for there were few who really believed that any gold lay in the region of the Klondike. They staked from force of habit, as they had staked so often before, and once this ritual was completed, often enough they forgot about it, or failed to record their ground, or sold it for a trifle. A Klondike claim was considered virtually worthless. If a man had enough food he stayed on, but many returned hungrily to Fortymile thinking they had found nothing.
And some did not bother to stake at all. Two men arrived at the mouth of the Klondike from the Indian River country and debated about going up. “I wouldn’t go across the river on that old Siwash’s word,” said one, recalling Carmack’s reputation, and on they went to Fortymile and oblivion without further ceremony. Another party argued for three hours at the river mouth, agreed in the end not to stake, and pushed off for Circle City.
Uly Gaisford, a barber from Tacoma, passed by the Klondike, still sick at heart over the infidelities of his wife, which had driven him to Alaska, and stunned by the boat wreck on the Pelly River that had cost him everything but the clothes on his back. He staked on Bonanza, but thought so little of the claim or of his own personal prospects that he went on to Circle City to take up barbering. To his later astonishment, his property produced for him fifty thousand dollars within a year.
Another trudged up Bonanza as far as Twenty Above , then shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll leave it to the Swedes,” he said, using the classic term of derision, for Scandinavians were alleged to work ground that no other man would touch. A companion drove his stakes into the neighbouring Twenty-One , then decided not to record. He wrote a wry comment on the stakes: “This moose pasture reserved for Swedes and Cheechakos.” Along came Louis B. Rhodes of Fortymile, put his own name on the stakes, and wondered why he had bothered. For two bits, he told his friends, he’d cut it off again. Nobody had two bits, and so Rhodes stayed on and thanked his stars he had. By spring he was worth more than sixty thousand dollars and had staked all his cronies to mining properties.
It was the old-timers who were sceptical of Bonanza. The valley was too wide, they said, and the willows did not lean the proper way, and the water did not taste right. It was too far upriver. It was on the wrong side of the Yukon. It was moose pasture. Only the cheechakos were too green to realize that it could not contain gold, and this naïveté made some of them rich.
The men who staked were men who saw the Klondike as a last chance, men in poor luck, sick and discouraged, with nothing better to do than follow the siren call of a new stampede. Many of these sold their claims in the first week, believing them worthless, and many more tried vainly to sell, so that in that first winter two thirds of the richest properties in the Klondike watershed could have been purchased for a song. Most men were too poor to work their claims; they went back to Dawson or Fortymile to try to get work to raise funds. Others, infected by the excitement of the moment, simply wandered back and forth aimlessly up and down the valley.
Carmack himself could not start work at once. He was forced to cut logs for Ladue’s mill to earn enough to feed himself, and even then was so short of funds that he could build only three lengths of sluicebox; as he had no wheelbarrow, he carried the gravel in a box on his back for one hundred feet to the stream to wash out the gold. In spite of this awkward arrangement, he cleaned up fourteen hundred dollars from surface prospects in less than a month. But even in the face of this evidence there were only a few men who believed religiously that there was actually gold in the valleys of the Klondike.
4
The kings of Eldorado
By the end of August all of Bonanza Creek had been staked, and new prospectors, arriving daily, were fanning out across the Klondike watershed looking for
And some did not bother to stake at all. Two men arrived at the mouth of the Klondike from the Indian River country and debated about going up. “I wouldn’t go across the river on that old Siwash’s word,” said one, recalling Carmack’s reputation, and on they went to Fortymile and oblivion without further ceremony. Another party argued for three hours at the river mouth, agreed in the end not to stake, and pushed off for Circle City.
Uly Gaisford, a barber from Tacoma, passed by the Klondike, still sick at heart over the infidelities of his wife, which had driven him to Alaska, and stunned by the boat wreck on the Pelly River that had cost him everything but the clothes on his back. He staked on Bonanza, but thought so little of the claim or of his own personal prospects that he went on to Circle City to take up barbering. To his later astonishment, his property produced for him fifty thousand dollars within a year.
Another trudged up Bonanza as far as Twenty Above , then shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll leave it to the Swedes,” he said, using the classic term of derision, for Scandinavians were alleged to work ground that no other man would touch. A companion drove his stakes into the neighbouring Twenty-One , then decided not to record. He wrote a wry comment on the stakes: “This moose pasture reserved for Swedes and Cheechakos.” Along came Louis B. Rhodes of Fortymile, put his own name on the stakes, and wondered why he had bothered. For two bits, he told his friends, he’d cut it off again. Nobody had two bits, and so Rhodes stayed on and thanked his stars he had. By spring he was worth more than sixty thousand dollars and had staked all his cronies to mining properties.
It was the old-timers who were sceptical of Bonanza. The valley was too wide, they said, and the willows did not lean the proper way, and the water did not taste right. It was too far upriver. It was on the wrong side of the Yukon. It was moose pasture. Only the cheechakos were too green to realize that it could not contain gold, and this naïveté made some of them rich.
The men who staked were men who saw the Klondike as a last chance, men in poor luck, sick and discouraged, with nothing better to do than follow the siren call of a new stampede. Many of these sold their claims in the first week, believing them worthless, and many more tried vainly to sell, so that in that first winter two thirds of the richest properties in the Klondike watershed could have been purchased for a song. Most men were too poor to work their claims; they went back to Dawson or Fortymile to try to get work to raise funds. Others, infected by the excitement of the moment, simply wandered back and forth aimlessly up and down the valley.
Carmack himself could not start work at once. He was forced to cut logs for Ladue’s mill to earn enough to feed himself, and even then was so short of funds that he could build only three lengths of sluicebox; as he had no wheelbarrow, he carried the gravel in a box on his back for one hundred feet to the stream to wash out the gold. In spite of this awkward arrangement, he cleaned up fourteen hundred dollars from surface prospects in less than a month. But even in the face of this evidence there were only a few men who believed religiously that there was actually gold in the valleys of the Klondike.
4
The kings of Eldorado
By the end of August all of Bonanza Creek had been staked, and new prospectors, arriving daily, were fanning out across the Klondike watershed looking for
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