Klondike: The Last Gold Rush
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- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
- Check my other channel Biographics! / @biographics
It’s been called the last great adventure of the 19th Century. In 1896, prospectors in Yukon Territory fished a thumb sized nugget of gold out Rabbit Creek. The find triggered a human tsunami not seen since the days of the California Gold Rush. Across the US, tens of thousands abandoned their homes to take their chances in the northern wilderness. At a time when a city like Seattle might have a population of only forty thousand, one hundred thousand people converged on Klondike, hoping to strike it rich. Instead, what many of them found was death, disease, and destitution.
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Credits:
Host - Simon Whistler
Author - Morris M.
Producer - Jennifer Da Silva
Executive Producer - Shell Harris
Business inquiries to admin@toptenz.net
Source/Further reading:
Excellent overview of the Gold Rush: www.historynet.com/klondike-g...
History Hit podcast on the rush: www.stitcher.com/podcast/dan-...
Stories of the Gold Rush: www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/histor...
Soapy Smith: www.historynet.com/soapy-smit...
History’s take: www.history.com/topics/westwa...
Shorter overview: www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/goldru...
All the things that could kill you: www.nps.gov/articles/klgo-dea...
Klondike Kate: books.google.ie/books?id=rJQC...
Dawson City: explorenorth.com/yukon/dawson-...
Wyatt Earp in Klondike: truewestmagazine.com/wyatt-ea...
California Gold Rush: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05n...
www.thoughtco.com/going-to-ca...
Nome gold rush: postalmuseum.si.edu/gold/nome...
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Just wanted to let you know that the real Klondike Kate was actually a woman named Katherine Ryan from Johnvill New Brunswick Canada. The other one used her name later because she was famous. Kate Ryan is so incredibly interesting that she really should have her own video. For example she was the first woman to work with the RCMP..
I really hope you do a video on the real Klondike kate Ryan she was so interesting and it's a shame her name is confused with someone else..She was definitely not a dancer!!
Nobody mentioning Scrooge McDuck and his years there worries me about the new gen.
Very sad, indeed.
That's the only reason I clicked on the video but you beat me to it. Also his Girlfriend Goldie still lives there.
Ok boomer
The Beagle Boys erased his name from the history books
@@Boz196 edgy content
Great stories deserve great telling, and this succeeds beautifully! I grew up in the Yukon and visited all these places, and the Gold Rush still echos through the territory.
There are so many other details that could be included in this story. The dredges that took over from the individual prospectors left a strange moon-scape around the Klondike river. Whitehorse was born out of the need to portage around the White Horse Rapids and Miles Canyon on the Yukon river, and the raised bed of the log-railed tramway is still a popular walking trail.
While the folks who came with dreams of gold left disappointed, the Yukon is now mostly filled with people who came for a short visit and then forgot to leave, and just being there is the pot of gold.
Fantastic Job!
Was born in the Yukon, and have just come back to experience it. Neat to see the effects of the gold rush with your own eyes, it can be like stepping into a different era!
This is all old history for me. I moved to Whitehorse, Yukon in 1973 when I was 10 years old.
Jack London actually was a Rapids Runner for Miles Canyon and the White Horse Rapids. This job he was able to do numerous times per day. The trip began at Canyon City, just up river of Miles Canyon, and ended about five or six miles away below the White Horse rapids. He was one of many men who were qualified rapids runners.
This was enforced by the Northwest Mounted Police at Canyon City.
Once they reached the slower water below the rapids, they were able to relinquish control back to the neophyte boat owners who most were able to handle most of the remaining water (other than the infamous Five Finger Rapids about half way between Whitehorse and Dawson City.)
The real treasure was the friends they made along the way.
😂😂😂 my god this killed me ☠️ You’ve won the internet.
I LOLed in the middle of the night. 😂
Best quote ever. Till you realize that so some of those men ate their friend
True.
And the other “treasure “ they discovered was themselves and the knowledge they could handle any adversity life may bring.
Something much more valuable than gold.
The real treasure was the stories. Tappan Addney and Jack London are the testament to that.
Jack London was one of the authors that got me to actually enjoy reading.
intzbk1 this whole video reminds me of “White Fang.”
If you love dogs, you love Jack London.
Because no author made dogs ever seem more heroic than London did in his stories. I've been repeatedly reading "Call of the Wild" since I was 8 years old... it still gets me teary-eyed in my forties.
I'm here because I just listened to Call of the Wild and what a beautiful new interest! This is so cool to learn about all this!
Jack London was a drunk and you must question his Novels. Alcohol killed him in his early 30s.
He and a failed test are the reason I'm hear. I'm getting extra credit to cover the points I lost.
I worked in Yukon for about 10 years and is Canada's secret paradise. True wilderness and freedom. Well treed, and clean. It still rely's on mining, just not gold.
Relies*
Born and raised in the Yukon. Us yukoners call it “the” Yukon ;)
@@alane4487 Tell Tony Beets I said hello.
I'm loving the Geography channel. Keep up the good work.
The stupid jingle, "What would you do for a Klondike bar," suddenly became super dark....
😂😂
Then they have the nerve to put a bear on it.
:)))) Omg now I want one though...
Super dark chocolate coated outside with delicious ice cream inside.
When it comes to chocolate… the darker the better!
Thankyou for talking about the effect on and the First Nations people involved
I lived in the small town of Haines, 13 miles by water from Skagway 360 miles by road. Skagway today is a tourist trap with a fantastic railroad and up to four huge cruise ships a day in the summer, that's 10,000 plus people. Then after the summer gold rush, which swells the population with temporary staff up to 2,500 people, it shrinks back into its ghost town reality in October. 900 permanent residents? Truthfully it's more like 700, since many leave for the season.
Georgian Crossroads I plan on taking a cruise to Alaska soon and it stops there...lol. Btw my husband used to live at fort Richardson in Anchorage (I stayed in Georgia, we had just bought a house) and we would go up there all the time.
Haines AK? Where Parker Schnabel is from?
Visited Skagway in 2009. Took a bus to Carcross and saw many of the points on the Klondike Trail, including Dead Horse Gulch on the spectacular train ride back down that winding grade. The best part was that the crowd had dispersed because the other cruise ship that was there when we arrived, had departed, and our fellow passengers had gotten on board our ship. We had about an hour to see Skagway on our own, before reboarding.
@@mattg7952 I hauled a Volvo excavator to Dawson for Parker from Fairplay, CO. Only ones around to receive the machine was Monica and Tony. Parker was there in Haines.
The ferry ride from Seattle to Skagway and then the train trip to Whitehorse are some of my favorite childhood memories. I thought Skagway was incredible.
His voice is so comforting
One summer as a teenager, I hiked over the Chilkoot pass, the route taken to the Klondike.
It is a daunting 60° assent which they did single file in the winter. The mandatory 1,000 pounds of provisions every person had to pack up that murderous assent required multiple trips. Even if you could pack 100 lbs. in each trip, which many did, you would still have to make the assent 10 times just to get your food over the top.
One can imagine the soul searching they did after they had finally conveyed the required provisions to the top and were then starting to bring their remaining gear up the same assent. Gold pans, shovels, axes, and other tools were not optional, but other gear and items which sounded like a good idea when departing Seattle or Portland where now cast aside and are still in situ today.
The staging area at the base of the Chilkoot pass assent is littered with such artifacts: sewing machines, pianos, and many other items. Standing there amidst these castoffs, really puts you in the mindset of those who brought these items this far and realized that carrying them up one more trip of that torturous 60° assent was just not worth it.
Imagine how many bicycles are under the much at Dyea. Many people showed up from the city with absolutely no clue about true wilderness.
Though I know the picture you show of London's boat is not a picture of the boat he was actually captain of out in Yukon, that still made me SO happy.
Best name for a boat ever.
(For anyone wondering: the Snark really was Jack London's own vessel, a ketch; but he didn't build it until around 1906 and he used in in the South Pacific.)
"Bacon, beans, and bread."
You're trying to convince me of how hard the prospectors had it, and all I can think is, "they had bacon?"
Basically my diet
It’s Canadian bacon though
@@cantfixasandwich4672 oh, well i understand the desperation now
Sounds good to me! Lol
Nowadays you can barely afford good bacon and bread is 4 bucks a loaf!
@@prepperjonpnw6482 I live in France and to this day the French government knows the importance of the availability of good bread at an affordable standard price (lack of bread did after all spark the french revolution). The quality and price is strongly regulated and readily available. A good size fresh crusty loaf 83 centimes. But they dont do good bacon!
Hey, there was a depression. You could freeze and starve almost anywhere.
Skagway is a cool little town. I passed through in a small plane from a regional carrier to drop a couple passengers off in the early 2000s before going to our destination. Like many of the airports of coastal towns in Alaska it's an approach over water until the last moment. However, as a 5 year old that type of landing was an entirely new experience for me and I was sure that rather than landing, we were about to crash into the ocean, and I was terrified until the moment we touched down. I've loved the time I've gotten to spend in Alaska.
I have been to both Dawson City and Skagway twice. Skagway is beautiful when not overrun by the cruise ship crowd. Dawson City to me is a magical place where history culture and wilderness come together. Wonderfully restored buildings with many national historical sites. If you ever travel to the Yukon Dawson City is a must.
Nice work. Alaska and the Klondike want to kill anyone that doesn't respect it - even today it is not to be underestimated. Your portrayal of the human cost of the gold rush is very much appreciated.
love you man thanks so much for all your work and this a a great new channel!
This is my new favorite channel. The only improvement I can conceive is on location, but obviously that would impact your accounting.
Speaking of on location, I'm heading to Bangkok and northern Thailand soon. I'd love to see a video on something from that part of the world before I go or as soon as I get back!
Finally, (thankfully?), there can NEVER BE ENOUGH documentaries on treasure. Found treasure, missing treasure, rumored treasure... teach me and tease me ;)
Really like this series! Keep em' coming!
As a Canadian, I enjoyed this presentation very much. I have enjoyed the other videos and this channel & your sister channel. They are great to watch while I am eating my lunch.
Wish I had the money to sponsor a geographics and business blaze mash up. I think you'd really like that guy he is hilarious and you are informative.
Excellent documentary! Thanks for sharing!
I like it, part of the journey was along the Yukon River which was quite deadly as well. US kids got Oregon Trail to play, but Canadian kids got Klondike Rush.
Could you do a video going in depth on the uranium ore rush in the Midwest I feel it’s a topic that few ever cover and I feel it’s right up this channels alley
Uranium fever has done and got me down
Uranium fever is spreadin' all around
With a Geiger counter in my hand
I'm a-goin' out to stake me some government land
Uranium fever has done and got me down
Liam Robert ...👈 anti-American Democrat
Ethan Allen best paint ever! lol
We here in Hereford call this place Scagway but for a different reason.
I live near Dawson City! The adventure continues.......
It's human nature to think that you won't be one of the unlucky ones, but one of those upon whom fortune smiles. Surely nothing bad will happen to you, will it? This mentality is both a blessing and a curse. It's the source of mankind's amazing ability to triumph in the face of adversity and at the same time the cause of so much needless misery.
I follow all of your channels. Really amazing videos. Keep it up
I’m so happy this exists as I live in the Yukon and it’s great to see our out of the way territory get its day in the sun on this channel
Really been enjoying the channel so far, would you mind doing an episode on Iwo Jima?
I loved Dawson City. The Top of the World highway between it and Boundary (and Chicken - a town of "25 nice people and 1 old grump"), Alaska, is something I'd highly recommend seeing. Some of the story that got bypassed - C.J. Berry, who became one of the lucky to make it rich, made it a habit to leave outside his cabin door a bucket of gold nuggets and a bottle of whiskey, with a little sign on it reading, "Help yourself." According to one theory, the town of Nome came from a map on which the scribbled question "? Name" marked its location - a cartographer later presumed the scribblings were meant to say "Cape Nome." Legend has it that one of the prospectors that went there from Dawson apparently did so by bike (the Yukon is usually frozen over in winter), making him the first bicyclist in Alaska. Fairbanks sprang up about five years after the Nome gold rush, and was one of the last rushes in that area of the world. The find that caused the town to spring up is still celebrated each year. Lots of stories to tell, many already told not just by Jack London, but also Robert Service, among a few others whose literature was made famous by their participation in the Rush. And of course, there is the slang term "sourdough," given to a type of bread that was popular in the gold rush - as later applied to the miners, the term came to mean "someone who is soured about staying in the North, but lacking the dough to get out."
Damn Simon, you're prolific! Ive really come to enjoy your channels.
I am a middle school teacher and I regularly use your Geographics/Biographics videos in my classroom. Thank you for making these videos that are informative, but also entertaining and relatively brief!
Great video. I've been to Dawson City 4 times. If you drive south about 40 kilometers or 24 miles you will come up to the Dempster Highway. It's a treacherous 500 mile trek thru a gravel and shale road which is a trucking route to the peel river that you cross on a ferry into Inuvik, Northwest Territory. A magical drive on scenic beauty for sure. On the way just 70 kilometers into the Dempster you will find the Toombstone Mountains. A freakish scene as you look at the the sunlit peaks at 2 am on chilly June day. Next year I go back as I do my 5th Alaska-Yukon trip.
I challenge anyone to find a more gorgeous part of the continent than Tombstone.
Not sure why but the part about the guys having to build their own boats absolutely cracked me up. Great video as usual Simon 👍
really very interesting!! i enjoyed this VIDEO
Excellent script Simon! I love the focus you chose to put on the people rather than the actual place.
I grew to love the poetry of Robert Service who wrote so much about both the Klondike and WW I . I immediately thought " To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames".
steve cannon There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Loving your Geo vids!
Perhaps you could expand on this topic with the Australian gold rushes? particularly the Kalgoorlie Gold Rush started by Paddy Hannan and Dan Shea at roughly the same time. It even lead to the famous and ambitious Kalgoorlie pipeline project engineered by CY O’Connor. There was also a famous mine rescue that had a train break the record journey time from Perth to bring diving equipment to rescue a miner trapped by floods.
Great telling of an epic story.!
WOW! Really informative!
Great episode
LOVE THIS. I worked in Skagway for a summer, and this is spot on. The only person I wish you had mentioned it Harriet "Ma" Pullen.
Should cover Deadwood SD and the Black Hills, some good history there :)
Whoever got a 64 stack of gold blocks could leave the server.
Dawson city is one of my favourite places on earth!!!! When Corona came marching through Canada I ran away up there for three months and lived in - 35 in a cabin in the bush better than lockdown in the city any day of the week
I just wanted to say i like your new chanel and great video
The mule inserted was hilarious! LOL
Updoted just for your description of the tent city.
great video an story!
Thank you!
Coming from a student doing a project about this historical event, this is actually a grand video to listen to and learn from, EVEN AS BACKGROUND NOISE!
Just found your channels, loving the geo , popping over to bio for a look ... thanks for all your hard work .... jules
You may also recognize Jack London as the man who wrote White Fang, and The Call Of The Wild among other novels. Probably my favourite author besides Robert Mason. His books talk at length about what life was like back then living in the freezing wilderness.
I just got 3 ads with no skip options before the video began. All of them a minute or more and none I could skip. Is this the new normal?
Can't wait for more Alaskan history someday!
The Klondike, the Yukon, and the 40-mile country are amazing. Come to Dawson City for the summer solstice You will love it.
Thank You .
Very intresting!!! Thank you.
Thanks for watching :)
Really enjoyable one this one
Glad you liked it :)
I loved the video very much.
Amazing story, thank you for sharing your awesome story. God bless you and your family, merry Christmas and happy new year
Skagway is a great little town to visit - highly recommend it!
What we really need is a video detailing the horrific events that lead to the eventual demise of the fabulous name ‘Skookum’!!!
thank you
Best channel on the entire CZcams. Fact.
Makes me remember the comic: Uncle Scrooge - The king of the Klondike by Don Rosa
Being human and your correct life was indeed rough but we preserve throughout the ages GREAT VIDEO BROSKI
You should also look at Barkerville and the BC gold rush also a very good story
On the pronunciation of 'Yukon'..... Nailed it this time! :) Love your work Simon.
Is this where "what would you do for a Klondike bar" comes from? I thought a Klondike bar was ice cream but turned out its a gold bar.
SPL-316 Aaaaaarg! You beat me to it!!!
Original
@@grilledleeks6514 and you think that's original?
It's an ice cream bar named after a gold bar
Awesome to find this gem as I live in Dawson now - we still are just as obsessed with the gold
Excellent.
In case you wondered: *$5000 per day in 1897 equates to $162,165 /£665,000 per day in 2021.*
"Oh there's no place like Nome for the holidays!"
Great video, I think any time there is opportunity for such wealth it draws people on a massive scale. In an area where the weather is so readily able to cause death I would imagine only the people who had some experience with survival as we would call it had any chance at all. Just an extremely unforgiving place and the levels of desperation would make it extremely dangerous aside from the weather.
Pretty sweet to see something close to home. Gold rush trail starts about 20 minutes west of me
The smartest "Mined the miners".
I was at Skagway last September
and took the train up to White Pass.
The trail is still visible and very, very daunting.
Could you do a piece on the history of the Iditarod? Great content!
Yes yes yes!!!! Great suggestions!!!
I love Biographics. Simon is best when he's not being himself.
I just spent my summer in Dawson City to start gold mining and it took all summer to get legal to do so and now I don t think that I can get back to even put a shovel in the the ground.Had one hell of a time going there from Ontario and doing the trip and would do it again.
Thanks for the reply but I love it up there and would like to get back there before the permit runs out lol.
I’m from South East AK and have been to Skagway many times, hiked the Chilkoot Trail twice(highly recommend) and have been Dawson City. I loved the video but just wanted to mention the Chilkoot pass is nicknamed the Golden Stair, the trail holds the worlds most miserable camp named Happy Camp and that Juneau AK also saw a gold rush nearly 20 years earlier and held 1 of the largest gold mines in the world at that time.
I like this channel, what about the San Andreas Fault?
Imagine the excitement the first thousand felt when they where headed into the wilderness, knowing a lot of gold had already came out of it. And then the desperation and misery when they ran out of food and money.
“Kill All The Horses Trail” 😂
Zeus Knobblewacker A bit of “comedy gold”
@@clutchkman a nugget one might say
Loving this channel!!
How about some episodes about Castles such as Tower of London and Balmoral as well as castles in the rest of Europe please. Since a high % of Americans are descendants of Europeans these should be popular.
Also, various locations in the U.K. that were important to the Industrial revolution would be good.
Lmao they turned that Jacksfilms meme into a real thing
I moved to the yukon in the 80s and worked i the gold mines on the indian river. It was a life altering experience.. there was no medium, you either loved the yukon or you hated it.. if you loved it, which I did, it was hard.. if you hated it, as many did, it was hell.
I've enjoyed your videos, and I've watched many. Polished but not flashy, and informative.
As an audio professional, I have one suggestion. Take the cable of your lav mic, go up and inside the bend of the clip, then down. It will make for a cleaner look, and won't pull on your button- down so much. Nit-picking, I know, but it is a basic cable management thing in my world.
Keep up the great work. Truly enjoy.
James Michener's book Alaska contains a good deal of the history. Skagway and Dawson really were hellholes. Permafrost made the wooden buildings sink 2 feet every Spring, playing havoc with the structures. There was a bar where patrons relieved themselves at the back in a piled up bank of snow on which the urine froze to the height of a person. Goodness what it was like when the thaw arrived.
Simon great job on Klondike Gold Rush. A suggestion for a topic. The long forgotten 'British Groundnut Scheme' in Tanganika after WW2. Another, same area, would be the amazing story of WW1 in Tanganika. Now that would make a hell of a movie.
This video has given me a new appreciation for the accuracy of the game Yukon Trail, a sister game to Oregon Trail
Good piece. James A Mitchner
The Canadian winter is so varied like the massive country itself. To say "Canadian Winter" is an incredible generalization. People, who don't live in Canada, do not realize it can be very gentle and warm in British Colombia and often more rain than snow in "The Maritimes". It is very cold in Manitoba and variable in Ontario. The Canadian Winter is miserable in Newfoundland but summers are mostly great within this intoxicating landscape. If you like variety Canada is the place for you. And by the way Summer beaches/sands are not coated with folks who should keep their clothes on. You can still find a beach for your family or yourself. Now in a crowded world that is truly impressive.
Soapy Smith would recognize much of Skagway as it's been largely preserved and restored as the Klondike National Historic Park, and the wilderness all around it is spectacular. C'mon up and see us sometime; and as a guide there I'd be happy to give you the inside scoop. Cheers.
Love living in interior Alaska. The history is almost as incredible as the beauty of it