The Klondike Gold Fields - Exploring the Yukon Rivers in Search of Gold

The Klondike Gold Fields - Exploring the Yukon Rivers in Search of Gold

The item I chose to examine for this article was one of the many pieces of equipment used by gold miners during the Klondike Gold Rush that was called a “rocker box.” This item was used for the means of separating “alluvial placer gold” from the sand and gravel quite extensively in the 19th century for placer mining. The equipment consisted of a high-sided box, which would open on one end and on top, and then placed on rockers to stream out whatever the miners could see what was or was not gold. The rocker boxes needed to be operated very cautiously in order to avoid losing any of the gold they were mining for. Although this equipment was quite big, and even more challenging to move, the rocker could pick up twice the quantity of the gravel, and thus allowing the possibility of more gold in one day than from just an ordinary gold mining pan that most miners would use.
This item was used rather considerably during the gold rush for the Klondike region of the Yukon Rivers in Canadian territory once local miners had discovered gold in August of 1896. When newspapers went on to advertise gold mining to American citizens that following year, various miners from Seattle, Washington and San Francisco, California made their way through the ports of Southeast Alaska to travel either through “White Pass” or “Chilkroot” trails that led to the Yukon region. Out of the vast amount of 100,000 miners en route to Northwestern Canada, only a fraction of 30,000 miners had actually survived the voyage, whereas only 4,000 individuals were the only ones that came across any gold throughout a three-year span until 1899 when more gold had been found in regions of Alaska and these gold fields had depleted.

Collier's Weekly: A Journal of Art, Literature and Current Events

Adney, Tappan. "The Klondike Gold Fields." Collier's Weekly 30 December 1899: 6. Print

1899

Evan Orfanos