NORWEGIAN GOLD SEEKERS IN THE ROCKIES

Abstract

NORWEGIAN GOLD SEEKERS IN THE ROCKIES BY KENNETH B J ORK During the long period between the California gold rush and the beginnings - about 1888 - of a heavy flow of population to the Pacific Northwest, Norwegians in America circulated restlessly about the Rocky Mountain area in search of gold and other precious metals. Between Forty-Nine and the stampede to the Yukon and Alaska after 1897, a succession of rushes and less dramatic movements of argonauts from east and west, north and south, crisscrossing a vast expanse of mountains and foothills, brought the region before the public eye, stimulated the development of towns, and contributed much to permanent settlement on ranches and farms. Very few Norwegians "hit it rich" in the mining fields. Most of them soon returned to their homes in the Middle West; others remained for some time, drifting from camp to camp, taking such employment and wages as were offered; but a few, observing the opportunities for profit taking in business, ranching, farming, or in combinations of several activities, remained as pioneer residents and lived to see territories become states and social life both altered and stabilized . Whether lucky or unlucky as prospectors, fortunate or unfortunate in the quest for high wages, successful or unsuccessful in the ranching, lumbering, and business ventures usually linked with mining activities, the Norwegians who went to the mountain area wrote letters to the NorwegianAmerican press, either urging their countrymen to migrate or counseling against it and depicting both the life of the Far West and the prospects there for bettering their economic lot. It is abundantly clear that these writings stimulated a 47 48 KENNETH BJORK keen interest if not a heavy migration. Gold has always been an almost irresistible lure, drawing unattached young men and many an adventurous family head from a relatively secure life to the uncertainties of the mining camp. Furthermore , discoveries of precious metals followed the panic of 1857 and continued during the years of depression after 1873. From the panic of 1873 until the late 1890's the farmers of the Middle West, while only occasionally plagued by drought and grasshoppers, struggled against a sustained deflation of agricultural prices and gave expression to their discontent in a variety of agrarian movements. At the same time, workers in the cities knew continuing low wages and the uncertainties of employment in an economy jolted by panics and shackled by depressions of long or short duration. Mature farmers and laborers, as well as younger men, saw in the Far West an opportunity to escape indebtedness, to express their many dissatisfactions by migrating, and at the same time to acquire an easy fortune. The Rockies were nearer than California , and the construction of the Union Pacific and other railroads lessened considerably the terrors of travel. Nevertheless , the journey to most fields remained hazardous, life in the camps difficult, and gold hunting what it had always been - "a will-o'-the-wisp business that nearly always promised more than it paid." 1 I A few Norwegians participated in the gold rushes of the 1850's that followed the decline of production in California. That is, they moved into the area that is now Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona; went north to the present states of Oregon and Washington; and joined the stampede to the Canadian Fraser River field in 1858. They journeyed up the Columbia and Snake rivers when gold was discovered in their vicinity and took part in the rush to the Salmon River in Idaho. The extent and nature of these activities, however, 1 Robert E. Riegel, America Moves West , 435 (New York, 1947). NORWEGIAN GOLD SEEKERS 49 must be inferred largely from remarks made later in life by Norwegian prospectors; they went all but unnoticed by the foreign-language newspapers, whose interest in the Far West naturally declined after the California gold rush. The discovery of gold in the vicinity of Pike's Peak in 1858 was the signal for a great stampede to Colorado during the next year. Among the thousands who ventured the overland journey was Tollef Belstad of Jefferson County, Wisconsin . With two "Americans," he left home in February, 1859, in a wagon drawn by...