On June 26, 1925, exactly 90 years ago, the premiere of Chaplin’s famous film “The Gold Rush” took place. The film, shot 29 years after the outbreak of the Alaska Gold Rush, largely recreates that historical phenomenon. To make it even more believable, Chaplin even hired 2,500 tramps who swung pickaxes, imitating the work of miners. However, in 95 minutes of screen time it is impossible to reflect all the details of the life of gold miners. Yes, this was not required, because in a comedy film there is no place for tragedies and collapses of illusions that awaited prospectors at every step. And the screen Charlie, who became fabulously rich and found happiness in the mines, was a rare exception in the Klondike.

In 1896, the Klondike gold rush began - perhaps the most famous in history. She proved that to make money on gold, you don’t have to mine it. On September 5, 1896, the Alaska Commercial Company's steamship Alice sailed to the mouth of the Klondike River. On board were hundreds of miners from nearby villages. They were following in the footsteps of George Carmack. Three weeks earlier, he had brought from these places a hard drive case completely filled with gold sand. Thus began the most famous and large-scale gold rush in history...

Let's find out the details...

Went for salmon, came back with gold

The “discovery” of the Klondike was not accidental. The prospectors approached him slowly but surely. Gold had been found on the Pacific coast of Canada before 1896. Missionaries and fur traders were the first to notice the precious metal in local rivers back in the 40s of the 19th century, but remained silent. The first - out of fear that the influx of prospectors would shake the moral foundations of the Indians who had just converted to the new faith. The second - because they considered the fur trade a more profitable business than gold mining.

But still, in the early 50s, the first prospectors appeared on the Fraser River in British Columbia. There were few of them: the mines here were not very rich, and besides, the gold rush in California was in full swing. But as California's reserves dwindled, the migration of miners intensified. With varying success, they explored the beds of Canadian rivers, gradually moving north to the border with Alaska.

Even the first cities of prospectors appeared. First, Forty Mile is a settlement on the bend of the river of the same name and the Yukon. When gold was found just to the north, many miners moved to the new community of Circle City. They mined little gold here, but still managed to organize their life. For just over a thousand residents, two theaters, a music salon and 28 saloons were opened here - that is, a saloon for about every 40 people!

George Carmack

Every natural disaster - and the gold rush for the vast majority of its participants was precisely a disaster - begins by chance, with some trifle. In early August 1896, three residents of the Canadian state of Yukon, bordering Alaska to the north, went in search of the lost Kate and George Carmack. A couple of days later they were found at the mouth of the Klondike River, where they were storing salmon for the winter.

Then these five people wandered around a little and came across the richest placers of gold, which simply sparkled in the stream, and it could be collected with bare hands.

On September 5, George Carmack brought a couple of kilograms of gold dust to the Circle City village to exchange it for currency and necessary goods. Circle City, which was home to about a thousand people, was instantly deserted - everyone rushed to the mouth of the Klondike. Exactly the same insanity gripped the residents of the entire area. Thus, in the fall of 1896, about three thousand people gathered to mine gold in the places of its richest deposits. It was they who managed to grab the bird of happiness by the tail. Gold lay literally underfoot, and it was possible to collect it without encountering fierce resistance from competitors. In 1896, there was enough gold for everyone in the Klondike.

These lucky people owed this lafe to the region’s remoteness from civilization and the lack of transport and information connections with large cities located much further south during the cold season. It was these three thousand people, with rare exceptions, who panned gold worth many thousands of dollars. However, not all of them used their wealth wisely; most of them had golden sand leaking between their fingers.

Those who earned decent money also include at most a thousand to one and a half people who subsequently arrived in the Yukon from other regions of the world, including even Australia. These people already had to literally fight for gold. And endure incredible hardships, since they were not adapted to hard work in the harsh conditions of the north.

I must admit, they were lucky. Winter was beginning, there was no connection with the “mainland”, no one could come to the Yukon or leave here, and wide circles of the American public learned about new gold deposits only in the summer of next year. A thousand miners were given the opportunity to pan for gold in the most fertile areas for six months, without worrying about competitors.

The real gold rush began only after these prospectors brought their gold to the “mainland” at the beginning of summer. On July 14, 1897, the steamship Excelsior entered the port of San Francisco. He was on a flight from Alaska. Each passenger had gold dust worth from $5 thousand to $130 thousand in his hands. To understand what this means in modern prices, feel free to multiply by 20. It turns out that the poorest passenger on the flight had $100 thousand in his pocket.

And three days later, on July 17, another ship, the Portland, entered the port of Seattle. On board the Portland there were three tons of gold: sand and nuggets in dirty canvas bags, on which their rightful owners sat, beaming with a weathered smile between their frostbitten cheeks. After this, the United States of America (and then the rest of the world, civilized and not) went crazy in unison. People left their jobs and families, pawned their last belongings and rushed north. Policemen left their posts, tram drivers left trams, pastors left parishes.

The mayor of Seattle, who was on a business trip to San Francisco, telegraphed his resignation and, without returning to Seattle, rushed to the Klondike. The respectable thirty-year-old housewife Mildred Blenkins, a mother of three children, went out shopping and did not return home: having taken the savings she shared with her husband from the bank, she got to Dawson and flaunted there in cloth pants, reselling food and building materials. By the way, old Millie made the right decision: three years later she returned to her family, bringing with her $190,000 worth of gold dust as an expiatory gift.

“The time has come to go to the Klondike country, where gold is as abundant as sawdust,” wrote the city newspaper The Seattle Daily Times the next day.

And a chain reaction began. Dozens of ships headed north. By September, 10 thousand people left Seattle for Alaska. Winter put a pause on the fever, but the following spring more than 100 thousand fortune hunters took the same route.

Of course, few people understood what he was doing. The easiest route to the Klondike looked like this: several thousand kilometers across the ocean to Alaska, then crossing the kilometer-high Chilkoot Pass, a queue of several thousand people. Moreover, it could only be overcome on foot - pack animals could not climb the steep slope. Horses and dogs on the slope were powerless. True, there were Indians who could be hired to carry luggage at the rate of a dollar per pound of luggage. But such money was only found among eccentric millionaires, who, however, were encountered more often in the Yukon than in the restaurants of Nice. An additional difficulty: in order to avoid famine, the Canadian authorities did not allow him to cross the pass unless the miner had at least 800 kg of food with him. Some swung up and down forty times to carry the load. They crawled so tightly that, having fallen out of line, one could wait five to six hours to get back into line. Frequent avalanches buried both people and belongings.

Prospectors overcome Chilkoot Pass

Those who crossed the Chilkoot cut down timber, built rafts, boats - in short, anything that would keep them and their supplies afloat, and prepared for the final push along the Yukon River. In May 1898, as soon as the river was free of ice, a flotilla of seven thousand so-called ships set off on an 800-kilometer voyage downstream.

The rapids and narrow canyons shattered the dreams and lives of many: of the 100 thousand adventurers who disembarked at Skagway, only 30 thousand reached Dawson - at that time a nondescript Indian village. At best, a few hundred of them made a fortune from the mined gold.

Acquired by back-breaking labor

The statistics of the two-year gold rush, which swept the Yukon and spread to Alaska, are very sad. During this period, about 200 thousand people tried to find their financial happiness in the northern regions. As was said, 4 thousand people found happiness. But there were much more of those who died here - according to various estimates, from 15 to 25 thousand.

Adversity began as soon as the fortune hunters reached Alaska by ship, where it was necessary to overcome the steep Chilkoot Pass, which pack animals were unable to overcome. Here they were met by Canadian police, who allowed only those who had at least 800 kilograms of food to pass through. The police also limited the import of firearms into the country so that large-scale battles would not take place in the mines, which threatened to spread to the territories of Canada located to the south.

This was followed by a crossing of Lindeman Lake, a 70-kilometer off-road trek and an 800-kilometer rafting along the rapids-strewn Yukon River to the Klondike. Not everyone made it to the mines.

In place, a harsh climate awaited people with severe (up to 40 degrees) frosts in winter and sweltering heat in summer. People died from hunger, and from disease, and from accidents during work, and from clashes with competitors. The situation was aggravated by the fact that a significant number of “white collar” workers came to mine gold - clerks, teachers, doctors, unaccustomed to either hard physical labor or everyday hardships. This was due to the fact that America at that time was experiencing far from the best economic times.

And the work was really hard. After quickly collecting gold from the surface of the earth, it was necessary to shovel the soil. And he was frozen for most of the year. And it had to be warmed up with fires. During the California Gold Rush, it was much easier for prospectors.

Aspiring writer Jack London, who was forced to leave the University of California due to the inability to pay for his studies, also decided to try his luck. In 1897, at the age of 21, he reached the mines and staked out a plot of land with his comrades. But there was no gold on it. And the future famous writer was forced to sit on an empty plot of land without hope of enrichment, waiting for spring, when it would be possible to get out of the lands cursed by providence. In winter, he fell ill with scurvy, got frostbite, spent all his cash... And we, the readers, were very lucky that he survived, returned to his homeland and wrote great novels and brilliant short story cycles.

It must be said that the gold recovered during 2 years of feverish mining turned out to be not so much for each prospector. On a modern price scale, this is $4.4 billion, which should be divided by 200 thousand people. It turns out to be only 22 thousand dollars.

But one of the most intelligent and insightful entrepreneurs turned out to be John Ladue. 6 years before the start of the gold rush, he founded a trading post in northern Canada, supplying everything necessary local residents, as well as prospectors who at that time mined gold in very modest quantities.

When in September 1896 all the surrounding residents rushed to the mouth of the Klondike to the placers discovered by Carmack, Ladue did not stand aside. But he did not buy a gold-bearing plot, but 70 hectares of land that no one needed. Then he brought food supplies to them, built a house, a warehouse and a sawmill, founding the village of Dawson. When in the spring of the following year tens of thousands of fortune hunters rushed to the mouth of the Klondike, all residential buildings and infrastructure buildings were built on Ladue’s land, which brought him huge profits. And very soon Ladyu became a multimillionaire, and the village grew to the size of a city with a population of 40 thousand.

Skagway now: former brothel, now popular pub

In terms of prudence, only one other person can compare with John LaDue. Retired captain William Moore bought land in Skagway Bay ten years before the start of the gold rush. A former sailor, he noticed that this is the only place for a hundred miles where the fairway allows large ships to approach the shore. For ten years, he and his son slowly built a pier, warehouses and a sawmill in Skagway. Moore's calculation was simple: prospectors would explore all the rivers to the south, which means that someday they would reach these places.

The forecast was fully justified: during the two years of the Klondike fever, more than 100 thousand people passed through Skagway, and the farm of William Moore turned into a large city for those times.

It was worse for the gold miners who were just beginning their journey to the Klondike. in Alaska. Since the spring of 1898, about a thousand prospectors passed through Skagway every month on their way to Dawson. Overcrowded communities in southern Alaska became refuges for thousands of men waiting to leave for the north. To entertain this restless public, numerous "saloons" and hangouts sprang up in Skagway.

"Slippery" Smith (center) in his "saloon." 1898

The king of this shadow world of Alaska was a man nicknamed "Soapy". His real name was Jefferson Randolph Smith II. By 1884, "Slippery" was claiming to be the king of crime in Denver by running fictitious lotteries. For excessive claims, rival gangs tried to kill Smith in 1889, but he managed to fight off. It got to the point that Denver City Hall had to repel gangster attacks with guns. Smith realized that his gang would not be able to resist artillery, and in 1896 he chose to move to Alaska.

“Slippery” was a year ahead of the main wave of gold miners and managed to prepare well for it. He acted in the usual way. In Skagway, he first organized a gambling establishment in a “saloon”. Then Smith established the reception of telegrams by arranging a poker game nearby, which ended in an almost predictable loss for the sender of the telegram. It never occurred to the gullible gold miners that the nearest telegraph pole was hundreds of miles away. Not everyone realized that they had been duped. And those who understood were in too much of a hurry to get to the treasured Klondike to waste time complaining.

A year later, Smith had strong competitors. In May 1898, under the leadership of Canadian engineers, construction began on the White Pass & Yukon narrow-gauge railway, which was supposed to connect Skagway with the village of Whitehorse. “Slippery” realized that gold miners who moved without delay from the steamship gangway to the train car would not become his clients, but it was not easy to fight the railway company. The gold miners themselves have become bolder. On the evening of July 8, 1898, a meeting of “vigilants” (citizens engaged in lynching) was convened in Skagway. A tipsy Smith went to this meeting, but he was not allowed there. A verbal altercation began, which smoothly turned into a shootout, during which “Slippery” was killed. The criminal reign in Skagway has come to an end.

But still, the greatest fortunes from the Klondike fever were made by those who understood the mechanisms of trade. At the height of the gold boom, commodity prices in Dawson and other mining towns were not just high, they were outrageously high.

Let's start with what it took to get to Dawson. At the height of the fever, Indian porters charged $15,000 at current prices to carry a ton of cargo across the Chinkuk Pass.

For clarity, we will continue to operate with today's prices. A boat that would allow you to raft 800 miles across the Yukon could not be bought for less than $10,000. The future writer Jack London, who found himself in the Yukon in the summer of 1897, made money by helping to guide the boats of inexperienced prospectors through the river hummocks. He charged a lot for the boat - about $600. And over the summer he earned $75 thousand. For comparison: before leaving for the Klondike, London worked at a jute factory and received $2.5 per hour of work. That's $170 a week and 2300 for three months. That is, thirty times less than on the hummocks of the Yukon.

Like soldiers in war, Dawson residents lived in the moment. The hostess of the cancan, Gertie Diamond Tooth (the entertainment business was going so well that she inserted one into herself) accurately described the situation: “These unfortunate people are just itching to spend money quickly - so they are afraid to give their souls to God before they dig up everything that is there there's still some left." Pain, despair and frozen corpses in frozen huts coexisted very well with the chansonettes standing ankle-deep in nuggets on the Monte Carlo stage. Feral prospectors spent fortunes for the right to dance with sisters Jacqueline and Rosalind, known as Vaseline and Glycerin.

Of course, prices can be explained by the difficulties of delivery to godforsaken areas. But, of course, greed and monopoly played a role. Thus, the supply of products to Dawson was almost completely controlled by one person - Canadian Alex MacDonald, nicknamed Big Alex. A year after the start of the gold rush, Big Alex's fortune was estimated at $5 million, and he himself received the title of “King of the Klondike.” He not only bought up dozens of “applications”, but also hired bankrupt miners to work in his mines. As a result, MacDonald earned $5 million and received the unofficial title of “King of the Klondike.” True, the ending for the real estate buyer turned out to be sad. Concentrating in his hands huge land, MacDonald did not want to part with them in time. As a result, the price of mountains and forests with depleted deposits fell, and the “king of the Klondike” went bankrupt.

Belinda Mulroney

Dawson also had its own “queen” - Belinda Mulroney. She started with clothing speculation - she brought clothes worth $5 thousand to worn-out prospectors, which were sold for $30 thousand, and then switched to whiskey and shoes, selling rubber boots$100 per pair. And she also became a millionaire. Having learned about the discovery of gold in the Nome area, the “queen” of the Klondike immediately moved to Alaska. She was still resourceful and enterprising. “Queen” Belinda did not receive the throne, but she managed to marry a French swindler who declared himself a count. Mulroney's money was invested in the European Shipping Company. The “Queen of the Klondike” lived in London, denying herself nothing, until 1914, when the war led to the collapse of shipping and the ruin of many companies. Belinda Mulroney died poor.

Moreover, these people were not pioneers. Enterprising people have known for a long time how to make money on the gold rush. A few decades earlier, when the fever swept through California, the first millionaire was not some guy with a pick and shovel, but the one who sold shovels to guys. His name was Samuel Brennan, and he was in the right place at the right time.

Samuel Brennan

Bigamist, adventurer, alcoholic and head of the San Francisco Mormon community, Samuel Brennan, among other things, “famous” for the phrase: “I will give you the Lord’s money when you send me a receipt signed by him.”

And it was like this. During the height of the California Gold Rush, many Mormons came there. Religion obliged them to give God a tenth of what they earned. Mormon miners brought tithes of the gold they mined to Samuel. And he was obliged to transport him to Utah, to the headquarters of the church. But no parcels of gold sand arrived from California. When it was hinted to Brennan from Utah that it was wrong to embezzle God’s money, he responded with that very phrase about the receipt.

By then, Brennan could afford such impudence. He no longer depended on anyone. And all because one day the discoverer of California gold, James Marshall, came to him - then still a modest shepherd and owner of a small store. He had found gold a couple of months earlier, but kept his secret. However, left without money, he somehow paid in Brennan’s store with gold dust. And to prove that the gold was real, he admitted where he found it.

The pastor used the situation to his advantage. Over the next few days, he bought all the shovels and other household utensils in the area. And then he published a note in his newspaper that gold had been found on the American River. With this note, the California gold rush began. Brennan's calculation was simple: his store is the only one on the road from San Francisco to the mines, which means that the miners will pay as much as he asks. And the calculation worked: very soon he was selling for $500 the shovels he had bought for $10. For a sieve that cost him $4, he asked $200. In three months, Samuel earned his first million. A few more years passed, and he was no longer just the richest man in California, but also one of the “pillars of society,” the owner of newspapers, banks and steamships, and a California state senator.

However, Samuel's end was sad. Apparently, the Lord, embarrassed to send him a tithe receipt, found another way to remind him of justice. Somewhat risky financial transactions and a scandalous divorce bankrupted California's first millionaire. He met his old age by sleeping in the back rooms of local saloons.

Most of the miners ended their lives in much the same way. Even after washing millions on the rivers of the Yukon, they could not cope with their passions. Saloons, brothels, casinos - the service industry knew how to get money out of their pockets. The writer Bret Harte, who became famous for describing the life of prospectors, talks about a man who, having sold his plot at a profit, loses half a million dollars in a San Francisco casino in one day. Witnesses of the gold rush in Australia, in their memoirs, shared memories of characters who in local pubs lit pipes with five-pound notes (that’s like a five-thousandth in our reality) and paid cab drivers with handfuls of gold dust.

Queue for gold mining licenses.

Tent city on the shores of Bennett Lake. In this place, gold miners built or bought boats to further sail to the Klondike by water.

Another, more substantial gold mining settlement.

The shortest, but most difficult route to the Klondike was through the Chilkoot Pass, an altitude of more than 1200 meters. The most adventurous and hasty ones crossed this pass even in winter, and at first there were quite a few of them.

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Production was in progress all year round. In winter, the frozen ground was dug with picks or heated with fires.

A team of gold miners at work.

A group of prospectors on the way to the Klondike.

Perhaps the only ones who really and fabulously got rich from the “gold rush” were resellers who bought the precious metal from miners at a low price. The distinguished gentleman sitting on the left poses with bags of gold that he bought over the previous fortnight. There may also be gold in the chests. Of course, a guard with a revolver in such a still life is far from superfluous.

On the left is the cover of the Klondike News from April 1898, with an optimistic forecast that $40 million worth of gold was expected to be mined that year.
And the right drawing from the English magazine Punch for the same year, as it were, warns adventurers what actually awaits most of them in the Klondike.

Under the game there is a description, instructions and rules, as well as thematic links to similar materials - we recommend that you read it.

The authors used the ambience of the Gold Rush to decorate this, in fact, ordinary classic “Scarf.” Klondike implies a cumulative result, this word suits this game perfectly. Gold, gold and more gold. The better you are at playing solitaire, the more gold you will be able to earn.

Can download game GOLDEN KLONDIKE on your computer, it will not take up much space, but think about whether it makes sense to do this, because it is always available here, you just need to open this page.

Take a break and play Online Games , which develop logic and imagination, allow you to relax pleasantly. Relax and take your mind off things!

Full screen

A game in the categories Solitaire, Cards, Logic available for free, around the clock and without registering with a description in Russian on Min2Win. If the capabilities of the electronic desktop allow, you can expand the plot of THE GOLDEN KLONDIKE in full screen and enhance the effect of completing the scenarios. Many things really make sense to consider in more detail.

I met her in the fall of 2012, accidentally stumbling across her in the applications section. Klondike pulled me in from the first seconds of the game. When you first log in, the user is told a backstory that you are going in search of your father, to continue his business, to mine gold and at the same time to develop the lands. This game is for lovers of economic strategies. Reminiscent of the previously widely known Happy Farmer, but much more interesting in plot. The point of the game is not only in growing vegetables, but in completing quests, clearing new locations, and earning coins.

The Klondike is a whole world, it is impossible to tell about everything that is there. I will try to describe the most important things.

At the beginning, the player is accompanied by hints, and thanks to simple quests, it is easy to reach about level 15. Then it becomes more and more difficult.

There are a lot of quests: some are tied to the home station, others to different locations. Often developers launch temporary lines of quests that are timed to coincide with holidays or just because. At the same time, they have their own history, their own objects and special prizes - decor and useful items. Such quests have a timer. Often, in such cases, temporary locations are created that disappear after the end of the quest.

For example, a location for Halloween:

There are also permanent locations, some can be turned into settlements. New ones are added periodically, it is almost impossible to clear everything.

I'll show you my home station.

Unfortunately, I cannot show what the location looks like at the very beginning, since I am already almost level 70, and I have removed all the trees and stones, built dwellings and factories.

This part becomes accessible from the very beginning and needs to be cleared of trees and vegetation in order to build your buildings on it. You can use your energy for clearing, or you can build a Sawmill and a Quarry, since some items may be too tough for you. Here I have a merchant, dwellings, garden beds, barns, an airplane and a sleigh, which can be used to get to other locations, roulettes, which are given as birthday games every year or for completing quests. You can win various useful things in them.

This part of the territory opens after the construction of the bridge. I have factories here.

This is the Golden Plateau of my home station after clearing the rubble. Here I placed bakeries, houses, a manor, trees and animals. It is also where the Leoncia mine is located.

In the Abandoned Mine of Leoncia (at the home station it is located on the Golden Plateau, which can be reached by dismantling the rubble) a mini-game has appeared, which everyone knows as “Mineweeper”. At the moment, 4 leagues are open - Pesochnaya (mine at the home station), Derevyannaya (Ukhty village), Cloudnaya (Polar-side village), Tsvetochnaya (Khanbulat village) and Grozovaya (Sunrise) is approaching.

And this one can be bought for 70 emeralds. I purchased it quite recently and am currently cleaning it out.

In Klondike you can contact other players. They can be your friends who installed the game, and recently it has become possible to add neighbors - they don’t have to be among your friends. It is useful to exchange resources and daily gifts with them, as well as visit them and look for gold mines.

About energy. It is spent on planting seeds and removing trees, rocks, bushes and grass. It is restored by one division every 3 minutes. You can also buy it for emeralds:

Or you can use energy drinks:

They are received as a gift for completing quests, for excavations in other locations, and are also prepared in the Bakery, which is bought for emeralds. Another way to get energy is to dig at neighbors' locations. It falls out if you dig under a tent, barn, flower cart, fountain and some other objects. In this way, energy can be obtained for large objects. In addition, energy and energy drops when excavating coal, large stones, trees and some bushes in other locations, as well as from caches at the home station.

The energy scale without the use of energy drinks has a maximum, beyond which it does not increase on its own; also, when it is reached, you cannot use energy drinks other than honey. Honey can be obtained from the hive, which is purchased for emeralds. It can be used at any energy scale. This is also convenient for excavating large objects.

The maximum level of replenishable Energy increases at the following levels:

Coins- the main game currency, less valuable than emeralds. They can be earned by selling found gold, crops and materials, completing quests, gaining a new level, a little from excavations with friends, and also by exchanging some collections. They buy animals, seeds, many decorations, and buildings.

Emeralds.

Emeralds are a valuable game currency, with which you can open buildings, decorations, plants and clothes in advance, buy various expansions, some buildings, materials, decorations, as well as Energy. Emeralds allow you to skip tasks without completing them. One Emerald is given each time for reaching a new level in the game.

They do not have to be purchased with real money. The game administration is generous. Emeralds are given as a gift when gaining a new level, completing many quests, they fall out of special holiday buildings, and are found in roulettes. I bought a few times for a small amount of money, but rather for the purpose of supporting the developers. It is clear that they are trying, that they are talented people who put their souls into their work.

A nice bonus is daily roulette.

So, why I love the Klondike.

Beautiful and original animation

The design is thought out to the smallest detail

Regular interesting quests with good prizes

No need to invest real money

Easy to play, quickly addictive if you are interested in this genre

Can be expanded to full screen

Convenient and clear navigation

I do not like:

No confirmation of purchases for emeralds

Banners often pop up with offers to buy emerald upgrades

There are still some minor shortcomings that you can easily put up with. Klondike has fan sites and an official VKontakte group, where you can find neighbors, exchange resources, get tips, and also write to the developers questions and suggestions for improving the game. You can play Klondike not only on VK, but also on Mail ru and Odnoklassniki. I only play on VKontakte.

Overall the game is high quality and interesting. I recommend it to fans of economic strategies.