Gold rush

A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers into the area of a dramatic discovery of commercial quantities of gold. In the history of the United States and Canada, several gold rushes took place throughout the 19th century, first in the Appalachians, and later in the Sierra Nevada, the Fraser Canyon, the Cariboo district and other parts of British Columbia, and the Rocky Mountains. Gold rushes helped spur permanent population of new regions and define a significant part of the culture of the North American frontier. Similar gold rushes took place during the 19th century in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa

Related Topics:
Gold - United States - Canada - 19th century - Appalachians - Sierra Nevada - Fraser Canyon - Cariboo - Rocky Mountains - Australia - New Zealand - South Africa

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The most famous gold rush of all was the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898-99; the main goldfield was in Canada's Yukon Territory but it also helped open up the relatively new US possession of Alaska to exploration and settlement. This gold rush involved one of the largest mobilizations of goldseekers in history, involving millions who started on the journey although ultimately only a few hundred thousand reached the "Yukon Ports" or other disembarkation points such as Edmonton, Alberta, and only 35,000 finally reached what was to become Dawson City, at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, only to be faced by famine, fire and some of the world's bitterest and darkest winters.

Related Topics:
Klondike Gold Rush - Canada - Yukon Territory - Alaska - Edmonton, Alberta - Dawson City - Yukon River

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Gold rushes were typically marked by a general buoyant feeling of a "free for all" in income mobility, in which any single individual might become abundantly wealthy almost instantly. The significance of gold rushes in history have given a longer life to the term, and it is now applied generally to capitalism to denote any economic activity in the participants aspire to race each other in common pursuit of a new and apparently highly lucrative market, often precipitated by an advance in technology.

Related Topics:
Capitalism - Economic - Technology

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