Klondike Gold Rush Thesis

The idea of getting “rich quick” was one of the many challenges that people took on in the 1800s. This started the great race for gold that changed the whole course of American history. The article “The Klondike Gold Rush”, the passage from Woman Who Went to Alaska, and the video City of Gold each shape the understanding of the point of view of the miner’s lives. Each resource emphasized the hazardous and treacherous journey the miners experienced while searching for a single speck of gold.

In the article, “The Klondike Gold Rush”, the author’s perspective showed the dangers and challenges most miners, also known as stampeders, were exposed to while they attempted to find gold. For instance, “A three week trip, the miners had to survive many

sets of rapids before making it to Dawson City. Many miners lost their lives or their possessions when their boats broke up in the rapids” (The Klondike Gold Rush, paragraph 8).

The quote from this article highlights the dangers the miners had to overcome which included possibly losing their lives and leaving behind their families. Once the miners set out on the journey it was a battle between life and death. Another quote from the text includes, “Most stampeders knew little or nothing about where they were going, so pamphlets were available to help them on their way. Many of the pamphlets contained little or no real information and made outrageous claims or wealth to be had by everyone” (The Klondike Gold Rush, paragraph 3). This example revealed the unknowingness of the miners who set out for the journey. The pamphlets the stampeders were given, supposedly a helping source, encouraged miners to put their life on the line for gold. The pamphlets made the miners more enthusiastic of eventually finding gold and living a lush life.

Further, “The biggest boom to hit this part of the world was a huge bust for the miners. The only ones to strike it rich were the merchants and profiteers who took advantage of those who hoped to ‘get rich quick’” (The Klondike Gold Rush, paragraph 11). The merchants and profiteers greatly benefitted from the gold rush while the people who left behind everything to “get rich quick” made little to no money. Many miners of this time went through terrible conditions to just get a glimpse of gold.
In the passage, A Woman Who Went To Alaska the author, May Kellogg Sullivan, expressed the point of miners losing large amounts of the money they earned from mining by striking gold.

In the passage it states, “Mining laws are very arbitrary and strictly enforced. A person wishing to prospect for gold must first procure a miner’s license, paying ten dollars for it. If anything is discovered, and he wishes to locate a claim, he visits the recorder’s office states his business, and is told to call again. In the meantime, men are sent to examine the locality and if anything of value is found, the man wishing to record the claim is told that it is already located” (Sullivan, paragraph 4). Based on the text, stampeders paid large quantities of money to first get the license to start the mining process. The miners who were lucky enough to reach gold were instantly tricked by the officials and later told the land had already been claimed. This was a way for many officials to take advantage of the miners. Another example that supports the author's point of view is, “When a man is compelled to pay one thousand dollars out of every ten thousand he digs from the ground, he will boast little of large ‘clean-ups’; and for this reason it is hard to estimate the real amount of gold extracted from the Klondike mines” (Sullivan, paragraph 9). The miners rarely knew the real amount of gold they had found because the officials taxed the miners quite rapidly after finding gold. For this reason,

many miners were left with a different amounts of money they had originally made from the gold. Further, “One half of all mining land is reserved for the crown, a quarter or more is gobbled by corrupt officials, and a meager share left for the daring miners who, by braving hardships and death, develop the miners and open up the country” (Sullivan, paragraph 4). Here the author expressed the fact that the stampeders who did the majority of the work received the smallest amount of mining land. People of a higher class had most of the mining land. In this passage, the author greatly focused on the miner’s income for the gold. The author expressed her point by presenting how the miners were tricked in the amount of money and land they had earned.
The video, City of Gold, was based on the perspective of a miner’s son. He stressed the dangers, sacrifices, and challenges each miner had to face while on their journey. The narrator in the video emphasized that the hike to the mines started with over 100,000 people, yet more that half of that amount turned back (City of Gold). Many miners realized the hard work and physical struggle while on the way to their destination and eventually had to turn back. In this source it says, “Scarcely any of these men were miners. Most were white collar workers” (City of Gold). The people who set out on this journey knew little to nothing about mining, and were simply there to “get rich quick”. This also played a part for the reasons many stampeders lost their lives in or on the way to the mines. Furthermore, the narrator explained some of his father’s experiences such as making it through the Chilkoot Pass. The narrator stated that his father remembered that terrain until his dying day (City of Gold). From the narrator’s strong language the reader can truly understand the perilous expedition required to find gold. The video, City of Gold, the source revealed the connection between the narrator and the miners, and highlighted the impacts of a single person who made this journey.
In conclusion, article “The Klondike Gold Rush”, the passage from Woman Who Went to Alaska, and the video City of Gold show that the biggest boom in the industry was a disaster for the miners. Each miner went through a large amounts of hard work to reach gold, and sometimes did not even find a speck. This event in the world’s history changed the course of many people’s lives. Gold, a chemical element, began to control people of the 1800s and generations beyond that time. Gold started an unforgettable revolution that changed many people’s lives for the positive and negative.