page_title: Lapland gold rush
section_title: The rush
hierarchical_section_title: Lapland gold rush / The rush
caption_attribution_description: English: Gold mining by the Ivalojoki River, Finland, 1898. Suomi: Kullankaivuuta Ivalojoen Sotajoella vuonna 1898.
context_page_description: The Lapland gold rush, also known as the Ivalo Gold Rush, was a gold rush that occurred in the 1870s in Lapland, Grand Duchy of Finland, then part of Imperial Russia. The Lapland gold rush started in the valley of the Ivalojoki River in 1870 and lasted for a few years. Although the scale of the Lapland gold rush is not comparable to the major 19th century gold rushes, the Lapland gold rush has great local significance in Lapland and across Finland.
context_section_description: The gold rush on the Ivalo River began in 1870, shortly after gold prospecting was made legal. During the spring and the summer, about 500 gold prospectors made their way through Lapland to the Ivalo River. The prospectors traveled hundreds of kilometers by ski, foot, or boat to the gold prospecting area, which was born to the confluence of Ivalo and its tributary Sotajoki. To regulate the rush, the government established a headquarters for the authorities and service point for the prospectors, called the "Kultala Crown Station." In Kultala, the officials issued licenses for prospectors and purchased their gold. There were also law enforcement officers and cartographers, as well as a restaurant and post office. At its largest, the number of government officials and gold prospectors was approximately 600 people. This was a significant community, as Lapland was mostly uninhabited wilderness, and the largest populated places contained only up to few hundred people.
  Since the government fees and taxes were extremely high, only the 19 wealthiest prospectors were able to make claims and then employ the rest of the prospectors. The largest claims had 30–40 men, who worked for 11 hours per day, six days a week. The major claims produced some 10 kilograms of gold yearly, but the rush was over soon, as the gold started running out. In 1873, the government fees were cut in half and a year later a special law for the gold prospecting on the Tana River was passed. The Ivalo River area was almost abandoned in the early 1880s, and the few prospectors that were left moved to Sotajoki and to the Laanila village, located 10 kilometers east. In 1883–1884, the Kultala Crown Station was used by the professor Selim Lemström for exploring the northern lights, until it was closed in 1900. During the 1920s, two companies were practicing industrial gold mining, but both went bankrupt within a few years.
caption: Gold mining by the Sotajoki river in 1898
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