Dawson City, Yukon Territory

We drove from Carmack to Dawson City on Tuesday, June 23^rd, arriving in early afternoon. Dawson City was where the Klondike Gold Rush prospectors were headed in 1898. Today it is a small town of about 2,000 residents, but a Canadian National Historic Site with boardwalk-lined streets and historic buildings. Its appearance remains largely unchanged from the late-1800s. 

We settled in at the Gold Rush RV Campground in downtown Dawson City and relaxed until we got together for dinner. After dinner we decided to take in the live, cabaret-style show at Diamond Tooth Gerties, which was only a 2-block walk from the campground.

 

 

 

We slept in until 7AM on Wednesday and around 10AM went out to see the Dredge Number 4, a Canadian National Historic Site, on Klondike Creek. The tour took over an hour and it was very interesting. The wooden-hulled dredge was massive, 8 stories high, 140-feet long, and displaced over 3,000 tons. It produced over 50-pounds of gold every three days.

 

After lunch, we went to the Dawson City Museum, but a power outage cut our visit short. We walked two blocks to see novelist Jack London’s cabin. Jack London lived here during his time in Dawson City and wrote about the Klondike Gold Rush. 

 

We were surprised to see a red German tour bus again, as we saw one 4-years ago on our trip to Alaska, in this same campground.

 

Thursday, June 25^th, we crossed the Yukon River on a free ferry from Dawson City to the beginning of the “Top of the World Highway”.  The ferry is provided by the Yukon government.

We plan to drive just over 108 miles to Chicken, Alaska, but it will take about 4-hours or more because of the road.

Steve & Julie Cornelius