John Grieve Lind
John Lind arrived in the Yukon River watershed in 1894. He and his party had their supplies in 100 lb. packs and hired Indigenous packers at a dollar a pound to carry their supplies to the Chilkoot summit. It took three days to get all of their supplies to the top. They sledded downhill on the other side and in the middle of May made it to Lake Bennett where they built a boat. They got to Forty Mile and stayed there a couple of days before starting for Franklin Gulch, 100 miles up the Fortymile River. Miller Creek, Nugget Gulch, Poker Gulch, Glacier Creek, and Franklin Gulch were all producing gold. Quite a number of men were prospecting at Circle, Alaska and on the Tanana River where some rich ground was found in 1894.1)
There were about twenty camps on Franklin Gulch. Bender [Jim Bender] was an old horse thief from the Little Rosebud in Montana. George Mauck [Manack] and Oscar Jackson, and John Nelson, who was an old sailor from the American Navy, were all working on Franklin. Lind went to work for [Bob] Matheson and Bill Stewart, from near Goderich. Skiff Mitchell had a good piece of ground. Floyd Wilson and old man Fettes also mined on Franklin. Lind and his party worked for two weeks and then bought out Bender's claim and Bender left for richer prospects on Miller Creek in the Sixtymile drainage.2)
Lind went into Forty Mile in November for provisions and stayed for two weeks to hear all the news and socialise. There were two saloons and about 100 white men and no women. The men had mined all over the world. After the Klondike discovery, Lind and Skiff Mitchell started for Dawson after mining a bit on Chicken Creek in Alaska.3) Lind claimed to be the first to sink a shaft to bedrock on Chicken Creek in the winter of 1895/96 and found a fairly good prospect and several fair-sized nuggets. He mined on Franklin for two seasons. Just before Christmas in 1896, Lind and Skiff Mitchell left Franklin Gulch for Forty Mile and found the post deserted for the Klondike.4) Lind and Mitchell met some old friends on Bonanza including Bob Lowrey who had a good piece of ground. They bought lots of good claims. That winter Skiff went to Claim 18 on Eldorado and Lind was on Claim 30 Above Bonanza. Lind had hired men to work the claim. Charlie Anderson, the Lucky Swede, had worked for Lind on Franklin Gulch.5)
Lind left the Klondike in 1901 with an undisclosed fortune. He returned to Ontario and became a partner in an independent cement supplier. Alfred Rogers was another investor. Alfred’s cousin’s son established Rogers Communications and John Lind’s son, Phil, became vice-chairman of the company. Phil Lind collected Klondike memorabilia and brought his family to Dawson during the Klondike gold rush centennial years. In 1921, Phil Lind donated his collection to the University of British Columbia and a listing can be found online. Phil Lind died in August 2023.6)