We got to Dawson City early, and spent three full days here--so this is a long, albeit very interesting, post. Dawson City is a very historic little town with alot of the history preserved. A lot of things are "restored" which I think means "rebuilt", but they did a good job. Dawson City, is not to be confused with Dawson Creek, which (you may remember) we wrote about at "Mile Zero" of the Alaskan Hwy.
This is our site at the Golden Nugget CG right in downtown Dawson City. "We" picked it "so we don't have to drive around and we can walk to all the spots". And we did. Think we walked about twenty miles while we were here. But--on with the town.
Recall what I said about restore and rebuilt. This is what is left of the bank where Robert Service worked before he decided to become a gold digger and poet. Looks like a rebuild job to me.
My dear Bride caught this wandering tourist. Note the dirt street. The permafrost is so bad they don't bother with paving the streets or sidewalks. Easier to deal with the dust and mud. To prevent dust they make mud. The only concrete road is the highway running thru town.
As we have found so far, the best place to start any tourist town is the Visitor Center. This was no exception. Here is a picture of two moose skeleton and antlers that locked together in combat and couldn't get loose. I imagine that happens pretty often, since we've seen similar ones in several places.
One of the items we see at the Visitor centers are models of something. This was the local Dredge for gold that kept them going for a few years.
But these piles and piles of rock are the price of dredging. As we drove into town we saw a few miles of these tailings. In just a few places one can notice tree seedlings just beginning to revegetate these rockpiles, 110 years later!
While at the center they started a walking tour, so of course "we" had to join it. The "Mountie" (very handsome!) is a local in costume and he did a very good job. Then we walked , and we walked, and we walked!!!!!!!
One of the places we went was the Red Feather saloon. Looks good for it's age, doesn't it?
The inside looked even better. The guide did tell us it was pretty heavily restored. Our guide was ready to serve drinks (not really).
So the guide walked us around, looking at more buildings, which he had keys for, & let us into. You will see then later. We will cover the ones we actually went into.
This was the old Post Office. You will notice that the government building in Dawson City were made permanent, more so than with other gold strike towns. The Canadian government wanted Dawson City to stay active so they built substantial things like the Bank, the Post Office, and the Governor's Mansion. Of course these have all been "restored". Yet after all that the goldstrike at Nome happened. And away the population went.
This is inside the bank, with residual gold dust found under the floorboards when it was restored, and all the historic buildings have their interesting stories.
After the 'Mountie' left us "we" decided we should look at more of the town. As you see it is one street after another.
Note all the wide dirt roads, and the boardwalks--no concrete sidewalks, again due to the permafrost.
This is St Andrews Church, still to be restored.
This the Bunkhouse Hotel. Not every one came here in an RV. Poor people.
A Birch log cabin on the edge of the Yukon River. Now, as a lot of the "restored" places it's a shop.
This is one of Robert Services Poems. You may remember him by the "Cremation of Sam McGee", "Ice Worm" and many others. Every place here sells his books. Probably has made more money dead than alive.
This is Robert Service's cabin while he worked at the bank and after.
Peek inside and you will see the life of a poet.
Another famous author who lived here was Jack London, author of Call of the Wild, White Fang and others. To the right in the photo is the cache, the food storage locker--where bears, etc. couldn't get to it. We saw alot of those.
This is his cabin, they think. Restored of course. They story goes, the City knew Jack had a cabin up here but they didn't know where. So they check the claims and found this old beat up cabin near and, "voila", it became famous as the cabin where Jack London lived. I don't know how true it is but who cares? Good story.
Here it is, the cabin of Jack London and My Dear Bride.
Klondike Kate lived and worked here until the end of the Gold strike then she moved to and died in Bend, Oregon.
This downtown Hotel is still open for business.
So is the Westminster House. It was funny when the "Mountie" walked us by a young woman in an apron came out and teased him about his costume. Then she said she would see him tonight. He was blushing a bit and of course no one in the group kidded him about it. Well, not much..
This was the Klondike Winemakers. I don't know if they made and sold it here or what.
This is the SS Keno, little brother to the SS Klondike we saw in Whitehorse. They had a big flood here due to a Ice dam and most of the houses up to 5th street were floating. It is was noted that the Keno had so many holes in her bottom she just sat there.
This is the local Market. We checked the prices--and if the locals have to pay the amount shown I really feel sorry for them. I don't know if the building has a historic information but it probably does.
This is the Flora Dorn Hotel. I don't think it is still open for business, but according to the "lady" pictured in the upstairs window, it was for monkey business.
A very nice building was the new, modern Elementary School. This is evidence that at least some of the populace resides here year round. Pauline liked the round handicap access ramp, made with plastic composite.
Some of these building still get a modern "uplift" to keep them from looking too old. (Actually, I think this was a new hotel--built in the Goldrush Era style.)
Concrete foundations do not work here; buildings are on pilings. These building haven't been getting their annual re-leveling. Without it, you can see what permafrost does; buildings gradually sink. There were a few like this around town. Frost heaves really play havoc with foundations.
Both nights we were there we went to "Diamond Tooth Gertie's Casino". It was a modern building and the outside was not worth a shot, you know with the price of film nowadays. But the inside had it going.
Look familiar? Except for me the show was better and more music. It only lasted for a half hour so after the show we decided to go for a ride. We had walked around for about 10 hours and I refused to walk to the top of the hill or Midnight Dome as it is called. (Really she didn't want to walk up to there either.)
This is a poster at the top of Midnight Dome. The extract below shows how it was named. But talk about the views. No, I won't talk, just show them.
I will pass on some of the views.. Don't want my Dear Bride to say "too many pictures".
Alaskan Range in the distance.
This is the road coming into town. Click on the picture to look close. You'll see the mess the dredging left behind. It's just outside of town.
This is the Yukon River and the town you see way down there is Dawson City.
This was at 11 PM, Sun still up and we were getting tired and cold. So we decided to call it a day.
The next morning, bright and early, well,at least early, we were at the Dawson City Museum. Too early so we sat on this interesting bench. My Dear Bride likes noticing benches.
And it is as big as it looks. We walked around for a while (several hours) looking at the different displays, movies, and videos. Very interesting old building..
Next we went next door to the Locomotive Shelter. We looked thru the windows before couldn't see much but this time we had a guide, with a key to the door.
He knew a lot but the best part was there was a retired railroad man in the group who knew a lot more and was not afraid to talk. Good tour.
This was an early steam operated hole digger.
Then we were told of another demo at the museum and back we we went.
It was a rocker box demo. These two young lads dropped a small piece of gold into the gravel and showed how the gold diggers found it.
And there it was. It seemed lot a lot of work to me but!!!!!! Then they decided to make something with It. A spoon.
They did add a little more gold to it.
We finally got out of the Museum and went, yep, you guessed it, walking. We saw the Dawson daily news building.
This is only one of five newspapers that survived the rush. The news was real or made up, which ever was convenient.
We also found several uses of the left over dredge parts. (I loved the recycling!)
The dredge shovels were used to number the sites at our RV park.
This is the theater. Quite popular then.
Here is Pauline reading up all about it. And what do you know? We got into a tour.
This was the nicely costumed tour guide for the Grand Palace Theater. She was very good.
These were the ladies of the tour. She asked them what they would have done in the Gold rush days. Other than what a "few" of the women did. Strange answers as you can see.
Lets see now, one lady has a shotgun, (wonder what she was going to do with that) Another has a cook pan, another had miners pan, and My Dear Bride has, has, has, well--this in embarrassing. Wait--now I remember--she was going to be a singer.
She showed us around the theater, dressing rooms, stars bedroom, etc. The showed the best seats in the house. Here is where they go to be seen, not see, if you know what I mean.
After that tour we had a while before the second night's show, so we "walked" all the way to the Governor's Mansion. I am already getting tired of these really long days.
This was built (and rebuilt) right near the river front. As investors came to town up the river on the riverboats people would see that the Canadian Government was making this town a permanent investment to stay and build.
This lady greeted us and asked if we would like a tour of the Mansion. Of course we replied and either took off our shoes or put on booties. I choose the booties. Something like the medics wear. And off we went.
Lots of interesting stuff inside, like how the floor had to be replaced because of the flood, the place had to be rebuilt because of a fire, how they saved the furniture both times and so forth.
We spent a few hours here.
Here was a nice chair made up of moose antlers. NOTE, the booties and stocking feet.
Afterwards we had a nice cup of tea, then walked the few miles back to the RV for our dinner before the show.
Now this is a nice dinner. Now off to the show, our last night in Dawson City.
Different singer, same dancers, but a good show.
My Fame has spread all the way to Dawson City, so I was able to get this picture.
Tomorrow we head over the "Top of the World" highway and will be in Alaska--finally
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