Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T07:08:09.790Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The Gold Rush and After

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2023

Liza Piper
Liza Piper
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Get access

Summary

The Klondike gold rush, sparked in August 1896, brought tens of thousands of people from around the globe into the Yukon. Whalers had reached the Mackenzie Delta from the Pacific in the same decade. The demographic wave crested in 1900, the same year as a combined influenza and measles epidemic spread through Alaska into the Yukon, known as the Great Sickness. Oral histories and archival evidence show that it was not the absence of immunity but rather the synergistic effects of multiple pathogens that produced this devastating epidemic and its consequences.

Keywords

KlondikeAlaskameaslesinfluenzadysentery
Type
Chapter
Information
When Disease Came to This Country
Epidemics and Colonialism in Northern North America
 , pp. 90 - 118
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • The Gold Rush and After
  • Liza Piper, University of Alberta
  • Book: When Disease Came to This Country
  • Online publication: 20 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009320924.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • The Gold Rush and After
  • Liza Piper, University of Alberta
  • Book: When Disease Came to This Country
  • Online publication: 20 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009320924.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Gold Rush and After
  • Liza Piper, University of Alberta
  • Book: When Disease Came to This Country
  • Online publication: 20 July 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009320924.006
Available formats
×