“[M]en, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal,” Jack London wrote in Call of the Wild, of the events that precipitated Canada’s greatest cultural shift in ages. “Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment’s safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limb were in peril.” Intrepid miners have prospected the Yukon territory for decades, with only moderate success, until one on a fishing trip spotted a river bed full of gold.

On this day. August 16, in 1896, while salmon fishing near the Klondike river, George Carmack and his two Native American companions Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie found a nugget of gold on a river bed.

Carmack recorded his claim at the local office, and went about bragging of his discovery to the local townspeople. He had a history of such public claims, usually overstated, and few believed “Lying George” this time. Those who did, however, found the nearby land teeming with gold. By the time news reached San Francisco, the following year, via men disembarking with sacks of gold, hundreds of people packed up their belongings, quit their jobs, and made their way to the Klondike for the Last Great Gold Rush.