The Cariboo and Fraser River gold rushes in British Columbia, which occurred shortly before confederation, and the Klondike gold rush in the Yukon Territory three decades later, are among the most notable of the 19th century.
Ben English was one of the countless Americans who, in the late 1850s and early 1860s, were attracted to the possibilities offered by the Fraser and Cariboo gold rushes in the colony of British Columbia. Farther north, in mid August 1896, three members of a Tagish family discovered gold on Rabbit (Bonanza) Creek. Within a year, the find had sparked the Klondike gold rush, which brought tens of thousands of gold seekers to the Yukon and began permanent non-native settlement.