Klondiker

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An individual who engages in the quest for wealth through perilous activities, especially in gold mining and exploration in isolated locations
2. A person who pursues fortune by undertaking hazardous endeavors, commonly related to historic gold mining booms in secluded areas
3. A person who seeks financial gain through adventurous and often treacherous ventures, particularly in the context of historical gold rushes in remote regions

Etymology: "Klondyker" is a variant spelling of "klondiker," and the word itself has nothing to do with the Klondike gold rush that the definition above suggests. In the trade of the North Atlantic, a klondyker was a factory ship that came alongside fishing trawlers, took on their catch at sea, and processed it on board, so the fishermen could stay out fishing rather than sailing back to port. The name is the Klondike borrowed as a metaphor: like the Yukon rush, these ships drew a crowd of hopeful vessels to remote waters in search of a profitable haul. The sense given in the definition, a seeker of gain through risky ventures in gold-rush country, is a later figurative extension drawn from the same image of prospecting far from home. The fishing sense is the one the word was built on, and it remains the more literal use. Historical records of the word's first appearance are not part of the source I have to work from, so the exact decade of its earliest use is best left unstated.