Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2022 i Cobblestone American History and Current Events for Kids and Children

A frozen frontier. Those words provide the best description of the United States’ Alaska and Canada’s Yukon in the 1800s. Indigenous peoples had lived in the region for centuries, but the few Euro-Americans who explored it found settling there challenging. Then, gold was discovered in 1896 on Yukon’s Klondike River. The news of gold’s discovery spread quickly, and people around the world raced to get to its location, sparking a gold rush. The first people to reach the new goldfields had the best chance of finding the precious metal and making a quick fortune. And although most gold seekers did not become rich—or even find any gold—gold rushes presented other opportunities. Businesses quickly popped up to support the needs of miners, often turning mining camps into permanent towns and cities.…

Before any miner could look for gold, he first had to reach the goldfields. And in 1897, reaching Canada’s remote Yukon Territory was a daunting prospect. A few miners headed inland from Canadian towns and from the Alaskan port city of Valdez. Those all-land routes meant crossing a frozen wilderness. They proved to be more deadly than successful. Another route, called the Rich Man’s Route, was an all-water route. Prospectors embarked on ships from the closest port city—Seattle, Washington, or Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. They traveled up the Alaskan coast to St. Michael, located at the mouth of the Yukon River. Miners then loaded their supplies onto smaller boats to complete the trip on the Yukon River to Dawson City. But the route was quite long and cost thousands of…

While on a journey through Yukon and Alaska in 1887, Captain William Moore came upon a bay. For thousands of years, the Tlingit people had used the valley by the bay on a seasonal basis. Moore thought it looked like a good location for a wharf—he was in the steamship business. He staked a claim for a homestead. He and his sons built a cabin, a sawmill, and a wharf. They named it Mooresville. A decade later, gold was discovered on the Klondike River. Mooresville, in southeast Alaska, was located at the beginning of White Pass. Almost overnight, the place filled with prospectors. The town was renamed “Skagway” to reflect its Tlingit origins. Harriet “Ma” Pullen was one tough cook(ie). She arrived in Skagway with just seven dollars to her…

Many groups have lived in Yukon for thousands of years. Research suggests that some of them may have occupied the area for 8,000 years. Here a few specific groups who share a history with the Klondike goldfields. The Hän The Hän (“People of the River”) historically lived in the forest surrounding the upper Yukon River and the Klondike River. Salmon, which traveled in huge numbers up and down the Yukon River in the summer months, were important to Hän fishermen. Each season, the Hän returned to their camp to fish and hunt. The Hän Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in group called this site Tr’ochëk. But in the late 1800s, thousands of prospectors took over the area. They called it Klondike City. The Hän group was forced to relocate downriver. After decades of effort,…

Gold is a rare and valuable mineral that has been used to beautify places and things for thousands of years. It has been fashioned into jewelry and coins. It has been used to decorate religious objects, buildings, and tombs—some examples of which date to more than 6,000 years ago. It has become a symbol of wealth and royalty. In broad terms, gold comes from two main sources. Primary gold is found in reefs, or lodes, often with base metals such as copper and iron. As Earth’s crust progressively erodes, some of the primary gold is released in loose granular form. This alluvial or placer gold (also known as “gold dust”) is commonly found in riverbeds. Sometimes, the small particles stick together and form gold nuggets. The discovery of gold has…

The original Klondike gold discoverers worked their claims together for several years. They found about $1 million worth of gold. George Carmack returned to the United States with his fortune, bringing his wife and daughter with him. But he later abandoned Shaaw Tláa, who returned to Yukon almost penniless. She relied on the generosity of her brother, Keish, for support. Káa Goox used his fortune to buy a hotel in Carcross. He died in his 40s after falling off a bridge. Keish tried to adjust to a nonnative, wealthy life, but he began to drink heavily. He created a trust to protect his fortune and to provide for his family. After his death in 1916 and the death of his only daughter in 1938, the trust money was used to…

In the early days of the gold rush, Yukon—with its cold climate and rough conditions—was no place for children. Just getting to the goldfields was hardship enough for women without the burden of babies or young children. But as time went by, couples did start families. And First Nations families already lived in the area. Some miners married Indigenous women and had children. Gold rush children grew up in a rough-and-tumble world. They had to be hardy to survive the tough winters. In warmer months, they roamed freely and played in the creeks and hills. They grew up eating caribou, wild rabbit, and sourdough pancakes. Sometimes children worked alongside their parents. Girls helped their mothers with sewing and housework or by baking bread to sell to miners. Boys worked alongside…

Russian explorers who sailed across the Bering Sea to the Aleutian Islands were the first Eurasians to encounter the original inhabitants. The Aleut people told the foreigners about a body of land to the northeast. They called it Alaxsxaq, meaning the “mainland,” and Alyeska, meaning the “great land.” Alaska became the more commonly used word after the United States purchased the vast territory from Russia in 1867. The Tlingit people were the original inhabitants of the area around Skagway. Skagway comes from the Tlingit word sha-ka-céi, meaning “rough seas at the inlet that are caused by strong north winds.” A north wind historically brings cold weather. The town, a bay, and a river all share the name—and they all experience Alaska’s long winters. At 1,980 miles long, the Yukon River…

Ocean waters determine most of Alaska’s extensive coastal boundaries. But the story of its land border with Canada spans more than 75 years. The saga started decades before the United States owned any part of its biggest state. Russia’s mainland lies just 50 miles west of Alaska’s mainland across the Bering Strait. Russian sailors, fur traders, and hunters had explored Alaska in the first half of 1700s. Over time, they created a few small settlements. By the early 1800s, Russia claimed all of Alaska’s coastal territory above latitude 51° north. (That line lies just north of today’s border between Canada and the United States.) Meanwhile, Great Britain had been in control of Canada since 1763. It had built some small settlements along North America’s northwestern coast by the 1800s. By…

The first miners arrived in Canada’s Northwest Territories in the mid-1870s. In the mid-1880s, gold was discovered on the Stewart River and the Fortymile River. A small, remote mining town grew at Forty Mile. A decade later, the number of prospectors in the territory was about 1,500. Then, in 1897, the world learned of gold’s discovery on the Klondike River. It brought about 100,000 prospectors to Alaska and Canada. The influx of so many people during the Klondike gold rush convinced Canada to create a new territory out of the western portion of its Northwest Territories. On June 13, 1898, Yukon became a separate territory.…

Three pounds of food per day for a year. That’s the amount the Canadian North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) told prospectors to plan to bring if they wanted to cross into Canada in 1897. The recommended food weighed about a half ton. But that’s not all. Miners needed to bring the appropriate clothing to survive Yukon’s harsh winter weather as well as mining equipment. Some of the equipment could be split among a handful of men, but it still needed to be brought in. The clothing and equipment weighed another half ton. That’s literally a ton of stuff that each prospector was expected to transport across hundreds of miles to the goldfields. In addition to the food they carried in, miners supplemented their meals with animals or fish. Salmon were plentiful…

Only about 1,000 residents remain in Dawson City today. But 60,000 tourists visit each year. Many visitors enjoy a walking tour that includes a street nicknamed Writer’s Row. It provides a taste of the city’s rich literary history. The first house on Writer’s Row is Berton House. One of Canada’s most popular authors, Pierre Berton, lived there from 1920 to 1932. Berton has written nearly 50 books. Several works are about the Klondike gold rush. His mother, Laura, wrote the Canadian classic I Married the Klondike. It describes her first years in Dawson City as a single woman and a schoolteacher. Across from the Berton House is the Robert Service Cabin. Service has been called the “Bard of the Yukon.” He was the most widely read poet of the 1900s.…

New rumors began circulating in 1899: Gold had been found on Seward Peninsula, on the other side of Alaska from Yukon. The rumors were true. That spring, more than 8,000 miners left the Klondike goldfields and headed westward. It became the first placer gold discovery in Alaska itself. Credit for the discovery was given to three men—two Swedes, John Brynteson and Erik Lindblom, and one Norwegian, Jafet Lindeberg. The men had formed a partnership and had decided to search for gold on the western coast of Alaska. With the aid of two local Native Alaskan boys, Constantine Uparazuck and Gabriel Adams, they found gold in Anvil Creek and in the Snake River on September 20, 1898. The Three Lucky Swedes, as the men became known, staked their claims. When those…