Tony Beets has been mining gold in the Yukon since 1982, and his net worth is estimated at over $5 million. OPPOSITE Gold panning still reaps rewards in the Klondike
If the bulldozers on Tony Beets’ gold mine ever break down he could just use his bare hands. They are gigantic and caked in dirt, the way God’s must have looked the day he created the mountains. Tony came to the Yukon in 1982 for the same reason thousands before him did during the Gold Rush of 1896–1899, but the old stories don’t interest him much.
Miles Canyon, just outside Whitehorse, was just one of the tricky passes Gold Rush stampeders had to navigate by boat on their way to the Klondike
‘The history is the least of my concerns, to be honest with ya,’ he drawls. ‘It’s nice, but they could have left a little more.’
Panning for gold.
Cabins and a restaurant in Dawson City bear the name of Klondike Kate, one of the most famous dancers of the Gold Rush era
Despite a century’s worth of miners striking it lucky, there is still enough gold in these hills to have made Tony a rich man. His straggly hair and beard may disguise it but his net worth is estimated at over $5 million. ‘We strictly came here for the money,’ he says. ‘Let’s say that worked. We’re a little spoiled now, but like I always say...’ He holds up those dusty articulated fists. ‘It was earned.’
Leslie Chapman in her jewellery workshop
A heavily slanting clapboard building in Dawson City
Tony mines near the Klondike River, where gold was first discovered on Rabbit Creek by Skookum Jim, George Carmack and Tagish Charlie in August 1896. The area proved so rich that when the prospectors arrived back in San Francisco in July 1897 their ship’s cargo was worth over a million dollars. The news sparked a Gold Rush that led 100,000 people to attempt the long, punishing journey to the Klondike. Realising that these stampeders would be even easier to mine than the hills, a barkeeper named Joseph Ladue built a sawmill and staked out a townsite on the mud flats at the confluence of the Klondike and the Yukon. He named this Dawson City, and it became home to the miners, and to the pimps, hustlers and dancing girls who followed in their wake. Dawson City remains an outlaw town. ‘You can do things the way you want here,’ says Tony. ‘A lot of places are regulated and overregulated, but here they still let you get away with stuff.’