George “Tuck” Lambert
George Lambert was a prospector who mined on the Fortymile River. In September 1886, Howard Franklin and five other prospectors panned all the gravel bars they encountered on the river and found low values at each one. Franklin discovered coarse gold in an area of exposed bedrock on 7 September. The place was about 500 feet inside the American boundary line. The gold weighed about half an ounce and was the first coarse gold found in the Yukon basin. Franklin staked a claim about twenty-five miles up from the mouth of the Fortymile at a place that became known as Franklin Bar. Henry “Tuck” Lambert and Madden located a claim about ten miles above Franklin Bar. In 1887, Frank Buteau staked a claim at Bonanza Bar, midway between Franklin and Madden bars and he took out more gold than any other miner in the 1887 season. Franklin’s find was the first continuous paystreak found on any creek along the Yukon. 1)
In the fall of 1886, Lambert and a man named O'Brian poled 640 miles from the mouth of the Fortymile to the headwaters of the Yukon in thirty days. Lambert returned to Montana and met Gordon Bettles who he persuaded to travel to the Yukon. Lambert and Bettles became partners and they left Forty Mile about 20 May 1888 to travel up the Fortymile River. At Troublesome Point they found Frank Densmore, George Matlock, Skiff Mitchell, Joe Ladue and three others. The partners had a line of sluice boxes, the first to be worked in the Yukon. Late in 1888, the partners travelled the almost completely un-prospected Kuskokwim River.2) They spent a long winter with no sign of gold and Bettles returned to the Yukon to start a store with Al Mayo near the mouth of the Tanana River.3)