The Klondike Gold Rush and the New Provinces

Let's start with a question

If someone told you that gold was lying in a creek more than 2,000 kilometres away, through mountains and ice, would you go? What would you need to bring?

In 1897–1898, tens of thousands of people answered yes. Their rush to the Klondike changed the map of Canada.

Gold on Rabbit Creek (1896)

In mid-August 1896, three people found gold on Rabbit Creek, a small stream flowing into the Klondike River in the Yukon: an American prospector, George Carmack, and two Tagish First Nation men, Keish (Skookum Jim Mason) and Káa Goox (Dawson Charlie). Carmack had married into their family. Many accounts also include Keish's sister Shaaw Tláa (Kate Carmack) in the party. The creek was soon renamed Bonanza Creek.

News reached the outside world in July 1897, when ships loaded with gold reached Seattle and San Francisco. Tens of thousands of "stampeders", mostly from the United States, set out.

The trail and the rules

Most stampeders climbed the steep Chilkoot Pass or the White Pass from Alaska, then built boats and travelled about 800 km down lakes and the Yukon River to Dawson City.

The North-West Mounted Police guarded the border passes. They required every stampeder to bring about a tonne of supplies, enough food and gear for a year, so that people would not starve. Many people climbed the Chilkoot Pass 30 or 40 times to haul all their goods up.

The police presence also showed that the Yukon was Canadian territory, not American.

Dawson City and the new territory

Dawson City became a boom town. The population of the Klondike peaked at 25,000 or more. There were hotels, theatres, dance halls and newspapers, all in a place with no road to the outside world.

To govern this sudden crowd, Parliament created the Yukon Territory on 13 June 1898, with Dawson as its capital.

The rush was short. Most of the best claims were already taken by 1897, and many stampeders found nothing. When gold was found in Nome, Alaska, in 1899, many left. Within about ten years, the population of the Klondike had fallen to a few hundred. Gold mining continued, using big machines owned by companies.

What did the gold rush mean for First Nations?

The Klondike is the homeland of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in. The fishing camp at the mouth of the Klondike River was an important place for them. The rush pushed them aside: their land was taken over for claims and the town, game animals were overhunted, and new diseases spread.

Chief Isaac led his people to a new village at Moosehide, a few kilometres downriver, to keep some distance from the crowds, and he worked to protect his people's culture.

The rush also led directly to Treaty 8 in 1899 (next lesson): the government wanted a treaty because of the flood of newcomers passing through northern Alberta and British Columbia on the way to the Klondike.

A century later, land claim and self-government agreements brought the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in some redress and self-government. In 2023, the Tr'ondëk-Klondike area was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, telling the story of the gold rush from a First Nations perspective as well.

Alberta and Saskatchewan (1905)

Remember Sifton's settlers from the lesson Settling the West. By the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of people lived in the North-West Territories, which were run largely from Ottawa. Settlers wanted roads, schools and their own government: they wanted provincial status.

On 1 September 1905, two new provinces were created: Alberta (capital Edmonton) and Saskatchewan (capital Regina).

Two arguments shaped the deal:

• Natural resources: Ottawa kept control of the new provinces' land and natural resources, unlike the older provinces. Alberta and Saskatchewan did not get them until 1930.
• Schools: The new provinces kept a system that allowed Catholic (and Protestant) separate schools. Clifford Sifton resigned from Laurier's Cabinet in 1905 because he thought the original plan protected separate schools too much. This was another French-English and Catholic-Protestant debate, like the Manitoba Schools Question.

Northern Ontario grows

Ontario changed too.

• The Ontario government built a railway north from North Bay, the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway. While it was being built in 1903, silver was found at Cobalt, starting a mining rush.
• In 1909, gold was found in the Porcupine area, where Timmins grew.
• Treaty 9 (1905–06) was signed with Cree and Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) nations of northern Ontario, opening the land to railways and mines (next lesson).
• In 1912, Parliament extended the borders of Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba north to the shores of Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait, giving the provinces roughly their present shapes.