Andrew Hunker was known along the Yukon River valley as "Old Man" Hunker, partly because he was older than many prospectors and partly because he had been chasing gold a long time. Born in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1851, he moved to the United States at the age of 10. In 1875 he wandered west to work in American mining towns. In 1882 he moved to British Columbia and prospected in the Kootenay district.
In 1894, Andrew Hunker crossed the Chilkoot Pass and spent the next two years prospecting in the Yukon drainage basin. He was known among other prospectors for packing six volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire everywhere he went, and reading them nightly.
Hunker was on Bear Creek when news of the Bonanza discovery reached him. He left that evening, but by the time he reached Bonanza it was almost fully staked. He staked No. 31 below Discovery, sold his interest for a small sum, and moved on to neighbouring creeks. On September 5, only three weeks after the Bonanza strike, he found gold on what is now Hunker Creek.
Robert Henderson was already mining gold higher up the creek, which he called Gold Bottom, but he had not registered his claim. Since Hunker's claim was richer and he had registered it, he was allowed a discovery claim and the creek was given the name he chose. Hunker acquired interests in the claims above and below Discovery as well as in Discovery itself, all of which proved to be very rich properties.
