Lakes and Rivers Operation Gold Rush with Dan Snow

A remote corner of the North American continent.

A subarctic wilderness, unchanged for millennia...

until gold was discovered here

at the end of the 19th century.

News of the find triggered a global stampede -

the Klondike gold rush.

And for two brief years, this place was utterly transformed,

as tens of thousands of gold-seekers from around the world

raced from the Alaskan coast,

600 miles north to the Klondike gold fields,

hoping to strike it rich.

Now, 120 years later,

a team of adventurers are here to take on that same journey,

in search of their own gold,

and to experience what it was like to be a Klondiker.

The team are led by historian Dan Snow.

The whole world knew about what was happening here

and lots of the world came here

and turned this quiet valley into a motorway.

He's joined by medic and engineer Dr Kevin Fong...

-Oh, Dan.

-Hey, buddy.

The most common cause of death in the gold rush was trauma

and, of those traumatic deaths, the most common cause was drowning.

..and polar explorer and scientist Felicity Aston.

We've got the exact set of circumstances

that formed our nightmare scenario.

They'll need to survive icy torrents...

Good... Good-good.

-PANTING:

-That's cold!

..dangerous descents...

Whoa!

..and surging rapids...

That was...an experience!

Nice work.

..before they reach the Klondike,

where they'll mine for gold the old-fashioned way.

Oh, my God, look at that!

Dan, Felicity and Kevin have arrived at Lake Lindeman,

having crossed the Alaskan coastal mountains.

They're ten days into their month-long expedition,

following in the footsteps of the original gold rush stampeders.

Now they're about to start a very different challenge...

..an epic boat trip.

First, they'll have to navigate vast lakes,

and run terrifying rapids.

Jumping ahead by road, they'll join the mighty Yukon River,

passing through the former trading post of Fort Selkirk.

They'll then have to row to Dawson City,

gateway to the gold fields.

They have just seven days left

to cover 500 miles.

The lakes and rapids ahead can be treacherous,

and so the team will have white water experts,

and support boats accompanying them.

One of the biggest threats in this section of the journey

will come from the notoriously unpredictable weather.

Dan, an experienced sailor, has been keeping a close watch on conditions.

Wind was getting stiffer all night...

howling through these trees and through my fly of my tent, so...

At the moment I think we'll be OK,

but I'd like to get going as quickly as possible,

which is why I'm up and I'm going to start waking everyone else up.

When that wind comes powering down these valleys...

it can turn this into as nasty a stretch of water

as any that I've ever sailed or ever seen.

The team face many of the same dangers

that confronted the stampeders.

Trauma medic Kevin knows just how deadly the rivers and lakes can be.

The water in that lake has come off those snow-capped mountains

and is near freezing.

You go in that water and you'll be incapacitated in seconds.

The most common cause of death in the gold rush was trauma

and, of those traumatic deaths, the most common cause was drowning.

Polar explorer Felicity is used to working

with the most modern expedition equipment.

Her biggest concern is the quality of the boat.

I haven't seen the boat yet, but...

..I think it's likely to be quite rudimentary.

I guess, looking on the bright side,

at least we haven't had to build it ourselves.

But that's exactly what the stampeders had to do.

Lindeman became one huge boatbuilding yard,

and the surrounding slopes

were completely deforested in the search for timber.

Many of the stampeders were inspired to write vivid diaries and,

throughout the expedition,

the team will be using them to better understand

what the Klondikers went through.

"Oh, if you could only see the boats that are being built here,

"thousands of them.

"There must be some hundreds in this cove alone."

DRILL WHIRS

To make the team's experience as authentic as possible,

local carpenter Peter Buntain has built a replica boat out of spruce.

The most popular designs were flat-bottomed,

because they were the easiest for novice boatbuilders to construct.

DRILL WHIRS

Now the team are going to see their boat for the first time.

FELICITY LAUGHS

-OK.

-Brilliant!

-OK. Wow.

Is it completely flat-bottomed?

It's completely flat-bottomed, which I can't believe.

I've never really seen a completely flat-bottomed boat before.

And it means that these lakes, we have to be...

Well... That's disappointing,

because we're going to have to be very careful with conditions.

With flat-bottomed boats,

you can't go out in anything other than virtually flat calm.

Let's go and have a look.

I'm glad to see it's got a bucket

for bailing out, so...

It's already got water in the bottom.

-Nice!

-I mean, it's sturdy, it's sturdily built...

But it's... It's not going to be fast,

it's not going to be manoeuvrable,

and it's not going to be easy to control.

W-what do you mean by that? Do you think it's going to be hard to move

-or do you think it might not stay afloat?

-Well...

I mean, I hope it will stay afloat, because wood essentially floats.

HE WHEEZES

The Canadian authorities demanded that every stampeder travel

with a year's worth of supplies,

so boats like this were built for large cargoes.

All the same, they were often dangerously overloaded.

-Got that?

-Yeah!

Right.

When Lake Lindeman froze during the first winter of the gold rush,

it became a bottleneck, filled with thousands of trapped stampeders.

Ready to go?

But in the last days of May 1898,

the ice broke and the stampede was back on.

Hundreds of boats launched,

racing north to stake the best claims in the Klondike.

The team are going to experience just how tough that journey was.

Tonight, they're aiming to camp

at the old gold rush settlement of Bennett.

To get there,

they must cross the eight miles of Lake Lindeman.

If it goes north,

I can't even begin to tell you how bad it's going to be.

Yeah, I mean, you can see how - on a bad weather day -

this could get quite nasty.

It feels like the wind's getting a bit stronger too.

Progress is painfully slow, but Dan has an idea.

You know what, guys? I reckon I might try and rig a little sail.

Eh?

-Ooh!

-Oh, God.

We could lose Captain Snow.

Captain just doesn't seem to be enough of a naval rank for him.

You know, Rear Admiral or something.

Admiral Snow.

HE LAUGHS

He improvises, using wooden snowshoes and a tent fly sheet.

There we go.

Oh-ho!

Look at this.

The speed is about to come on.

DAN GROANS

Ben Ainslie would be jealous.

We're being overtaken by ducks.

Three hours later, they eventually arrive at the end of the lake.

Waiting for them are one-mile rapids.

This narrow canyon between Lindeman and Bennett lakes

filled stampeders with fear.

Just like the stampeders, the team have a choice -

spend hours hauling their boat around it

or risk a quick but perilous short cut down the white water.

Let's go.

These rapids were...a significant obstacle for people

during the gold rush.

One gentleman committed suicide here after losing all his possessions

in the rapids, so...they're not to be taken lightly.

For our team, a support crew is on hand.

The most dangerous part is that triangular rock -

everything else has a lower velocity.

And I think, if you hit it, you'll break the boat or hold it there.

There's a chance of getting thrown into the water.

So I don't know who's going to be on that tiller.

I'll be on this, I'll be on the tiller.

I'm sure you've done this a lot,

but have you ever seen anyone do it in a boat like our boat?

This will be a first, for sure.

-FELICITY:

-Can I talk to Dan?

Dan...

OK, this is a lot on you, cos I've not done this before.

I've white watered before,

and been told, "Paddle hard now, paddle hard there,"

but this is mostly you steering us, and getting us in the right place.

-I mean, seriously...

-Yeah.

-..are you OK with it?

-Yeah.

-Cos as long as you're happy...

-I'm very happy.

-I mean, I trust you implicitly, but...

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-All good.

-OK.

I trust you.

Explorer Felicity knows they are putting their safety in Dan's hands.

A lot of this is down to Dan.

You know, me and Kevin are just rowing.

Dan's the one who has to have the skill and the knowledge

to put the boat in the right part of the water.

This is serious, this isn't a joke any more.

Despite his show of confidence to the team, Dan has his reservations.

It looks pretty bad, to be honest.

In a kayak or a Canadian canoe or a rubber boat,

you can zip around the river a bit more,

you can be more manoeuvrable.

In our enormous tub, it's not that easy,

and my concern is I'm not going to be able to pull off that manoeuvre.

The worst that can happen is if we come straight down here,

pile onto that rock and the boat will disintegrate on that rock.

When your body hits water this cold,

you have this reflex that makes you gasp,

and take a really sharp and very deep intake of breath

and that is why even very strong swimmers drown in cold water.

I'm not sure that you're going to want to hear this particularly right now,

but this is an extract from Inga Kolloen,

who was here in June of 1898 and she says,

"There are many boats going down the river,

"some of them go through the canyon safely,

"but many have a very dangerous ride.

"I saw one of them run into a large rock and be broken into two pieces.

"Another one capsized and went under the water with all the cargo."

Back in 1898,

at the least ten boats were wrecked here

in the first week of June alone.

I mean, genuinely, are you happy about this?

Because we've been out here for a good few days now

and this is the first time I've seen any doubt on your face

about anything that we've done.

Dan hasn't done these rapids before.

I think he's taking on a big responsibility.

You know, if he says he's happy, I'm sure he wouldn't tell us that

unless he really was.

OK.

Right, team, let's go.

Just like the stampeders before them,

Kevin and Felicity are novices.

Dan does his best to put them through their paces.

OK, so now, Kevin forward...

There we go, stroke, stroke, stroke.

Now, in a couple, I'm going to call "power",

so I'm going to call "hard".

Don't go crazy, try and stay in time.

Hard! Hard! Hard! Hard! Hard!

That's it. That's it.

You're sort of jerking on it a bit harder.

You are jerking kind of, but you're just getting it through the water.

Their role is crucial.

They must provide power,

so Dan can try and steer the boat around the rocks.

Felicity, hard! Felicity, hard! Felicity, hard!

Boom, yes.

Gentle.

Kevin, hard! Kevin, hard! Kevin, hard! Kevin, hard!

Kevin, hard! Kevin, hard!

Gentle. Ship your oars! Ship your oars! Ship your oars!

-Oh, I did the wrong thing.

-Wahey!

-Oh...

-That's all right.

I pushed it in rather than pulled it out.

Now it's time for the real thing.

We are entering the rapids.

The rapids are rated Intermediate - Class III -

but the weight of the boat

means it's much harder to steer a safe line.

I-I can't see a single thing here.

Just try and keep on the pace.

-We're going straight through the middle of it now.

-Oh...

Straight through the middle of it, no problem at all.

The first couple of waves coming, the first couple of waves.

-Keep...

-Ooh!

No-one has attempted these rapids in a boat like this

since the gold rush.

OK? Felicity, hard. Felicity, hard. Felicity, hard.

And, Kevin, hard. Both hard.

Both hard. Both hard. Both hard.

And gentle. Well done, well done.

And both hard. Both hard.

Both hard.

Both hard.

Both hard. OK, gentle.

OK, we are now 15 seconds away from the big effort, guys.

Gentle, gentle, gentle...

And back, push very slightly. Push very slightly.

That's enough, that's enough, that's enough.

Now, gentle. Gentle.

Gentle. Gentle.

No, straightforward... Pull! Pull! Pull! Pull!

Pull! And hard. Hard. Hard.

Hard. Hard...

They're approaching the triangular rock, the most critical point.

Oh...

It's OK, Kevin.

DAN GROANS

Hold on.

In the middle of the most dangerous section of the rapids,

they've lost all control of the boat.

Are you all right?

We're through, we're through.

We're through.

-OK...

-DAN GROANS

Get ready - rowing positions.

-Ooh!

-Rowing positions.

-Yeah.

-Pull.

-OK.

Whoo-hoo! That was fun.

What happened there?!

The team have survived.

Now they have an easier journey to the next lake.

They land at the site of the old stampeder town of Bennett.

-FELICITY LAUGHS

-Well done, guys.

-Ahhh!

-Nice work.

-Well done.

-Nice work.

-Well done you.

FELICITY LAUGHS

That was...

an experience! We, er...

When he was thrown over, Dan smashed his nose against the boat.

-Take that over the front of the nose, did you?

-Yeah.

-All right there?

-No pain, nothing at all.

Medic Kevin wants to check nothing's broken.

-All right.

-No, no pain.

-No-no injuries anywhere else?

Nothing. No. No, it was just a weird...

-It was a very weird little...

-It's a fairly deep gash.

-Is it?

-Let's get it cleaned up.

-OK.

Everything that could happen and go wrong on that run

happened and it went wrong.

It was an intense experience.

It was so bizarre.

You could see on Dan's face that we were getting close to the rapids,

you could see his face change,

but you've got your back to the whole thing, so you just can't see.

So I've got no idea what just happened.

-OK.

-And then...

-Have you got one more of those somewhere as well?

-Yeah.

It's going to clean that, OK? And it's going to irrigate...

Hold that on there, all right?

-Just put one finger on there, where it's sore, OK?

-All right.

Just hold that for now. Good man.

Dan's OK, but he's looking a bit bloody and heroic,

but he really saved the day.

With Dan tended to, it's the next casualty's turn.

-Ready?

-DAN GROANS

Anticipating there may be some damage,

boatbuilder Peter has been waiting for the crew.

Well, it's a minor little detail, that's for sure.

That won't stop us.

Yes!

Yeah, a little bump on the bows,

and then this keel's taken a beating here, wow!

A few gouges out of the keel.

The keel took all the hit, so our spruce, it survived it all,

so it's wonderful.

We don't have any patching to do.

There was part of me that was sort of imagining

scraping teeth out of the bottom of that boat

at the end of those rapids - I could see that happening.

For the guys coming down during the gold rush,

I mean, that must have been absolute chaos.

-Yeah.

-It must have felt so unfair when some boatloads

just skipped down there without a problem,

and then you have someone else coming through,

and losing everything.

By the beach at the bottom of those rapids,

just covered in broken glass and rusting metal and iron.

I think that could well be all the cargoes that were lost,

and smashed and shattered,

and they've just been there for 120 years, just rotting on the side,

all the hopes and dreams of stampeders

who carried it across the Chilkoot.

They get there and that's the end of the journey.

BOILING WATER HISSES

I'm looking forward to this cup of tea

more than I look forward to most cups of tea.

Meanwhile, Dan checks his battle wounds.

Ow.

-HE CHUCKLES

-Ooh!

My nose has always been a prominent and distinctive feature on my face.

Now it looks like it's going to be...

even more so, with a big scar on it.

That's great.

My mum is going to kill me.

Before the gold rush, the shores of this lake were pristine wilderness.

But Bennett fast became the biggest settlement

on the way to the Klondike,

with a boatbuilding industry which dwarfed even Lindeman's.

At its peak in early 1898,

tens of thousands of stampeders converged on this temporary town,

constructing, repairing, buying and selling boats.

This east bank, where I'm standing now, was a hive of activity.

Look at all those boats lined up to be sold to prospectors.

Fantastic. Very like our boat, actually, a very similar design.

Entrepreneurs rushed here, sensing there was profit to be made.

Six sawmills worked day and night to satisfy demand for timber...

..while a crude wooden boat could sell for a year's salary.

Steamboats -

their boilers and engines hauled laboriously over the passes -

were built here in weeks.

They provided an alternative means of travel for stampeders with money.

As the town grew, banks, hostels, stores and restaurants sprung up,

all competing for the stampeders' business.

There's some great quotes from our diarists here.

"This town of Bennett becomes more repugnant to one's nose every day.

"It is quite undrained,

"even by the melting snow flowing down the hillsides,

"and the crowding is frightful."

I mean, totally, totally different to today.

A hive of activity, no sewage, no hygiene...

This would have stunk to high heaven,

particularly all the mule trains and the horse trains coming in here,

and all their droppings mixing with the melting snow and slush

in the streets.

It would have been an incredibly busy place.

It would have been a humming place too.

Around 40,000 people passed through Bennett during the gold rush...

..and the lack of sanitation began to take its toll.

It's often the case in medicine

that the dead can teach you more than the living.

There is one headstone here with someone dying at the age of 39,

so these are people dying prematurely,

even given the age in which they lived.

I love this report that I found.

It's the report of Inspector FL Cartwright

of the North-West Mounted Police in 1898,

who arrives and discovers this, you know,

terrible iceberg of disease, and he says,

"The number of people and persons with poor constitutions

"who have flocked to this undeveloped and very old country

"without the necessary means to keep them longer than a few months

"has become a great trial.

"It has also been a case of survival of the fittest."

These people drowned, they froze to death, they also suffered infection,

and what was colloquially known as "the fever".

Now, "the fever" was a catch-all

for anything from dysentery to pneumonias,

and flu-like illnesses,

but they lived in such close proximity

that any small infection

would spread through the population of the Lake Bennett city

like wildfire.

METALLIC CLINKING

-YELLS:

-Timber!

-Whoo-hoo!

-Look at that.

I'm going to drag it into this clearing...

Undeterred by their attempts to harness the wind effectively

on Lake Lindeman,

the team want to construct a more substantial mast and sail.

So, just like the stampeders before them,

they've headed into the surrounding forest.

So, ideally, you'd leave it for a while before using it,

-would you?

-Definitely. Definitely.

So it'd dried out and became hard and more stable.

It's going to work for what we've got.

It's going to blow us along, light breeze, it's going to be fine.

-Oh, yes!

-Lovely.

That...is a well-stuck mast!

Now they have an authentic mast,

the team discard their makeshift rigging,

and turn back to the tried and tested materials of the stampeders.

We're basically making a classic square sail, a Viking ship sail.

This basic design was perfect for propelling the stampeders north,

but only if the wind was blowing from the south.

OK, here we go.

Now.

It's still covered in Dan's blood,

so I think it's a very appropriate name.

The next challenge on their journey awaits...

Bennett Lake.

The team must travel the length of this 30-mile stretch of water,

notorious for its unpredictable and stormy weather,

to the town of Carcross.

On a tight schedule, they have only two days to do it.

Well done, guys.

It's now June and the lake has been ice-free for three weeks.

But in 1898, when the ice melted,

it triggered the largest flotilla ever seen in Canada.

Over the course of two days, 8,000 boats set sail for Dawson,

helped by a strong southerly wind.

But nearly 120 years later,

the prevailing southerly winds that pushed the stampeders on

have failed to materialise.

This is a disaster. All of the experience,

all of the boatmen on this lake

told me that it always blows from the south.

We've got the sail ready to go...

Occasionally, we get bursts of NORTHERLY wind,

which means we're paddling into the wind,

which, in this tub, means we're basically going nowhere.

We're running on a treadmill.

WIND HOWLS

And the northerly wind is getting stronger.

It's not long before the boat is actually being blown backwards.

There's now white horses coming towards us.

We're in big trouble now.

Wow, that changed up quick.

That's mountain weather.

They can't carry on into the wind.

That swell's getting bigger.

A flat-bottomed boat in a big swell can easily capsize.

We're going to turn around, guys.

We'll do exactly what the gold rush would have done,

we're going to find shelter.

They need to get ashore as quickly as possible.

With the wind now behind them,

Dan thinks he can use their new sail to help.

There's a little bay here, it's not much, but it's better than nothing.

It looks good!

KEVIN GROANS

-DAN GROANS

-We're running out of bay.

Go left, go left!

Other way, other way.

Let's deal with the oar, other way with the oar.

Other way with the oar, other way with the oar.

Come on!

Finally, the boat is sailing at full speed...

..in the wrong direction.

How close to the beach are we?

-Uh, we're about 45 metres now.

-Release the sail, release the sail.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

Weight one, weight one...

Nice work!

Brace yourself, we're going to hit the beach and try and spin around.

We need to get off the boat quite quickly.

Surfing on now.

Bit of brace...

-OK.

-KEVIN GROANS

Here are the waves.

Big wave! Big wave! Big wave! Big wave!

DAN YELLS

This is like a castaway beach, look at it!

-Is there anywhere out of the wind?

-Wow.

Shall I run round the corner?

Check it out.

-It's quite nice around the corner, more sand and less wind.

-OK.

Let's get the gear off.

KEVIN GROANS

At the end of their first day,

the team are only five miles into the 30-mile journey

across Lake Bennett.

And with the wind against them,

they have no choice but to wait for the weather to turn.

We've found a nice camp spot that's just back off the beach,

cos, as soon as you get behind this first line of trees,

there's no wind.

But...I've asked that we all camp quite close together,

because we have just got this prime forest behind us,,

and this is absolute guaranteed bear country.

It makes me feel better, anyway.

And, please note, I've got the spot closest to the beach.

So they'll get Dan first!

For the stampeders, bears were a constant threat.

Many prospectors were city dwellers,

and this wild land was completely alien to them.

I've found some nice big bear prints.

Here. You can see their claw prints.

And they track right the way off...

..round the corner and back into the trees.

Today, there are around 17,000 black and grizzly bears

in the Yukon territory.

During the gold rush, there would have been even more.

I've been carrying the bear spray for...

for the best part of a week now.

It is like a pepper spray and, as the bear is coming towards you -

I don't know, the range on these things is about 15 feet -

you're meant to sort of hold your nerve,

wait until the last moment, and then spray it in the bear's face.

To avoid attracting unwanted visitors,

the food is stored in a cool box at a safe distance from the camp.

For those 100 years ago making this journey, they were in a hurry,

they were on a schedule, they wanted to get up to the Klondike,

so a delay like this, having to stop early in the day,

would have seemed like a disaster.

It would have seemed like it was cutting into their chances

of ever finding any gold, of making this whole...

This whole venture worth it.

It is just relentless,

and every time you think you've done the toughest thing,

then it throws up something else.

And, as a gold rusher,

you must have had to have huge determination to keep going,

because there was so much to trip you up along the way,

and we've experienced, you know, just a small part of it.

Uh, in bear country, I have made this discovery this morning,

that in one of my dry bags...

..was this, uh, which is...

..a bag full of bear bait, as far as I can tell, so...

I'm going to have to get better at that. That wasn't good.

Felicity has other concerns.

I wish I hadn't looked.

You can still clearly see Bennett.

That's really quite worrying,

because we were rowing for a good five or six hours yesterday...

..and we've come maybe four, maybe five miles,

but I think that is perhaps pushing it.

So that means we still have another...

..25 miles to go up the lake.

So, at the same rate of progress, that's...

..25 hours of rowing.

To make up time, the team need a southerly wind.

I've managed to get the fire relighted from the embers,

but that's the only good news this morning.

The bad news is that it's blowing from the north.

Now, as you can see, not as violently as last night.

The problem is it's blowing four or five knots to the north,

and our boat can't make any headway, even against that.

We can only make headway in the lightest of breezes against us.

-HE INHALES DEEPLY

-So we're kind of trapped in.

We'll probably give it a go,

but I suspect we're not going to make any progress.

One, two, three!

Keep going, keep going, keep going.

Oh!

The wind's getting up, actually.

-Do you feel that?

-Yeah, I do, absolutely.

-That's a...

-It's a northerly wind.

We are moving very, very slowly.

In an hour's paddling,

we've probably got about 600 metres and the wind's getting up.

It's not going the other way,

so we have slowed down to the point of stopping now.

I mean, it's almost not worth being out here.

It's almost worth just pulling in, sitting it out,

and waiting for a wind change.

DAN PANTS

The team decide to head to shore.

-Good job.

-Ahhh...

-Well done, mate.

-Ooh!

When faced with a headwind like this,

some stampeders even resorted

to pulling their boats along the shoreline,

desperate to keep moving towards the gold fields.

The support crew has been monitoring conditions ahead,

and they've got bad news.

Unfortunately, they're having the same system...

the same weather, coming down as we had last night.

-Big wind?

-Yeah, so they're in it right now, so...

Two-and-a-half-foot swells

and...I don't think you're going to go too far.

I think we should start with a tow, see how we progress.

But otherwise, we're looking at spending three days on this lake, at least.

-At least.

-At least three days on this lake,

and that puts into question whether or not we'll even get to the gold fields.

So I'm afraid to say I think we need to take a tow.

-What d'you guys think?

-I don't think we've got much choice.

Well... I mean, if it looked like it was going to break soon,

but it just doesn't.

It feels really frustrating to give in, though.

I so want to reach the end of this lake under our own steam.

Yeah, it does feel like a bit of a defeat, doesn't it?

But one thing is,

the stampeders, they took the shortcuts

wherever they could find them.

If there was a steamboat going past or a tug, they would grab a tow,

I'll tell you that much.

It's 25 miles to the next stampeder staging post, Carcross,

at the far end of the lake.

A journey that under normal conditions

would have taken two days of hard graft

takes them just three hours.

After 12 days off the grid,

it's the first chance for the team to relax with the support crew.

-MAN:

-You can never have too much bacon.

And they have something to celebrate.

They may not have found any gold yet, but it is Kevin's birthday.

Thank you. Thank you for... Thank you, everyone.

ALL CHATTER

During the gold rush, even the stampeders found time to unwind.

LAUGHTER

"Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly.

"I went to bed at 1am after drinking more poisonous whiskey

"than was good for me."

LAUGHTER

So now we're in Carcross,

celebrating with a small bottle of whiskey.

-HE WHISPERS:

-Best birthday ever!

Before the stampeders arrived,

Carcross was a traditional hunting and fishing ground

for the indigenous people.

But, during the gold rush,

it became a popular stopover as stampeders

prepared for their onward journey.

While the gold rushers carried on by boat

through a monotonous chain of lakes,

our team have always planned to do the next 200 miles by road,

rejoining the stampeder trail further north.

They'll put their boat back in at Minto,

where the immense Yukon River is in full flow.

WINCH RATTLES

Well, I'm sad to see the end of this section of the trip.

Look at those mountains with the snow on top.

Majestic. I'm not sure what to expect lower down,

but I think it's a little flatter, a little less mountainous,

a little less alpine, and I'll miss that.

But, you know, we're here for the gold.

It's important we get to the gold fields and give ourselves enough

time to really explore that.

ENGINE PURRS

Let's go.

Peter is driving them north,

and he's giving some advice on how best to deal with bears.

When I see a bear in the woods and one's coming towards me,

I don't pull my gun.

I leave my gun where it is.

I become a freak of nature.

I jump up and down, I scream and yell,

and I wave my hands and I run towards the bear,

hoping that he's not going to do a false charge towards me,

and usually they turn and run so fast it isn't funny.

The gold rushers, the stampeders,

must have faced those kind of challenges and they didn't know,

they weren't used to being in the wilderness, were they?

No, so they carried side arms on them.

Most of those photographs, you'll see side arms on them.

They all carried their handguns.

It doesn't sound like a handgun would have done much to stop a bear.

It depends on the handgun.

Mine's a .357 or a .44 Magnum.

-A man-stopper!

-Right, OK.

-FELICITY LAUGHS

-PETER:

-So...

-That'll do it.

Six hours later, the team reach Minto,

the last road access to the Yukon River

before Dawson City, 200 miles away.

They pick up the stampeder route once again.

They're heading into ever more remote wilderness.

-Hey, guys.

-How are you?

-How's it going, Dan?

-Very good to see you.

-Good to see you too.

-Oh!

To keep them out of trouble,

they're joined by bear expert Chris Morgan.

-In the front...

-We're in the heart of bear country here,

so there's black bears and grizzly bears and thousands

of each of those species, and so there's a lot to be thinking about.

It's not just the wildlife that's a threat.

Fed by meltwater and flowing at three metres per second,

the Yukon River is infamous for shifting sandbanks and huge logjams.

It poses a very different challenge to the mountain lakes.

If you hit into a logjam,

you want to lean into it and keep the bottom of your boat up,

or it'll catch the edge and flip you over

and push you down underneath.

It sometimes takes time for one of the boats to get to you,

so if you know you're not going to make it...

yell now.

-MAN:

-We've got to go.

-Everyone ready?

-Yeah.

-OK, guys, one, two, three!

There we go!

Thanks, Peter!

Cutting a path through

one of the most remote and wild corners of North America,

the Yukon was the last major river on the continent to be explored.

With enough food for just four days,

the team must paddle over 200 miles to Dawson City -

jumping off point for the gold fields.

Oh, yeah, moose on the edge, in the water there,

just climbing up into the willows.

-You see him?

-Oh, yeah, I see him, I see him!

HE GROANS

With the sun setting,

the team decide this is where they'll spend the night.

I'm not sure it would pass an SAS survival course in the jungle,

but it's going to be fine.

ALL CHATTER

While the rest of the team prepare camp,

Chris checks the area for signs of animal activity.

Deer tracks.

That's a deer track right there.

Oh, yeah, look at all this sand here.

Quite nice for tracking, this stuff.

There's... There's a bear track, front and back.

That's the front track...right there.

Broader than my hand.

So this is a bear that's walking from the forest,

down in towards our camp,

and very fresh, cos it's been raining and it's quite open here,

so this is since the rain, which was yesterday.

So it wouldn't surprise me if this was probably

just before we arrived here at camp tonight.

During the gold rush, the stampeders frequently stumbled across bears.

Many saw this as an opportunity for fresh meat

to supplement their supplies.

The next day, with nearly 200 miles still to go to Dawson,

the team get on the water early.

The sail's filling nicely.

We are making good progress here towards the gold fields, everybody.

There is a trade to be made, isn't there, though, Dan?

Speed versus actually being able to see where you go.

It's very odd, steering into a big white sheet.

I agree, there is a visibility issue.

Today's objective is to reach Fort Selkirk,

the gold rush era trading post, 30 miles downstream.

And with a schedule to keep,

Dan knows they can't afford to be complacent.

I was hoping to navigate down this river kind of blind,

like the stampeders did with no charts or maps,

but within about five minutes

I realised that would be catastrophically dangerous,

and a terrible idea,

because, without this chart, which is minutely detailed -

all the sandbanks and islands - we would have got completely lost.

We would have ended up going down cul-de-sacs, grounding the boat,

and, if we did ground this boat or end up at the cul-de-sac,

I don't know really what we would have done,

because it's too heavy for us to row against the stream,

it's too heavy for us to carry.

It's pretty much too heavy for us to drag,

especially if we're standing up to our waists

in three degrees centigrade water.

The stampeders, in a frantic race to stake the best claims,

flew headlong down the Yukon.

Yet, each time they chose a channel,

they took a huge gamble.

If they picked the wrong one, the water could become too shallow,

and they'd be stuck.

Basically, how the gold rushers got down here, I don't know.

I think there would have been plenty of drama and days and days wasted

as they hauled boats back out of eddies and cul-de-sacs with ropes.

I mean, this is just a river

that is absolutely full of navigational hazards.

"Several sculls were stranded.

"Cries appealing for tows were heard.

"The captain essayed to help,

"but came near to disaster himself."

Six hours later, now under their own steam,

the team are approaching the former stampeder stopover of Fort Selkirk.

But in the fast-flowing Yukon,

stopping the heavy boat is no easy task.

So we're super shallow left side...

If we could go out into the river a little bit

and then we can do a sharp turn.

Just drift down like this, this is very good.

If you can jump out when you can, Kevin, that would be awesome.

This is good.

-All good.

-Along the left side.

That little Christmas tree, that little spruce tree up there is good.

-Or any of these...

-That?!

-Yeah.

-That's not going to hold it.

Oh!

-Can you grab that oar?

-Yeah, got it. Oh...

Right around the base.

-Oh...

-Lower, lower, lower. Right around the base.

There we go. Perfect.

-Whoo-hoo!

-We weren't carried downriver after all!

Fort Selkirk, once a minor fur trading post,

experienced a sudden boom during the gold rush,

as thousands of stampeders passed through

on their way to the Klondike.

Now abandoned, it provides some tangible clues to stampeder life.

Hm! That's great, look at that.

They've wallpapered over the rough planks

with anything that came to hand - newspapers.

Desperate attempt to provide a bit of insulation.

Just trying to find some dates

or familiar stories on here that allows me to put a date

on when these newspapers might have been put up on these walls.

What have we got here?

-Hello.

-HE LAUGHS

Now, here, is a picture I am pretty sure of Field Marshal Lord Roberts,

who was in command of the British and Imperial troops in the Boer War,

which was raging at the same time as the gold rush was going on here.

That is weird.

I mean, the Boer War, partly caused

by the discovery of gold in southern Africa.

So there you go, gold.

It's so good to come this close to items that would have been used

and read, shared among the stampeders.

In 1898,

the Canadian Government became so concerned

about the number of foreigners arriving on its soil,

they sent 200 soldiers here to assert sovereignty.

They needn't have worried.

The stampeders had only one thing on their mind -

to resupply and move on.

One of the guys who was here left a diary entry,

in which he said, "Although things cost a lot here

"because they've come all the way up the Yukon,

"it was very good to have a tent again,

"and some articles which are a prime necessity in such a country.

"We felt as if we had again come in touch with civilisation."

But the stampeders were intruding

on the territory of the indigenous people,

now known as the First Nations, who had lived here for 8,000 years.

This is a very, very dangerous trap to work with, this one.

At Fort Selkirk, the two worlds collided.

Wow!

Don Trudeau is a local trapper who retains the traditional skills.

And what would you use this particular kind of trap for?

This one is for a wolf.

We make moccasins, we make mitts, we make...

Not so much for jackets any more, but, in the olden days,

-they were used for jackets and for warmth.

-Yeah.

And when those stampeders arrived,

they must have arrived pretty clueless, some of them.

Did they try any of this out,

or were they too busy looking for gold?

They were busy looking for gold.

They had never seen one of these in their life.

They had no idea what they were.

And without the First Nations people,

I bet a lot of them would have perished.

Yes. Very lucky the First Nations people were there

to help them through those cold winters.

But the gold rush came at a huge cost to the indigenous communities.

The stampeders introduced a raft of infectious diseases,

and obliterated traditional hunting and fishing grounds,

as they cut down forests for building materials,

and claimed land for mining.

Many indigenous people were displaced,

their lives changed forever.

Meanwhile, Felicity, with a background in geology,

has been picking up clues

that explain why gold is found in this part of Canada.

It's really striking how much this landscape has changed

since we started our journey on the river.

In the headwaters of the Yukon,

we were seeing big granite mountains that were eroded and smooth

and rounded, ground into shape by glaciers.

Here, the mountains are totally different.

They're more angular and sharp,

so that means that this area escaped the worst of the last Ice Age

and the reason that is important is because, if there's no glaciers

to make a mess of the ground, and we also have volcanic activity,

which is shown by these wonderful basalt cliffs,

that's all lava that has cooled down,

so there's pressure and temperature,

everything that you need to create gold.

The stampeders also knew they were closing in on the gold fields.

As they went down river, they began to pan,

testing for traces of gold eroded from the mountains,

and washed into the rivers and creeks.

120 years later,

the pressure will be on Felicity - with her geological expertise -

to find gold.

The theory's very simple.

You use lots of water to float off all the dirt...

..and then you wiggle the pan to make all the rocks fall out...

And because gold is 19 times heavier than water,

it should just drop to the bottom of the pan,

rather than me washing it out.

But I'm always a little bit worried, when I get down to this stage,

that all I'm doing here...

..is washing rocks.

I don't think there's any gold.

A lot of the original stampeders would have come here with their pan,

thinking that this was just going to be about sloshing around some mud,

and they probably, like me,

would have been very disappointed to find out that

it's much more difficult than it looks.

The team are now nearly three weeks

into their journey to the Klondike gold fields.

If all goes according to plan,

this should be their final night camping on the river

before they reach Dawson City.

It's a moment for the team to reflect on what's happened so far,

and what still lies ahead.

I think this is hard for anyone to do for any length of time

and, for the stampeders, it was all about hardship,

it was all about freezing to death

or drowning or getting eaten by something.

They were out here gambling everything on this idea that they

were going to find gold at the end of it,

and they had to keep not just their physical health together,

but their mental health.

And as beautiful as this place is, that must have been tough.

The team have made good progress, but there is now only a week left.

In front of them lies the hard slog of mining,

and they still have more than 150 miles to cover

before they get to the Klondike.

So, what I'm trying to do is work out how I can get this lovely boat,

albeit a very slow, solid tub of a boat,

down this river as quickly as possible,

because we want to get to the gold fields.

We want to maximise our time there, maximise our chances to find gold.

But successfully mining for gold takes more than time.

There's a phrase that keeps going round in my head

that the old-timers used to use -

"Gold is where you find it" -

and what they meant by that is that it's very hard to predict

where the gold is going to be.

You only know where it is when it's in your hand.

So I just hope...

..with a little luck...

..we find some gold.

-Next time...

-Hold on!

..the team arrive at Dawson City and the gold fields...

where the real hard labour begins.

Constructing a 19th-century mine,

they hope to succeed where many before them failed,

and strike it rich.

Oh, my God, look at that!