TheStikine Gold Rush was a minor but importantgold rush in theStikine Country of northwesternBritish Columbia,Canada. The rush's discoverer wasAlexander "Buck" Choquette, who staked a claim at Choquette Bar in 1861, just downstream from the confluence of theStikine and Anuk Rivers, at approximately56°48′N131°46′W / 56.800°N 131.767°W /56.800; -131.767. Choquette was the son-in-law of theTlingit chiefChief Shakes, who presided over the region at the mouth of the river, the site of the formerFort Stikine and today's city ofWrangell, Alaska, and had also explored the Nass and several other rivers.[1]
Alexander "Buck" Choquette (c. 1830–1898) was aFrench-Canadian prospector and adventurer who was the discoverer in 1861 of the gold strike which led to the Stikine Gold Rush.
Once news of the find reached the various othergoldfields in British Columbia, the lower Stikine in the area of Choquette's find was inundated with prospectors and the river itself busy with steamboat traffic, served by vessels who abandoned the moribund Fraser routes.
Eight hundred miners left Victoria bound for the goldfields but many did not proceed beyond the mouth of the Stikine. Those who reached the goldfield, which was 150 miles up the river, were not more than five hundred.[2]
Not much gold was found on the Stikine, but the flurry of activity promptedGovernor James Douglas of the Colonies ofVancouver Island andBritish Columbia to declare, in 1862, British ownership over the region in the form of theStickeen Territories, which extended north from the northern frontier of British Columbia at theNass andFinlay Rivers to the 62nd Parallel. The Stickeen Territories were a year later merged with British Columbia, except for the portion north of the 60th Parallel, which reverted to theNorth-Western Territory from which the Territories had been taken upon their creation. Mineral exploration of the region continued in the wake of the rush, with the much largerCassiar Gold Rush, north ofTelegraph Creek, discovered in 1870 byHarry McDame.
