Tr'ochëk

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tr'ochëk and Dawson

Tr'ochëk was a traditional Hän fishing spot at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers in what is now Canada's Yukon Territory .

Today the site is owned by the Tr'ondek Hechsel'in First Nation and administered by the First Nation's Department of Heritage , the First Nations ( Indians ) ministry responsible for monuments .

Before and during the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1898), Tr'ochëk was the summer camp of Chief Isaac, the leader of the Tr'ondek Haw'in. Here were Elche (Moose) and caribou , but especially salmon caught.

Immediately on the opposite north side of the river, Dawson was built , by far the largest gold rush town with over 40,000 inhabitants for a short time. During the gold rush, a considerable part of the soil was removed and the vegetation largely destroyed. Wooden bridges were built between the two places, but they fell victim to the ice drift of the Yukon. Lousetown, also known as Klondike City from the end of 1897, had the major disadvantage, however, that the paddle steamers could only dock here with difficulty, while Dawson's riverside made this easy. The same happened to the two paths that led to the mouth of Bonanza Creek and over Klondike Hill to Eldorado Creek, where numerous claims by gold prospectors existed. With the bridge, which spanned the Klondike from April 1901, the Klondike City access road bypassed.

John J. Healy, manager of the North American Trading and Transportation Company, arranged for a sawmill to be built on Klondike Island, an island in the Klondike between Dawson and Lousetown. She was transported here from Forty Mile. But by 1908 the sawmills around Dawson had to go out of business again, and shortly after 1910 the one on Klondike Island also ceased operations. Around 1900 part of the island was used for horticulture. Garden operators acquired land on Klondike Island between 1901 and 1917, and horticulture continued well into the 1930s.

To avoid conflicts with the gold diggers, the Indians moved a few kilometers downstream to a place called Moosehide . It was not until the 1950s that the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in began to repopulate the old place after Dawson was largely depopulated.

This was possible because as the population fell, so did the number of prostitutes, with the last leaving the place in the 1950s.

In 1975 the Tr'ondek Haw'in designated the site as culturally and historically of the greatest importance, but in 1977 gold prospectors settled on the site. In the 1990s they filed a lawsuit against exploration activities on their soil that had not been agreed with them and declared the area a historic site in 1998. On July 19, 2002, it was designated as the national historic site of Canada .

literature

  • Helene Dobrowolsky: Hammerstones: A History of Tr'ondek Village / Klondike City , in: The Northern Review 19 (1998) 226-237.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Helene Dobrowolsky: Hammerstones: A History of Tr'ondek Village / Klondike City , in: The Northern Review 19 (1998) 226–237, here: p. 227.

Coordinates: 64 ° 3 ′ 4 "  N , 139 ° 26 ′ 27"  W.