The setting of “The Luck of Roaring Camp” is a gold mining camp in Northern California between 1850 and 1851, during the California Gold Rush. The Gold Rush started in 1848 after white settlers traveling west began to discover gold and earn large sums of money as a result. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of people began flocking to California to mine for gold. The Roaring Camp mentioned in the story was a real settlement on the Mokelumne River in Amador County, California.
The conditions of these camps were often severe, and Roaring Camp (as depicted in the story) is no exception. It is located in a small, isolated valley, flanked on all sides by a river and steep hills. The closest town (Red Dog) is 40 miles away, which would have taken one or two full days of travel to reach. The brutality of the location comes across most clearly at the end of the story when a particularly snowy winter leads to an enormous flood, as described in the following passage:
The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in the foothills. The snow lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river, and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a tumultuous watercourse that descended the hillsides, tearing down giant trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog had been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned […] And that night the North Fork suddenly leaped over its banks, and swept up the triangular valley of Roaring Camp.
Harte’s language here captures the dangers of the nature around the men, as he describes how each body of water became “a tumultuous watercourse […] tearing down giant trees” and how the water “suddenly leaped over its banks, and swept up the triangular valley.” Despite being rugged, strong men, these characters are ultimately powerless in the face of nature in such a setting, and Harte communicates this by having the flood tragically kill Stumpy, Kentuck, and baby Luck.
