered from the rush, being moved into a reserve to make way for the stampeders, and many died.

From 1898, the newspapers that had encouraged so many to travel to the Klondike lost interest in it. In the summer of 1899, gold was discovered around Nome in west Alaska, and many prospectors left the Klondike for the new goldfields, marking the end of the rush. The boom towns declined and the population of Dawson City fell.

Gold mining activity lasted until 1903 when production peaked after heavier equipment was brought in. Since then the Klondike has been mined on and off, and today the legacy draws tourists to the region and contributes to its prosperity. An estimated 14,000,000 ounces (400,000,000 g) of gold has been taken from the area.

Images for kids

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Klondike Gold Rush Other names Alaska Gold Rush, Yukon Gold Rush Centre Dawson City at Klondike River, Yukon, Canada Duration 1896-99 (stampede: 1897-98) Discovery August 16, 1896, Bonanza Creek Discoverers George Carmack and Skookum Jim Prospectors 100,000 of whom 30,000 arrived Routes Dyea/ Skagway route and others The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899.