In 1896, huge amounts of gold were discovered in the Klondike valley. Miners streamed from Forty Mile to the new town of Dawson and, once word got out to the external world the next year, around 100,000 more rushed to the region in search of gold. To reach the Klondike, many travelled by foot over arduous mountain routes and along rivers using primitive boats, and no more than around 30-40,000 successfully reached the goldfields. An estimated 60 to 80 percent of these newcomers came from the United States and most had no experience in the mining industry. Constantine moved quickly to establish a base in the Klondike in 1896, but the small detachment soon became overwhelmed and requested urgent reinforcements from the east. Encouraged by a sense that the organisation now had a new challenge and an opportunity to turn around the criticism of the 1885 North-West Rebellion, by 1897, 96 members of the NWMP had been sent to the district and by 1898 this had increased to 288, an expensive commitment for the Canadian government and over a third of the entire NWMP, including its most experienced personnel.