J.W. McCormick’s Strike

[ Forty Below Zero ]

Forty Below Zero, Sarah Noble-Ives, 1897, Univ of Washington, Ph Coll 597.10

The richest gold placers in the upper Yukon were discovered by a white man in August, 1896. The find was due to the reports of Indians. J.W. McCormick, a Scotchman, who had been in the employ of William Ogilvie, Dominion Land Surveyor, for seven years in the same region, was the lucky prospector. He located a claim on the branch of the Klondike, which has since become known to fame as Bonanza Creek. McCormick located late in August, 1896, but had to cut some logs for the mill to get a few pounds of provisions to enable him to begin work on his claim. The fishing of Klondike having totally failed him, he returned with a few weeks provisions for himself, his wife and brother-in-law (Indians) and another Indian in the last days of August, and immediately set about working his claim. As he was very short of appliances he could only put together a rather defective apparatus to wash the gravel with. The gravel itself he had to carry in a box on his back from thirty to one hundred feet. Notwithstanding this the three men, working very irregularly, washed out $1200 in eight days, and McCormick asserts with reason that had he had proper facilities it could have been done in two days, besides having several hundred dollars more gold which was lost in the tailings through defective apparatus.

Source: A.C. Harris, "McCormick's Strike" (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1897)

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