Henderson's Contribution

. . . The discovery by Carmack started the hectic exploitation of the alluvial deposits of the Klondike creeks, but, as the record shows, the first real prospecting and the first systematic winning of gold was done by Robert Henderson. Carmack knew nothing about gold mining and it was Henderson who showed him the gold and how it was won. Therefore the ‘old-timers’ have claimed that Bob Henderson was the real discoverer. However, to Carmack is accorded a characteristic even honorable than that of having stumbled upon an epoch-making discovery. He is remembered in the Yukon as a man of his word. He gave his Indian friends a share of his good fortune. They threw it away in the faro-banks of Dawson. Henderson was a man of better education and rearing; his sons now do credit to his memory, and for their sake it seems worthwhile to place his name in the Hall of Fame in which the great pioneers find the honor that is their due. The fact must be recognized, however, that the quiet work done by Henderson on the poor gravel of Gold Bottom would never have set the world aflame, and the intensive development of the Yukon district would not have ensured at that time unless Carmack’s much richer discovery had sounded the bugle-call of adventure to the prospectors of three continents. . . .