THE GOLD PLACERS. 
By Frank L. Hess. 
GENERAL STATEMENT. 
The placers of the Rampart region were studied by the Survey party for ten days 
during the first part of September, 1904. Every working claim was visited except 
those on Gunnison Creek, but in a number of cases where claims are worked only 
during the winter the operators could not be seen. Foot traverses were carried 
over the region and a sketch map was made (PI. III). The time allowed only a 
hasty reconnaissance, though if it had been possible to know the dates of arrival and 
departure of the boats more time could have been put upon the study of the region. 
The miners met were universally generous, hearty, and hospitable, ready to help 
whenever possible with information or otherwise, and the work was thus made much 
more effective and pleasant. 
The placer diggings near Rampart may be grouped according to the drainage sys- 
tems to which they belong. The three general groups, Minook Creek, Baker Creek, 
and Troublesome Creek, are separated by a divide having the general shape of a 
Y whose stem runs northeastward between the Minook and Baker Creek drainage, 
whose left arm runs nearly northward from Wolverine Mountain, about 13 miles 
southeast of Rampart (PI. Ill), and whose right arm runs nearly eastward, from 
the eastern base of the mountain. Between the arms, extending northward, is the 
" Troublesome country", as the region surrounding the creek of that name is known 
from its steep, rocky ridges and deep, narrow valleys. Each group embraces 
only the diggings located on the creek that gives the group its name, or upon its 
tributaries. 
In the Minook Creek group most of the gold-bearing creeks are on the east side, 
nearer the left-hand arm of the Y, only a few diggings being on the west side of the 
creek. In the Baker Creek group the diggings now known are on the side nearer the 
Y, and in the Troublesome Creek group the only diggings known are on the west side 
of the creek, on branches flowing from the left arm of the Y. The extreme length 
of the area containing known gold-bearing localities is about 30 miles and its greatest 
width is about 12 miles, the total area being probably less than 350 square miles. 
Winter prospecting is being done on Squaw Creek, a tributary of the Yukon about 
the size of Minook Creek, which enters the river nearly opposite Rampart. 
The first placer claim in the Rampart region was located and worked in 1896 on 
Little Minook Creek by F. S. Langford, though gold had been previously discovered 
by John Minook, a Russian half-breed, who seems to have sluiced out a small 
amount of gold, and for whom the creek was named. Some prospecting had prob- 
ably been done along Minook Creek a number of years before. Since the first sys- 
tematic work in 1896 the region has been a constantly productive one. Though the 
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