Keys to History

This photograph shows the sluicing process quite clearly. The miners have built a dam to create a pond. Water from the pond will be let into the sluice-box, which is just below the centre of the photo, and then shut off from time to time to recover the gold. In the Yukon, the actual mining of gold-bearing dirt was done in the winter. Because there is permafrost in the Klondike, fires were built on the ground, and the melted dirt was put in a pile. As a shaft was burned down into the ground, the freezing air kept the shaft from collapsing, so no timber was needed. The sluicing was done in the spring when the creeks thawed.