Australian gold rushes Australian gold rushes During the Australian gold rushes, significant numbers of workers (both from other areas within Australia and from overseas) relocated to areas in which gold had been discovered. A number of gold finds occurred in Australia prior to 1851, but only the gold found from 1851 onwards created gold rushes. This is mainly because, prior to 1851, the colonial government of New South Wales (Victoria did not become a separate colony until 1 July 1851) had suppressed news of gold finds which it believed would reduce the workforce and destabilise the economy. After the California Gold Rush began
Klondike Gold Rush Wild", a novel about a sled dog. His colleague, poet Robert W. Service, did not join the rush himself, although he made his home in Dawson City in 1908. Service created well-known poems about the gold rush, among them "Songs of a Sourdough", one of the bestselling books of poetry in the first decade of the 20th century, along with his novel, "The Trail of '98", which was written by hand on wallpaper in one of Dawson's log cabins. The Canadian historian Pierre Berton grew up in Dawson where his father had been a prospector, and wrote several historical books