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Alaska Gold Prospecting

BONANZA CREEK

I have already referred to a meeting of miners and others on Lower Bonanza Creek at claim No. 17 below discovery, and now I have to take it up again at greater length. When the Mounted Police entered the country the majority of the people were pleased that at last there was some reliable official body representative of law and order in the country, but some who were accustomed to what they called liberty, that is, the privilege, if we may term it so, of doing as they pleased, and paying when they chose, and especially those accustomed to the regulation by each mining community of its own local matters by miners' meetings, and who had not suffered by that system, were opposed to what they styled the interference of the police. At this meeting there were twenty-five, but as in every other crowd, a few did the talking and swayed the meeting. There were only a few pronounced opponents of the police ; the rest listened and let things go. At the meeting it was resolved that, as the location of claims so far had been done at random, without any connection between the many locations, therefore it was right and proper that a new and connected survey be made ; carried. Resolved further that a local recorder be appointed, and as a " sop " to WINTER WORK IN 1895-6 161 the public a stranger named David McKay, from Nova Scotia, was elected. It was also resolved that the name of the new creek be Bonanza. A rope was procured, and measured fifty feet long, with which to survey the creek from discovery claim down. A few went up from discovery.

Now I afterwards saw seventeen out of the twenty-five present, and examined thirteen of these under oath, but I could never learn who measured the rope, nor to whom it belonged, apparently no one saw it measured. Very good prospects were found on discovery, and just as good on a claim which proved to be sixteen below ; what number it was then they could not know, but as it was supposed to be two miles below discovery, and the ground between them was assumed to be all as good, the more claims in the stretch the more people would be enriched. It was agreed between them that the allotment of claims staked that day would be governed by drawing numbers out of a hat. In what way the rope was measured, or how it was held, I do not know, but I do know that discovery claim was cut from four hundred and ninety-six feet, as measured by Carmac, to four hundred and fifty and a half ; and No. i below from four hundred and ninety-two by Carmac, to four hundred and forty-seven. Now there was no proper reason why those adjusters could not have been as correct as Carmac they had a measure, he had none and trusted to pacing to get the five hundred feet allowed him in each claim. The so-called survey was carried down the creek valley, more than fifty claims in an afternoon ; true, the afternoons were long then, from noon till midnight, and claims ranged from three hundred and fifty to four hundred and fifty in the located parts, and more outside of them. They found no room for a claim staked by a previous locator in the vicinity of No. 12 below, so struck him out there and moved him down to fifty below discovery. Only four miles ! not much of a move !

This man, immediately after locating, had sold his title to the claim to a syndicate of four. One of the first to locate after Carmac was an old man, Edward Monahan, who, on August 1 9th, located about twenty-nine below, and as he was very friendly with the police officers' wives, and Mrs. Healy, and another lady at Fortymile, after staking his own claim he thought it would be a compliment to the ladies to stake a claim for them too, which he did, and came down and had them recorded through a misunderstanding of the mining regulations.