It was discovered by an old hunter named McCormick.

McCormick had married an Indian squaw, and was therefore, according to the custom, known by the uncomplimentary name of squaw man, and was not much liked by other white men.

He lived a very lonely life in his cabin, with his squaw wife and his half-Indian children, and made his living by hunting and fishing.

In the spring of 1896 he went up the Klondike River to fish.  At the point where this stream meets the Yukon, very large salmon are often caught.  It was for this profitable spot that McCormick set out.

He had poor luck, however.  The salmon didn’t run as usual, and his fishing expedition was a failure.

He didn’t want to go home empty-handed, and cast about for some fresh game.  In his uncertainty he bethought him that the Indians had often told him that gold was very abundant in this region, and could be washed out of the sand in any little pan or vessel that hunters happened to carry.

Failing to catch salmon, he determined to seek for gold, and, starting off in the direction the Indians had pointed out, he soon found that their stories were absolutely true.

Filling his pockets with all the nuggets he could carry, he started back with the news.

As soon as word was spread abroad, the miners began to rush into the new district.

After McCormick’s fishing-trip several men went prospecting, and, finding that he had not exaggerated the greatness of his discovery, men began to hurry to the Klondike region to take up their claims and secure their share of the great prize.

The work of mining this gold is very lengthy and somewhat curious.

The Yukon region, in which the Klondike lies, is very cold.  Alaska is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, and the Arctic circle runs right through the Yukon country.  You can imagine therefore that it is terribly cold, and that the ground is frozen nearly all the year round.

The rich pay-dirt in which the gold is found lies from eighteen to twenty-five feet below the surface.  It would not pay the miners to wait for the short warm season when the frost is out of the ground to make their harvest; so they have found a plan to get at the gold all the year round, no matter how hard or frozen the earth may be.

They build great fires on the top of the gravel, and fix them so that they shall burn all night.  When morning comes about eighteen inches of the ground beneath the fire is found to be thawed out.  This surface is shovelled away, and another fire built on the gravel where it is frozen again.

They keep right on in this slow and tedious way, until finally the pay-dirt is reached.

The yield from these new gold-fields is something wonderful.  It is greater than anything ever recorded in the history of gold mining.

[Illustration:  Alaska:  Yukon Valley and gold fields.