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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #63140 Medium Klondike gold rush routes and towns

Read the following passage.

A. In August 1896, gold was discovered on Rabbit Creek, a small stream that feeds the Klondike River and was soon renamed Bonanza Creek. Accounts vary, but the discovery is generally credited to Keish, also called Skookum Jim Mason, of the Tagish First Nation. With him were his nephew Káa Goox, or Dawson Charlie, his sister Shaaw Tláa, or Kate, and her husband, the American prospector George Carmack. Because of the racial attitudes of the time, Carmack registered the discovery claim under his own name, since a claim by a First Nation person might not have been accepted.

B. News of the strike reached the outside world in July 1897 and set off a stampede. Over 100,000 people started out, though only about 30,000 reached Dawson City. Most sailed north to Skagway or Dyea in Alaska. From Dyea, the Chilkoot Trail followed a centuries-old path first used by Chilkoot Tlingit traders, while the White Pass Trail began at Skagway. The North West Mounted Police required each stampeder to bring a tonne of supplies, enough for a year, so many climbed the pass 30 or 40 times. At Bennett Lake they boarded rafts and boats for an 800 km trip to Dawson City.

C. Dawson City grew up in the traditional territory of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, also known as the Han. The trader Joseph Ladue staked the flat where the Klondike River meets the Yukon, a place where the Han had long dried salmon, and made a fortune selling lots and lumber. At the height of the rush, the shifting population of Dawson was estimated at 20,000 to 30,000, the largest community west of Winnipeg and north of Seattle. Over 300 businesses opened, from saloons and dance halls to hardware stores and blacksmiths. When Parliament created the Yukon Territory on 13 June 1898, Dawson became its capital.

D. After the 1899 gold strike at Nome, Alaska, drew miners away, individual miners sold out to large companies that dug the creek beds with huge machines called dredges. The Chilkoot fell out of use once a railway over the White Pass was completed in 1900. During the rush, miners and other settlers displaced the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in from their fishing camp, and Chief Isaac led their move to Moosehide. In 1998 they negotiated land claim and self-government agreements. By the 1940s Dawson was a village of fewer than 1,000 permanent residents. On Bonanza Creek, dredge tailings still fill the valley, and scars remain visible on the hillsides.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

- 1.
A gold find somewhere else in 1899 pulled many workers away from the Klondike.

- 2.
More than three hundred businesses started up in Dawson City during the boom.

- 3.
Police rules made each gold seeker bring enough goods to last twelve months.

- 4.
Big firms using digging machines replaced people who had mined on their own.

- 5.
Ladue claimed the land where the rivers join because he hoped to find gold on it.

- 6.
Damage from mining can still be seen on the slopes along one creek.

- 7.
The man who recorded the first claim was not the one usually credited with finding the gold.

- 8.
Some travellers went up the steep mountain crossing dozens of times to move their goods.

- 9.
The boat trip from the lake to Dawson City usually took about three weeks.

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