Charlie Clundaq was the youngest of seven children born to Preston and Margaret Clundaq of Clayburn, Maine sometime in the 1870s.
Preston Clundaq decided that opportunity lay elsewhere, and he, his wife, and seven children pulled up roots and moved westward. They eventually settled in Winston, Minnesota, where Preston found work as a senior clerk for a local flour mill.
Little is known about Charlie's formative years, but he did eventually marry and have three children of his own. He went to work as a clerk in the same mill as his father. Life was not easy for Charlie and his family, as a clerk's salary was barely sufficient to maintain a subsistence level. His wife Martha, helped the family situation by doing seamstress work and taking in other people's laundry.
The economic depression of the 1890s placed great hardship on many in the general population. There was talk in town that the flour mill would soon close and workers let go. Charlie, as others in his situation, became desperate to secure a future for their families. It was under mounting pressures that opportunity knocked on Charlie's door. One day Charlie was passing the local newspaper office, when he saw a bold headline posted in the window - "Gold found in the Yukon!" Gold was so plentiful that all one need do, is pick it up from the streams and cart it off in a wheelbarrow. Wealth was there for the taking, for anyone who would make their way north.
Charlie convinced Martha that the north was the answer to their prayers. He would go to the Yukon and return with enough gold to secure the family's future. He used what little money they had saved to purchase passage and goods for his epic journey. And so it was that Charlie joined hundreds of thousands of others in a flood of humanity to retrieve the golden riches of the north.
The cramped quarters aboard the vessel that carried Charlie to Skagway, Alaska, the arduous effort of moving a ton of goods over the Chilkoot Pass in winter, and the blistered hands that came from sawing green timber and fashioning a boat that would carry him on the Yukon River to Dawson City, all tested his resolve. There were times when he was ready to give up, but failure was not an option for Charlie.
Charlie finally reached Dawson City in June of 1898. The streets were abustle with 30,000 gold seekers, all lost in an aimless wandering. Charlie soon learned that the headlines were a sham. All the best sites had been claimed and there was no hope that he could ever realize his golden dream. How would he tell his beloved Martha that he had failed, that he had let the family down?
Charlie began laying his plans to return home. He got what he could for the goods that he had worked so hard to get to Dawson. He purchased passage from Dawson aboard a vessel that would take him to St. Michael's, Alaska, via the Yukon River, and from there to Seattle. He hoped to use his clerking skills to obtain work there and eventually earn his way home to Minnesota.
One day as he was walking the boardwalks of Dawson, waiting his time before his passage home, Charlie met a fellow traveler who had completed the journey over the same period. They decided to have a drink at the Red Garter and commiserate. The saloon was crowded, but Charlie and his companion were waved over to a table where another familiar face from their travels was playing poker.
Charlie was a family man and not a gambler. What possessed him to start playing is not known - was it desperation, boredom, the effects of the liquor? What is known, is that Charlie began a streak of luck that many in Dawson would recount for years to come. The evening culminated in a dramatic final hand. One of the old-timers put up his claim on Eldorado Creek in the poker pot. Charlie's three aces beat the old-timer's three kings! And Charlie now owned a gold claim! He could not believe his luck!
The next day Charlie could not wait to get to the claim and begin working it. And just as Charlie dreamed, he panned gold dust and nuggets from the stream that ran through his claim. Charlie was beside himself with excitement, happiness, and wealth.
The next morning he awoke to a redness that appeared randomly on his skin. As the week wore on, and the gold accumulated, the redness spread and fever set in. By time a doctor was summoned and arrived from Dawson, Charlie was covered in red welts and high fever. The doctor did what he could for Charlie but to no avail. Charlie died in his shack on the creek. The doctor surmised that Charlie was allergic to gold and that it had caused the redness and fever that did Charlie in.
Charlie loss was sadly felt by the people of Dawson. His story of hardship and success was admired and celebrated. That aside, miners, prospectors, and town folks feared that Dawson gold was somehow cursed and that others would suffer Charlie's fate. Local newspapers, never at a loss to find ways to increase readership, presented dramatic headlines to that end. With time, this fear proved to be ill-founded, but this episode left a mark on history - the period would thereafter be referred by the newspaper headlines of the time -
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