The Prospector Who Lost Out On A Fortune

Racism cost Robert Henderson his share of the Klondike Gold Rush

Robert Henderson was a man who believed in the prospector’s code that if you found gold, you told everyone you came across.

And that is exactly what he did in August 1896 when he met George Carmack, his wife Shaaw Tláa and his brother in law Keish, also known as Skookum Jim in the Klondike wilderness.

Before we get to that meeting though, let’s go back a bit.

Robert Henderson was born in Pictou County, Nova Scotia in 1857. From a young age, after reading about Alaska, he became obsessed with finding gold. At the age of 14, he left home and travelled the world looking for gold. Those travels took him to Australia, Colorado and New Zealand.

In 1894, he arrived in the Klondike area and began to prospect. He found some gold in the Indian River, but not much. During the winter of 1895-96, he went to a creek at the head of the Indian River where he found good quantities of gold. He gave the creek the name Gold Bottom.

While taking a raft down the Klondike River towards Forty Mile to get supplies, he came across those three individuals.

As a believer in the prospector’s code, he told George Carmack about the gold he found upriver. Henderson even drew a circle around the area on a map.

Then he made a decision that changed his life.

He pointed to Keish and Keish’s nephew K̲áa Goox̱ and said:

“Just you though, none for those damned siwashes”

Henderson had no love for the local Indigenous Peoples and he wasn’t shy about sharing his racism.

Problem was, Carmack was married to Keish’s sister, and was known to be someone who sympathized with the Tagish People (at least at that point).

Carmack, Shaaw Tláa, Keish and K̲áa Goox̱ followed the tip Henderson gave them but were not impressed by what they found in the creek. The four returned to their camp via Rabbit Creek and it was on that journey that one of them, likely Keish, saw something glittering in the water on Aug. 16, 1896.

It was gold. A lot of it.

Thus began the Klondike Gold Rush.

Unfortunately for Henderson, he was away in the bush staking claims on his little creek that only had a small amount of gold. Even though he came across Carmack again soon after the big strike, Carmack never told him about the gold find.

It was months before Henderson found about about the gold rush but by that point, the richest claims were staked. He had lost out on a fortune because of his racism.

Angered over being left out on the bonanza after looking for gold his entire life, Henderson sought compensation from the Canadian government. He was eventually granted a small pension from the government and recognized as a co-discoverer of the gold in the Klondike.

In 1898, Henderson moved to the United States, then came back to Dawson City in the early-1900s and worked at the Government Mining Engineer’s Office. He eventually moved to British Columbia where he died in 1933.

In 1988, Henderson was inducted into the Prospectors Hall of Fame. A decade later in 1999, he was inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame.