The rush was touched off in March 1851 when a Haida man traded a 27-troy-ounce (30 oz; 840 g) nugget in Fort Victoria for 1,500 blankets.
The crew of the Hudson's Bay Company vessel Una were the first to mine, discovering a vein 6.5 inches (170 mm) wide, 80 feet (24 m) long at 25% gold content.
Among these ten vessels was the Susan Sturgis, which traded along the coast and at Skidegate was befriended by Chief Edenshaw, who joined the crew as guide and interpreter, bringing along with him some of his own men.
Word reached Chief Trader John Work at Fort Simpson in ten days and Work arrived to negotiate the release of Susan Sturgis's crew at the rate of $250 each for captain and mate, and $30 for each of the men (i.e. at the dollar equivalent in blankets).
The rush was complicated by the fact that in 1851, the Queen Charlotte archipelago, though recognized by treaty as British, was as yet unincorporated as a formal possession or colony.