Dawson City

Monday June 25th and Tuesday June 26, 2012

Dawson City is our favorite town so far. So much history with the gold rush and the people that came here to tame the wild Yukon and the Klondike. What people they must have been to go thru the hardships of the times.

During the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, people arrived from all over the world, to make boom-town Dawson the largest Canadian city west of Winnipeg.  In 1899, the community was a thriving town with telegraph,, electricity and telephone service.  Dawson City was the territorial capitol from 1898 to 1952 when the administration moved to Whitehorse. 

The population during the gold rush in 1898 was between 30,000 and 40,000, depending and your source, today the population is about 1350.  Gold is still mined in and around Dawson City, mostly by large corporations.

A few facts on Dawson.  20.9 hours of daylight on June 21st and 3.8 hours of daylight on Dec 21st.   They have 33 frost free days a year.  Annual snowfall 58.9 inches.  Average high temp is 72 and low is –30.  The few days we spent in Dawson we had a high of 84 and sunny, we were lucky.  Dawson is located only 333 miles from the Artic Circle. 

Dawson City was declared a national historic site in the early 1960s. Parks Canada is currently involved with 35 properties in the city. Many buildings have been restored, some reconstructed and other stabilized.

We took a few guided tours, “Strange Things Done In The Midnight Sun”, Palace Grand Theatre, S.S. Keno and Dredge #4, plus all the touring we did on our own.  

   

Main street now and as it was during the gold rush.  The only street that is paved is the main one thru town, the rest are dirt.  The town has boardwalks in front of all the main buildings.

At one time the main form of transportation was the steam wheeler, they still run on the Yukon, but only for tourist rides.

  

The old post office built in 1900 has been restored to it’s original self.

 

There are 3 buildings that have not been restored and you can see what the permafrost and freezing and thawing did to them..

  

The Red Feather Saloon after restoration and picture of it in the early days.  Mike really wants to grow up to be a bartender.

 

Dawson City has many cemeteries I took pictures of the Catholic and police cemetery.  Research was done and most of the markers replace with the name of the deceased.

The wild roses were going everywhere.

 

The Yukon River and Dawson City.

Pictures taken from the top of the Dome, which is just a flat spot on top of the mountain overlooking the town.  They call it the midnight dome you can watch the sunset and sunrise on June 21st, they supposedly happen only an hour apart.  We didn't check it out, although Sandy and Steve did.  You will have to read their blog to see what happened. (oops she is behind and that one is not written yet.)

We saw much more when we were here, but it’s getting close to happy hour and I promised I would not let the blog interfere with that time of day. 

Mike is going to write a blog about Dredge No. 4 and the S.S. Keno, other places we visited in Dawson City.  SOON he says.