Graham's blog posts

That was the cry in the late 1890’s which sparked one of the greatest human stampedes in history. The rumour mill was rife and, motivated by tales of nuggets as big as a fist just waiting to be picked up off the ground, a wave of humanity headed towards the vast northern wilderness. In those days there was no TV, no internet and no mobile phones so the news slowly filtered down to Seattle and San Francisco from where it spread like a gathering wildfire across North America and further afield.

From all corners of the world, it is estimated that at least 100,000 wildly optimistic would-be miners set out for the north with absolutely no knowledge of what lay ahead. They had no inkling of the long bitter winters that awaited them nor did they know of the huge distances to be negotiated across the vast, untamed and largely uncharted wilderness that lay ahead. From the UK, Europe, Australasia and elsewhere they came; lawyers, dentists, factory workers, teachers, newspapermen, conmen, farmers simply gave up their work and headed north in search of the Promised Land.