Klondike Goldfields

Bonanza Creek Road
Km. 15.5 - Discovery Claim

Gold Hill

The immensely rich White Channel gravels were first mined at Gold Hill. During the summer of 1897, two miners using a simple rocker box recovered more than $6,000 in gold from a small section of their claim. By the middle of September of that year, every possible claim on the hill had been staked. In 1900 – the peak year for gold production – at least 1,000 men were mining on Gold Hill. In 1907, the Yukon Gold Company built a large holding dam on Upper Bonanza at Claim No. 57 Above, just over 8 km from here, to store water for their hydraulic mines on Gold Hill.

Permafrost

The presence of permafrost (permanently frozen ground) forced miners to innovate and experiment with new technology. Miners had to thaw the ground before they could dig it, but the frozen gravel resisted picks and shovels, and drilling and blasting were inefficient. They tried thawing with wood fires, heating the water at the bottom of the mine shafts with hot stones, or using steam.

Permafrost also had benefits: timber bracing was rarely required in summer and never in winter. The frozen muck that overlays the gravel was firm enough to support large mine shafts and, according to one observer, “chamber of astonishing size can be excavated beneath it in the winter.”

Cheechako Hill

By the time the gold rush stampeders arrived in Dawson, all the creek claims had already been staked and the newcomers were forced to stake “bench” claims on the slopes above the valley bottoms. A bench claim was the first claim uphill from a creek claim and was only 100 feet square.

The territory’s first Gold Commissioner, Thomas Fawcett, spent a full week on Bonanza and Eldorado creeks in August, 1897, trying to settle disputes between the holders of creek claims (which extended to the base of the hills) and those who had located bench claims (which began at the base of the hills). Most of the disputes were settled in favour of the creek claimants.

Bench gravels which contained remnants of ancient stream deposits turned out to be very profitable. One of the first people to realize their importance was Oliver Millet, who prospected the bench gravels here in the winter of 1897- 1898. Although Millet was ridiculed by the more experienced prospectors, who called him a “cheechako” (newcomer) for thinking there would be gold so far above the valley floor, he soon proved them wrong.

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