Twenty-three years before the big gold strike in the Klondike, Henry Thibert discovered gold near Dease Lake, triggering a gold rush in the Cassiar region of British Columbia. Thibert, a French-Canadian who had left his farm in Manitoba to prospect out west, made his discovery in the spring of 1873. After an unsuccessful season of panning along the Stikine River, Thibert and a Scotsman named McCullough decided to return to an earlier find on the Liard River.
But, as in the Yukon, the real gold strikes were to be made on the creeks rather than on the rivers. On their way back, Thibert and McCullough tried panning a creek at the north end of Dease Lake. Here, on what was later known as Thibert Creek, they struck a rich source of gold. Other miners from the Stikine struck pay dirt on nearby Dease Creek before the end of the year, and a new gold rush was on. More gold deposits were discovered on McDame Creek, a tributary of the Dease River, and by 1874 there were 1500 men in the area. A small settlement, Laketon, was established on Dease Lake, and cattle were driven overland from the Cariboo to feed the miners.
From these three creeks, Dease, Thibert, and McDame, two million dollars' worth of gold was taken out in two years. By 1876 the boom had passed, and although the main creeks continued to yield some gold, most of the would-be miners moved on in search of the next big strike.
