page_title: Post-Confederation Canada (1867–1914)
section_title: Klondike Gold Rush
hierarchical_section_title: Post-Confederation Canada (1867–1914) / Immigration to the West / Klondike Gold Rush
caption_attribution_description: Miner's camp at the head of the Yukon River during the Klondike Gold Rush, from the Canadian National Archives. Date: 1st May 1898 Photographer: Woodside, H.J., 1858-1929.
context_page_description: Post-Confederation Canada (1867–1914) is the history of a new nation from its formation to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Canada had a population of 3.5 million, residing in the large expanse from Cape Breton to just beyond the Great Lakes, usually within a hundred miles or so of the Canada–United States border. One in three Canadians was French, and about 100,000 were aboriginal. It was a rural country composed of small farms. With a population of 115,000, Montreal was the largest city, followed by Toronto and Quebec at about 60,000. Pigs roamed the muddy streets of Ottawa, the small new national capital.
  Besides subsistence agriculture, the economy was based on exports of lumber, fish and grain, and the import of investment capital from London and New York. Factories were small, except for those making farm implements. Overall the economy prospered in the first years of Confederation, but a world-wide depression 1873-1896 severely hurt the export economy, reduced the inflow of foreign capital, and reduced the flow of immigration. Economic growth of total GNP averaged only 2.4 percent per year, 1870 to 1896, then surged to 6.2 percent, 1897–1913.
context_section_description: In August 1896, a party led by Skookum Jim Mason discovered gold on a tributary of the Klondike River. After the discovery was publicized in 1897, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people braved numerous hardships to reach the Klondike goldfields in the winter and spring of 1897–98. With the influx of American stampeders, the government decided to relieve the North-West Territories' administration from the task of controlling the sudden boom of population, economic activity and influx of non-Canadians. On June 13, 1898, the Yukon became a separate territory. In 1901, after many had gone back, the Census put the population of the territory at 27,219, a figure that was not reached again until 1991. The influx of people greatly stimulated mineral exploration in other parts of the Yukon and led to two subsidiary gold rushes in Atlin, British Columbia and Nome, Alaska as well as a number of mini-rushes. Transportation needs to the goldfields led to the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Route.
caption: Miners' camp at the head of the Yukon River
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