Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 by Pierre Berton Page A
Authors: Pierre Berton
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more ground. None realized it, but the richest treasure of all still lay undiscovered.
Down Bonanza, in search of unstaked ground, trudged a young Austrian immigrant named Antone Stander. For nine years, ever since he had landed in New York City from his home province of Unterkrien, Stander had been seeking his fortune in the remote corners of the continent, working as a cowboy, as a sheep-herder, as a farmer, as a coal-miner, and now as a prospector. When he arrived in the New World, unable to speak a word of English, he had just one dollar and seventy-five cents to his name, and after mastering the language and walking over most of North America on foot he was no richer. All his funds had been spent on the trip north in the spring of 1896. Now, on this last day of August, he was embarking on a final gamble.
He was a handsome man, just twenty-nine years old, with dark, curly hair and sensitive, romantic-looking features. As he reached the south fork of Bonanza Creek, a few hundred feet above Carmack’s claim, he stopped to examine it curiously. Later Stander would look back upon this as the climactic moment of his life, for after this day nothing was ever again the same for him. The narrow wooded ravine, with a trickle of water snaking along its bottom, still had no name. The prospectors referred to it in Yukon parlance as “Bonanza’s pup.” It was soon to be known as Eldorado.
Stander arrived at the fork with four companions, all of whom had already staked on Bonanza. They had little faith in their property, but on an impulse they walked up the pup in a group and sank their pans into the sand. Like Stander, each had reached the end of the line financially. One, Jay Whipple, was an old prospector who had come down from the Sixtymile country. Another, Frank Keller, had been a railway brakeman in California. A third, J. J. Clements of New York, had almost starved to death the previous winter. The fourth, Frank Phiscator, a Michigan farm boy, had worked his way west, carrying the mail on horseback in order to earn enough money to come north. Now they stared into the first pan and, to their astonishment, saw that there was more than six dollars’ worth of gold in the bottom. They had no way of knowing it, but this was the richest creek in the world. Each of the claims staked that day eventually produced one million dollars or more.
As Stander and his companions drove in their stakes, others up and down Bonanza began to sense by some curious kind of telepathy, that something tantalizing was in the wind. Louis Emkins, a lean-faced and rangy prospector from Illinois, was toiling up Bonanza when he saw will-o’-the-wisp campfires flickering among the bushes of the unexplored creek. It was enough to send the blood pulsing through his veins. He and his three companions quickened their pace and burst upon Stander and the others, who tried to discourage the newcomers, saying that the prospects were small and only on the surface. Already the old code of the Pioneers was being thrown into discard.
Two of the men turned back at once, a fortune slipping from their grasp, but Emkins and his partner George Demars stayed on. Seven had already been staked illegally for a friend in Fortymile, but Emkins, a resolute figure with a forbidding black moustache, would have none of it. He tore up the stakes and substituted his own and by that single action made himself wealthy. Within a year he was able to sell out for more than one hundred thousand dollars.
William Johns, a black-bearded and rawboned ex-newspaper reporter from Chicago, was at the mouth of Eldorado when Emkins’s two discouraged comrades emerged talking disconsolately of “skim diggings” on a moose flat. Some sixth sense told Johns to prospect the pup anyway. He had a strange feeling that something important was afoot, and this sensation increased when he met Emkins and Demars, who were elaborately casual about their prospects, and then Frank Keller, Stander’s
Down Bonanza, in search of unstaked ground, trudged a young Austrian immigrant named Antone Stander. For nine years, ever since he had landed in New York City from his home province of Unterkrien, Stander had been seeking his fortune in the remote corners of the continent, working as a cowboy, as a sheep-herder, as a farmer, as a coal-miner, and now as a prospector. When he arrived in the New World, unable to speak a word of English, he had just one dollar and seventy-five cents to his name, and after mastering the language and walking over most of North America on foot he was no richer. All his funds had been spent on the trip north in the spring of 1896. Now, on this last day of August, he was embarking on a final gamble.
He was a handsome man, just twenty-nine years old, with dark, curly hair and sensitive, romantic-looking features. As he reached the south fork of Bonanza Creek, a few hundred feet above Carmack’s claim, he stopped to examine it curiously. Later Stander would look back upon this as the climactic moment of his life, for after this day nothing was ever again the same for him. The narrow wooded ravine, with a trickle of water snaking along its bottom, still had no name. The prospectors referred to it in Yukon parlance as “Bonanza’s pup.” It was soon to be known as Eldorado.
Stander arrived at the fork with four companions, all of whom had already staked on Bonanza. They had little faith in their property, but on an impulse they walked up the pup in a group and sank their pans into the sand. Like Stander, each had reached the end of the line financially. One, Jay Whipple, was an old prospector who had come down from the Sixtymile country. Another, Frank Keller, had been a railway brakeman in California. A third, J. J. Clements of New York, had almost starved to death the previous winter. The fourth, Frank Phiscator, a Michigan farm boy, had worked his way west, carrying the mail on horseback in order to earn enough money to come north. Now they stared into the first pan and, to their astonishment, saw that there was more than six dollars’ worth of gold in the bottom. They had no way of knowing it, but this was the richest creek in the world. Each of the claims staked that day eventually produced one million dollars or more.
As Stander and his companions drove in their stakes, others up and down Bonanza began to sense by some curious kind of telepathy, that something tantalizing was in the wind. Louis Emkins, a lean-faced and rangy prospector from Illinois, was toiling up Bonanza when he saw will-o’-the-wisp campfires flickering among the bushes of the unexplored creek. It was enough to send the blood pulsing through his veins. He and his three companions quickened their pace and burst upon Stander and the others, who tried to discourage the newcomers, saying that the prospects were small and only on the surface. Already the old code of the Pioneers was being thrown into discard.
Two of the men turned back at once, a fortune slipping from their grasp, but Emkins and his partner George Demars stayed on. Seven had already been staked illegally for a friend in Fortymile, but Emkins, a resolute figure with a forbidding black moustache, would have none of it. He tore up the stakes and substituted his own and by that single action made himself wealthy. Within a year he was able to sell out for more than one hundred thousand dollars.
William Johns, a black-bearded and rawboned ex-newspaper reporter from Chicago, was at the mouth of Eldorado when Emkins’s two discouraged comrades emerged talking disconsolately of “skim diggings” on a moose flat. Some sixth sense told Johns to prospect the pup anyway. He had a strange feeling that something important was afoot, and this sensation increased when he met Emkins and Demars, who were elaborately casual about their prospects, and then Frank Keller, Stander’s
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