The Kink is a unnatural abandoned meander of the river created in the fall of 1900 when a young Dane, Johannes Petersen, his brother and several other men blasted away a 100-foot-high (30 meters-high) bedrock ridge. The blast changed the course of the river and laid bare the 2 3/4-mile-long (4.4-kilometer-long) abandoned river bed meander. The original width of the cut-off was only about 16 feet (5 meters), and at first only a small quantity of water flowed through it, but after a few hours the main body rushed through and soon worked out a channel over 39 feet (12 meters) wide (Prindle, 1905). The company had determined that the newly exposed gravels contained gold valued at approximately $9.00 per cubic yard so they were intent on mining them. In 1901 while an attempt was being made to mine the gravels with horses and scoops, a rock slide occurred that covered the gravels after which the company abandoned the area (Scott, 1990).

Most of the Fortymile miners bought supplies in Dawson, Yukon Territory, and, during the winter months, used the frozen Fortymile River to transport their outfits with the aid of horsedrawn sleighs. During the winter of 1906-07, several hundred tons of dredge parts were shipped into the Fortymile District on the frozen river. One dredge operated near the International boundary on the Fortymile River and another worked Sourdough Bar 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) above the mouth, in Canadian territory.