![]() ![]() A gold rush to the Fraser River in the 1850s, and a later one to the Cassiar region of British Columbia, drew many California miners to the Northwest, and formed the basis of a fledgling mining industry supplied by merchants in Victoria, Vancouver, and Seattle. Gold discoveries in northern and eastern Washington drew more settlers north of Columbia in the 1850s and 1860s. The California gold rush of 1849 created a sudden, large, and growing market for timber, and Seattle got its first rush of trade profits in shipping milled lumber south to the Bay Area and the Sierra goldfields. In the 19th century Seattle's economic development was curiously linked to gold. The cards can then provide the basis for discussions, debates, and writing on the themes that emerge from the Klondike. Outfitting lists and price lists provide a way for students to calculate just how much weight miners transported with them to the North, how far they had to travel, and what that travel entailed. They can use the cards and the information from Klondike guidebooks to calculate the distances and costs involved in traveling to and outfitting for the goldfields, and gauge the methods of Seattle boosters in making Seattle a leading outfitting city. There are sources from miners who took different routes-Chilkoot Trail, White Pass Trail, Stikine River and Teslin Trail, and Yukon River. They can also use the cards in tandem with the maps to follow miners into and out of the Yukon and Alaska, and get a firm grasp on the geography and natural features of the region. Students can start with the cards and find the places in question on the maps, and begin to understand what those places were like during the gold rush. The cards can thus be organized in reference to the maps. Most of the document "cards" or fragments, make reference to a particular place within the geography of the Northwest, the Yukon, and Alaska. The materials can be used in myriad ways. Combined with a few other resources, these materials provide teachers with a focused curriculum unit on the Klondike and Seattle that combines history, geography, and literature, and adds an in-depth focus to the broader consideration of the history of trade and economic growth in the Pacific Northwest The materials also allow for the investigation of other topics as well, including the experience of men and women in the gold rush itself, in both Alaska and the Yukon Territory. These materials are intended to provide students with an opportunity to learn about and investigate a specific topic in Washington history: How the Klondike/Alaska gold rush played a role in Seattle's economic growth and its rise to a position of economic dominance among Northwest cities. The enclosed curriculum materials consist of a variety of original documents related to the Klondike gold rush and Seattle and a set of maps of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Bibliography: General Sources on Seattle and the Klondike Chronology: Seattle and the Klondike Gold Rush University of Washington Department of History The Klondike Gold Rush Curriculum Materials for Washington Schools Developed byĬenter for the Study of the Pacific Northwest ![]()
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