Late last evening, when I should have been sleeping instead of researching my ancestry, I came upon evidence from the 1901 Census that my great-grandfather Adolphe Charbonneau worked in the Yukon as a miner, in the days when many voyaged to the territory in search of gold. I stumbled upon the document following a query in FamilySearch.org, which is free to use but requires users to create an account. This morning, I found the same document in Library and Archives Canada (LAC), which is free to use without an account.

Of course, I was hooked, wanting to know more about the Klondike Gold Rush, including the area known as Gold Run Creek, where my great-grandfather was in 1901 as per the Census. I spent a good portion of my day reading everything I could on the subject. One of the first resources I found was an episode of Library and Archives Canada's podcast called LAC is a gold mine! That find was especially appreciated, as I could listen to it while on my morning walk. Podcast host Josée Arnold set the stage for the episode with this opener:

Near the Alaskan border with Canada, nestled along the Klondike River in the Yukon, sits the Klondike region. On August 16, 1896, local miners discovered gold there. When news reached the United States and southern Canada the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors, forever changing the landscape of the Northwest and of North America.

The gold was discovered on Rabbit Creek, and lay within the traditional territory of the Han People, who had hunted, fished and trapped along the Yukon River for thousands of years. Many of today’s Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, or People of the River, are descendants of the Han-speaking people.

And with those words, my interest in the Klondike expanded beyond my great-grandfather and his fellow stampeders to the Indigenous peoples whose lives were heavily impacted by the rapid and massive population growth in the territory.

Throughout the episode, Josée offered additional context from an Indigenous perspective:

Did you know that the name "Klondike" evolved from the First Nations word Tr’ondëk, which means "hammerstone water"? Early gold seekers found it difficult to pronounce the First Nations word, so "Klondike" was the result of this poor pronunciation.

Josée recognized the contribution of Kylie Van Every to the podcast episode. Kylie is a Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizen and a Heritage Interpreter at Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre in Dawson City, Yukon. Josée stated: "Kylie provided us with a solid understanding of the impact that the Klondike Gold Rush had on First Nations peoples in the area, and on their ancestral rights to the land."

We all benefit when the experiences of many parties to history are represented. Too often, this has not been the case. As George Orwell said: "The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."

It's refreshing to see Indigenous and other diverse voices included in historical reviews—acknowledged not denied, revived not obliterated.