QUARANTINE BLOG # 502

August 14, 2021

Today we return to the Klondike and the Alaska Gold Rush.  Way Up North. 

The tale of Clarence Berry and his gold is unique in the annals of the stampede. Berry not only made millions as a result of the strike, but he also died at a ripe age with his millions intact. His history is marked by sobriety, honesty, hard work, ambition, and marital faithfulness. And he stayed that way. It is, in other words, boring.

Clarence and Ethel staked Six Eldorado. It proved to be one of the three richest claims in the Klondike.

Berry set about the slow work of burning shafts through the permafrost to bedrock. When he reached bedrock, a single pan of paydirt he weighed out $57 ($3700) in gold and he  knew at once that his days of penury were over.

William Ogilvie, the Canadian government surveyor who established the boundary line between Alaska and Canada, surveyed Berry’s claim and found that it was 41 feet 6 inches too wide – 500 feet was the standard. Berry’s was 541 feet 6 inches. It was on this section of his claim – one of the richest locations in the history of the gold rush – that Clarence Berry had done his winter’s work. His dump of paydirt stood on the fraction; it could not be washed out until spring. 

If Ogilvie announced the fraction Berry would lose everything, and a riot would break out as dozens fought to stake that ground. For the only time in his career, Ogilvie departed from his standards. He advised Berry to find a friend he could trust to stake the claim, and then turn the 41'6" over to Berry.  That fraction – in that single season – produced $140,000 ($9 million).

Gold was everywhere. When Ethel Berry needed pocket money, she merely walked to the dump, smashed apart the frozen clods and pulled out the nuggets. One day she went down to call her husband for supper and, while she was waiting for him to come up the shaft, picked up $50 ($3,250) worth of coarse gold.

The Klondike was soon a frenzy of excitement, but some men staked claims and then left the area without bothering to record them. Under mining law, these would be open again in 60 days, to a wild scramble. 

One of the most memorable contests had more than a dozen prospectors waiting for midnight to re-stake the same claim. As the day wore on, one by one, the contestants dropped out until only two die-hards were left. Their names are forgotten, their nationalities are not – a Scotsman and a Swede. At the stroke of midnight, a policeman called time and the race began. With feverish intensity the two men hammered in their stakes and dashed off to the recorder’s office neck and neck.

They passed and repassed one another until they reached the town in a dead heat, but the Swede raced for the wrong building, while the Scot, knowing the layout, let him pass, made a sharp turn to the right, and reach the door of the recording office. Unable to cross the six-inch threshold, he fell prone upon it, crying with his remaining breath: “Sixty Above on Bonanza!” An instant later the Swede toppled across him, gasping out the same magic phrase. Like Solomon of old, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police advised the pair to divide the ground, which in the end they did. It was one of the small ironies of the Klondike that the claim turned out to be entirely worthless.

Permafrost mining in the sub-Artic is unique because the permanently frozen ground must be thawed before the bedrock can be reached; it is this bedrock, 10, 20, and even 50 feet below the surface, that contains the gold. 

At first the miners let the sun do the work – a few inches of thawed earth scraped away each day. Soon wood fires replaced the sun. They lit them by night, removed the ashes and the thawed earth in the morning, then lit a new fire, burning their way slowly through a shaft whose sides remained frozen. This method allowed miners to work all winter, tunneling to the “pay dirt.” 

The paydirt was hoisted up the shaft and piled in a mound, known as a “dump.” In the spring, when the ice broke on the creeks and water gushed down the hillsides, the miners built long sluice boxes to redirect the river. The gravel was shoveled into these boxes and, as the water rushed through, was swept away. The heavier gold was caught in the crossbars and in the matting on the bottom. 

The entertainments that lightened this monotony were scarce and primitive. One of the main amusements was the “squaw dance.” Josiah Edward Spurr, a U.S. government geologist who visited Fortymile in the nineties, has left a description of one of these affairs.

Miners lined up in front of the saloon and watched the door of a very large log cabin opposite. They said there was going to be a dance, but they did not know when.

At ten o’clock, an Indian woman with a baby in the blanket on her back, came around the corner, and made for the cabin door. She was followed by a dozen others, each silent, each with a baby upon her back. They entered the cabin, sat down on benches, and deposited their babies in a row.

The miners slouched into the cabin after them. Then a man with a dilapidated fiddle struck up a swinging, sawing melody and some of the most reckless of the miners grabbed an Indian woman and began swinging her around in a stampede waltz. Gradually other couples joined in. As the night drew on, one by one, the women dropped out, picked up their babies and returned home. The men slipped over to the saloon to have a drink before going to their cabins. 

Another pastime was drinking. Saloons served whisky in the spring, after the thaw, and the rest of the year peddled hootchinoo, a local concoction compounded of molasses, sugar, and dried fruit, fermented with sourdough, flavored with anything handy, and served hot. It was sometimes referred to as Forty-Rod Whisky because it was supposed to kill a man at that distance (a rod = 2/3 mile – just over 26 miles). 

A man who bought a drink bought for everyone in sight, though such a round might cost $100 ($2,500). The drinks were paid for in gold dust, and the prospector who flung his poke upon the bar always performed the elaborate gesture of turning his back while the amount was weighed out, since to watch this ritual was to impugn the honesty of the bartender.

Next week, Jack McQuesten and more Klondike strikes.

👉  Today’s close “A Heart Like Jesus (I Do Not Have)” is by Jennifer Waddle.

The phrase, “Follow your heart,” is perhaps the most popular maxim of all time.  Especially now, in the twenty-first century, the advice to “trust your instincts” or “do what feels right” permeates every aspect of our culture.

I don’t know about you, but my heart is unreliable, wishy-washy, and sometimes selfish!  In fact, the Bible is most accurate when it says the heart is deceitful and desperately sick. (Jeremiah 17:9).

But here is our consolation, even though Jesus knew the condition of our hearts, He still chose to give His life.

For while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8).

Isn’t that humbling?  We may not have hearts like Jesus, perfect in love and sacrificial unto death, but we can still be followers after God’s own heart.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me  (Psalm 51:10-11).

The heart that chases after God is willing to lay down everything to fulfill the Lord’s purpose.  No matter where God calls them to go, people after God’s own heart give up selfish ambition for the sake of His glory.

We may not have hearts like Jesus, but by abiding in His presence, keeping His statutes, and surrendering to His will, we too can be considered people after God’s own heart.

-30-