Date: 2 July 2001 (Monday)

Start:

End: Guggieville RV Park, Dawson YT (0 miles)

The temperature was 54f early, rising to 73f later in the day. Partly cloudy with a small shower about 6:00 am.

We ate in, and scurried downtown to the visitor’s center to get an updated list of events.

Then we decided to have a look at the reason for this place. We went to Bonanza Creek, and up to Discovery Claim, where Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie found the gold in 1897 that started the outsider’s rush of 98 (by the time they got here, all the land had been claimed by those already in the Yukon in 97).

Bonanza Creek (Rabbit Creek before the gold strike) comes out of the hills right where our campground is located and empties into the Klondike only a mile or so above the confluence with the Yukon. We drove up it (gravel road) to the #4 Dredge first.

The dredge floated on its own pond and scooped up gravel from the bottom of the pond, ran it through sluices and ripples internally to remove the gold, and then deposited the cleaned gravel out a conveyor to be dumped behind the dredge; these leavings are called tailings. The dredge is large – 130’ long by 65’ high by 40’ wide – and built of massive wood timbers from the main deck down and for all the load-bearing assemblies. It’s owned by Parks Canada to preserve it for the future.

Then we drove the short hop to Discovery Claim – it has signs noting its history. Another claim nearby has been turned over to an organization that allows the public to hand dig for gold on it. You’re allowed pick, shovel and pan as tools. Chances are the land there has been dredged a few times, but the dredge didn’t get everything, so you do have some chance of finding gold. A few folks were out there trying. Signs warn you against drifting off the property and note that claim-jumping is still a serious offense up here.

We returned to town and had lunch at Klondike Kate’s. Then we went to the Robert Service cabin for the Parks Canada presentation on his life.

Robert Service only lived in Dawson for four years from 1908 to 1912, but he did write some of his best poetry about the Arctic there (he had been in Whitehorse prior to Dawson and wrote some there as well). He wrote "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" there despite the fact that guns were not allowed in Dawson by the mounties and there were no shooting incidents in Dawson at any time. The presentation went on for 45 minutes and was very interesting – I’ve always liked his Yukon poems.

We had watched the ferry waiting line all afternoon, planning to go back over to the Top of the World Highway. It stayed long all day, looking as though everyone was bailing out of Dawson after the holiday. Finally, we just got into it with our books and waited two hours to go over the Yukon on the George Black.

We went out 37 miles looking at beautiful scenes. The road goes right to the top of the ridge and runs west. We got up as high as the tree line for black spruce, leaving only the little stuff growing. The wildflowers are still out and Dolores got lots of pictures of them. We could see from the ridge all sorts of adjacent ranges and the range beyond that, and in some cases, the range beyond that.

On the way back, we stopped at the viewpoint that lets you look down into the town. You can clearly see the Klondike (quite clean, looks dark) merging into the larger Yukon (silty, looks gray). The town looks toy-like from the vantagepoint.

Then we rode back across the river on the George Black ferry. He slams into the bank and drops the ramp. Crew tell you where to park your vehicle. They chock the end vehicles and the action begins. The captain starts the other diesel (there’s one on each end with propellor) and drives away from the bank, crabs across the fast current to the other side, slams into the bank there, and drops the ramp on that end. Crew removes chocks and you drive off onto the riverside gravel and up to town. If the bank gets a little torn up, there’s a caterpillar tractor there to move gravel around and build up a new landing zone. It runs 24 hours a day with two hours down time each Wednesday for maintenance.

We went to dinner at the Jack London Grill in the Downtown Hotel (two outs in one day, wow!!). It was nice but not as nice as the Triple J Hotel’s room.

Back then to the campground. The folks from Virginia next to us were wandering around their place and started chatting. There were plenty of things to discuss and we wound up talking with them in their rig until 10:00 pm.

Now I’m typing this, and then off to bed. We’ll leave in the morning with no firm plan on where we’ll wind up at nightfall.