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VOICE ONE:
This is Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Richard Rael with theVOA Special English program EXPLORATIONS. Today we begin the firstof two programs about the discovery of gold. Huge amounts of gold.Enough gold to make a person extremely rich. Our story begins in anarea called the Klondike in the Yukon Territory of western Canada.The discovery took place on a warm August day ineighteen-ninety-six.
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VOICE ONE:
George Carmack and his two Indian friends, Skookum Jim Mason andDawson Charlie, were working near the edge of a small river inwestern Canada’s Yukon Territory. The area was just across theborder from Alaska, which was owned by the United States. The menwere using large steel pans to search for gold. They placed dirt androcks in a pan and then filled it about half way with water. Slowly,they moved the water around in the pan until most of the dirt andwater washed away. This left only very small rocks.
This method was a very good way to find small amounts of gold.The three men had often worked like this in an effort to find gold.But they had never been very successful.
VOICE TWO:
The three men moved along the small river as they worked. Historydoes not say which of the three found gold first. But it does saythat all three began to find large amounts.
In eighteen-ninety-six, gold was selling for about sixteendollars for twenty-eight grams. The three men knew they were richafter just a few days. They also knew they must go to the governmentoffice and claim the land. They had to keep their discovery a secretuntil they had a legal claim to the land where they had found thegold.
VOICE ONE:
George Carmack, Skookum Jim Mason and Dawson Charlie were thefirst men to discover a great amount of gold in the Klondike. Beforethat August day, others had found gold, but never in huge amounts.
The three men had found one of the largest amounts of gold everdiscovered lying on the surface of the Earth. The news of thisdiscovery could not be kept secret very long. Other people quicklytraveled to the area of the great Klondike River where the three hadmade the discovery. Some also found huge amounts of gold, enough tomake them extremely rich.
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VOICE TWO:
On July sixteenth, eighteen-ninety-seven, the ship Excelsior cameinto the American port of San Francisco, California. It carried thefirst men who had found gold in the Klondike. The next day, the shipPortland landed in Seattle, Washington. It too carried men who hadfound gold in the Yukon.
Clarence Berry was one of these men. He was a fruit farmer fromCalifornia. He came off the ship Excelsior in San Francisco withone-hundred-thirty-thousand dollars worth of gold. Niles Andersoncame off the ship Portland with one-hundred-twelve-thousand dollarsin gold. They were only two men among more than one-hundred who leftthe ships with huge amounts of money.
Photographs taken when the ships landed show thousands of peoplemeeting the two ships. Newspapers printed long stories about thediscovery of gold and the rich men who had just returned from theYukon.
VOICE ONE:
To understand the excitement it caused, you must understand thevalue of that much money at the time.In eighteen-ninety-seven, a manwith a good job working in New York City was paid about ten dollarseach week. To earn the one-hundred-thirty-thousand dollars thatClarence Berry took off the ship, that man would have had to workfor two-hundred-fifty years!
People all over the world becameexcited about the possibility of finding gold. Newspaper storiessaid it was easy to find the gold. It was just lying on the ground.All you had to do was go to Alaska, and then to the Klondike area ofthe Yukon Territory of Canada and collect your gold.
VOICE TWO:
The possibility of finding gold caused thousands of people tomake plans to travel to Alaska and then to the Klondike area of theYukon. American and Canadian experts say between twenty andthirty-thousand people may have traveled to the gold fields.
These people were called “stampeders.” The word “stampede” meansa mass movement of frightened animals. In eighteen-ninety-seven, theword came to mean the huge groups of people running or stampeding toAlaska and the Klondike.
The people wanted a chance to become rich. The United States wassuffering a great economic depression.
By eighteen-ninety-seven, thousands of people were out of work.Men who had no jobs decided to use all the money they had left to goto Alaska.
VOICE ONE:
Newspapers and magazines began writing stories about traveling toAlaska. Books told what a person would need to be successful atfinding gold. Other books explained sure methods of finding gold.
Many of these books told people what they wanted to hear — thatfinding gold in the Yukon was easy. Most of the people who wrote thebooks had no idea at all where the Canadian Yukon Territory was.Many did not know anything about the American territory of Alaska.The people who wrote the books had no idea what was involved. Theywere only interested in selling books.
Many of the people who would travel to the gold fields had noidea what they would face. They did not know about the extremelycold weather that could kill. Most did not know they would faceextremely hard work and terrible living conditions.
VOICE TWO:
This was not true of the Canadiangovernment. The Canadian government knew how hard it was to live inthe western part of the country. The Canadian government quicklyapproved a law that said each person must bring enough supplies tolast for one year. This was about nine-hundred kilograms ofsupplies.
Each person would have to bring food, tools, clothing, andeverything else they needed for one year. The reason for this wasvery simple. There were no stores in the Yukon. There was no placeto buy food. The nearest port was more than one-thousand kilometersaway from where the gold discovery had been made.
There were no railroads. At first, there were no roads that wouldpermit a horse and wagon. The stampeders would have to walk all theway, and transport the supplies by themselves. The price of thesesupplies quickly increased.
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VOICE ONE:
In eighteen-ninety-seven, a travel company in the middle westernAmerican city of Chicago, Illinois listed the prices of what it costto travel to Alaska. A ticket to ride the train from Chicago toSeattle, Washington was fifty-one dollars and fifty cents. Thecompany said a ticket on a ship from Seattle to Skagway, Alaska wasthirty-five dollars.
Companies across the United States offered to sell all thesupplies a gold seeker would need to take to the Klondike.Newspapers and magazines printed long lists of the supplies astampeder would need. The price for these goods was often extremelyhigh. The trains and the ships would carry these supplies for anadditional price.
VOICE TWO:
A young man who had the money to buy the supplies and thenecessary tickets to travel to Alaska usually landed at the littleport of Skagway. The first ship load of several hundred gold seekerslanded at Skagway on July twenty-sixth, eighteen-ninety-seven. Manyships quickly followed.
The little town of Skagway soon had thousands of people lookingfor a place to live, food to eat and directions to where they couldfind gold. The stampeders were in a hurry. They wanted to quicklytravel to the area where they could find gold.
Many wanted to buy the rest of the supplies they would needbefore they began the trip into Canada. These supplies becameextremely valuable. Prices increased even more. Violence and a lackof a police department soon caused problems. People fought oversupplies.
The gold seekers quickly learned that life in Alaska would beextremely difficult. And they soon learned they still had more thanone-thousand kilometers to travel. They learned they would have tocarry their supplies over high mountains. Then they would need tobuild a boat to travel on the Yukon River. They learned the lastpart of their trip would be the hardest of all. That trip and whatthe thousands of gold seekers found will be our story next week.
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VOICE ONE:
This program was written by Paul Thompson and produced by MarioRitter. This is Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Richard Rael. Join us again next week for anotherEXPLORATIONS program in Special English on the Voice of America.