The Klondike (; ) is a region of the territory of Yukon, in northwestern Canada. It lies around the Klondike River, a small river that enters the Yukon River from the east at Dawson City. The area is merely an informal geographic region, and has no function to the territory as any kind of administrative region.
The Klondike is famed due to the Klondike Gold Rush, which started in 1896 and lasted until 1899. Since then, gold has been mined continuously in that area, except for a pause in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In 2023, the cultural landscape of the Tr'ondëk-Klondike was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, because of its testimony to the adaptation of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in people to the European colonization that began in the late 19th century.
Climate and ecology
Klondike has a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc), bordering on a tundra climate (Köppen ET). The climate is warm in the short summer, and very cold during the long winter. By late October, ice forms over the rivers. For the majority of the year, the ground is frozen to a depth of . The landscape is dominated by spruce, aspen, and birch trees interspersed with riparian vegetation. Caribou also migrate through the Klondike region during their seasonal migrations. Other species found in the region include moose, black bear, grizzly bear, lynx, marten, wolf, wolverine, Dall's sheep, and beaver.
Politics
Klondike is a district of the Legislative Assembly of Yukon. The former Premier of the Yukon, Liberal Sandy Silver, represents the electoral district of Klondike.
History
The Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in people have continuously occupied the Klondike region for over 9000 years, and UNESCO has stated this was "fundamentally transformed during the colonial occupation of these lands." The Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in were forced to relocate downriver to an ancestral camp called Moosehide, where it became the center of the Indigenous community until the 1950s.
After the Klondike Gold Rush ended near the turn of the 20th century, many of the boomtowns quickly became ghost towns, but Dawson City remained the capital of the Yukon until 1953 (when the capital was moved to Whitehorse).
These sites show archaeological evidence of the transition from Indigenous to European land use, and the interactions between the two cultures.