Yukon who is who

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Henry Thibert
	
Henry Thibert was of French descent, born in Minnesota. His Scottish partner was Angus McCullough.((Francis E. Caldwell, //Cassiar's Elusive Gold.// Victoria: Trafford Publishing, 1999: 23- 33.)) They left St. Paul in 1870 [or 1869], carrying their outfit in a Red River cart drawn by a single horse. They spent the first winter at Fort Edmonton. In the spring they went to Mission and transferred to a boat to go down the Mackenzie and up the Liard. They reached Dease Lake in September 1872. The First Nations man they met there told them of “Boston men” on the Stikine over the mountains.((Clarence L. Andrews, //Wrangell and the Gold of the Cassiar.// Seattle: Luke Tinker Commercial Printer, Copyright C.L. Andrews, 1937.)) 
	
There are at least two stories about what happened next. According to Francis Caldwell, Thibert and McCullough were told of Buck Choquette’s strike on Buck's Bar of the Stikine River. They left their boat at Dease Lake and snowshoed to the Stikine, but the ground had already been staked. On the way back, McCullogh fell through the ice and later died of exposure. Thibert and his companions arrived back at Dease Lake in the spring of 1873 to find the boat was gone. They decided to walk on the west side of the lake and found gold on Thibert Creek.((Francis E. Caldwell, //Cassiar's Elusive Gold.// Victoria: Trafford Publishing, 1999: 23- 33.)) 

According to Clarence Andrew, McCullough fished for supplies for the trip to the Stikine and Thibert prospected and found some gold. Four days later they reached the Stikine and then took a canoe to Wrangell. After Thibert and McCullough brought a poke of Cassiar gold into Fort Wrangell,  McCullough went to Victoria to try and get the government to build a trail to the new strike but had no luck. A man named McGregor came back with them as a partner. Others were excited as well including Captain William Moore and his three sons Henry, J.W. and Wm. D. Another party included George and Bill Rath, Bill Waldron and Bill and Dick Lyons. Thibert and McCullough travelled upriver on the ice, but McCullough was not young, and he died on the trip. Moore and the others followed after the river opened, poling and lining a scow up the current.((Clarence L. Andrews, //Wrangell and the Gold of the Cassiar.// Seattle: Luke Tinker Commercial Printer, Copyright C.L. Andrews, 1937.)) Caldwell also says that Moore, his sons and four others arrived in the Dease area in 1873.((Francis E. Caldwell, //Cassiar's Elusive Gold.// Victoria: Trafford Publishing, 1999: 23- 33.))
	
Everyone was busy at Dease Lake. Some of the Stikine men had joined the stampede as Thibert went in and all were prospecting or mining. Thibert and his partner were getting three to six ounces a day each. The first creek was named Thibert and a second was called Dease Creek. Wrangell bloomed that winter as new boats arrived from Victoria and San Francisco. A town was founded at Dease Lake named Lake City. In the spring, Moore came back with a contract to build a pack-trail from Telegraph Creek to Dease Lake under charter from the provincial government. Three thousand people made a temporary stop at Wrangell on their way to the Cassiar.((Clarence L. Andrews, //Wrangell and the Gold of the Cassiar.// Seattle: Luke Tinker Commercial Printer, Copyright C.L. Andrews, 1937.)) Warbuton Pike tells basically the same story as Caldwell, not mentioning a trip to Wrangel and saying the stampede to Thibert Creek was populated by men from the Stikine.((Warburton Mayer Pike, //Through the Subarctic Forest.// New York: Edward Arnold, 1896: 56-58, 67, 144, 146.)) 

After production fell off in 1876, the miners and prospectors ranged as far north as Frances Lake in present-day Yukon.((Morris Zaslow, //The Opening of the Canadian North, 1870 - 1914.//  McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1971: 44.)) Thibert was still working in the Cassiar in 1887 when he met George Dawson. Some years before, Thibert had made a prospecting expedition up the west arm of Frances Lake and far up the Thomas River and he gave Dawson some notes on the region.((George M. Dawson, //Report on an Exploration in the Yukon District.// Yukon Historical & Museums Association, 1987: 84, 111.)) Thibert died of some unknown ailment but all feared scurvy.((Clarence L. Andrews, //Wrangell and the Gold of the Cassiar.// Seattle: Luke Tinker Commercial Printer, Copyright C.L. Andrews, 1937.))