SecurityTraders.com - Part 2

The Klondike attracted entrepreneurial men and some women (often of ill repute) from all parts of the globe because the glorified newspaper articles captured the world's imagination, since the San Francisco gold rush (some 40 years earlier) had made such instant wealth and created one of the most magnificent cities in the world. Risk takers saw an even bigger opportunity in the Yukon of Canada, so they came in droves, many from the Port of Seattle via Skagway, Alaska and many overland by train via Edmonton, Alberta, then raft or horseback to Whitehorse, Yukon and finally, by foot up and over the steep mountain pass. They had about a 3 to 4 month window during the summer to get into the Klondike region and there was no way out until after the spring thaw.

As many as 100,000 men per year for several years rushed to get in on the action, many never made it to the gold, most never came back. Of these a tiny few accumulated the claims and had the where-with-all to establish, operate and manage the necessary mining equipment to extract sufficient flakes of gold, on a consistent enough basis, to derive any significant wealth. To this day there is one family, third generation of miners, still working the tailing piles (over-burden) of a section beside the Klondike River which likely represents the lost claims, dreams and lives of over 1,000 men - maybe more.

The most graphic picture and important detail of this story, from my perspective, can be described in the famous photos of the R.C.M.P. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) checkpoint. Where a line of men and mules, loaded with supplies and equipment, can be seen ascending a mountain pass. In the picture they resemble a lines of ants. At the checkpoint the RCMP were enforcing the laws that anyone entering the Klondike region needed to have over 50 items which included simple things like a pick-axe, shovel, gold pan and then more mundane things like matches, candles and enough food supplies to feed yourself for an entire winter.

It's not hard to imagine why much of the Klondike wealth ended up in Skagway in the hands of prostitutes and barkeepers, especially since that was the last place to buy supplies and equipment and the only place for girls, poker and whiskey. It's a legend that many people never made it beyond the Alaskan seaport and gateway to the Yukon, that Skagway became very prosperous and rather large, very fast. Often a miner would have nothing but his claim and he'd be scouring the town for someone to stake (invest) in him, so he could pursue his dream. Evidently, barmen and prostitutes backed the aspirations of the willing, the strongest survived and wealth dividends ended up in the bar. The other worthy note is that the companies selling the supplies and equipment also prospered.

The key lessons that I derive from this story are #1) Stake good claims and protect them with your life. #2) Be prepared for a long arduous struggle. #3) The companies that sell products and services to participants in a Gold rush make good steady money. #4) Extracting value (ie. gold nuggets/flakes, money), even from a worthy claim requires equipment, knowledge, determination and most of all persistence. All of these things can be said about the Information Age Gold Rush that I participated in when it was announced that the WWW (World Wide Web) was discovered.

Having been somewhat obsessed with computers prior to the WWW and specifically Network Computing, plus having studied the predictions of the coming Information Age as first prophesied by John Nesbitt in MegaTrends and many others, I felt like I was in possession of critical life altering and potentially society altering information. In many ways I knew what I had to do but not (yet) how to do it. That was; stake some good claims (Domains) and then acquire the technology and knowledge to begin extracting value from them.

Several things combined to point me towards the discovery of my Information Age motherload, a clue to which was my knowledge of the vast wealth on deposit in the banks of the Caribbean Islands, this is an easy parallel to not just gold mining but also oil exploration and pipeline construction both of which I spent 5 years of my life engaged in, both the land-man is the key player at meeting with ranchers, farmers and land owners to negotiate the leasing of their land. Even during my real estate career the first thing you learn about what makes property valuable is the mantra; "location, location, location".

To be continued...