Dawson City, YT

Dawson City is at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers. Gold fever hit Dawson City in 1896 when gold was discovered in Bonanza Creek. Prior to that day, the City was a cozy fishing village inhabited by the First Nation people. Unfortunately for the latecomers, most of the claims were already staked by the time they arrived 1 to 2 years later.
Dawson City at one time was the Yukon's Capital city. However, in 1953 the Capital was moved to Whitehorse where railways, highways and an airport were in place. The "road" to Dawson Creek was no more than a "trail" until 1950 when the trail was improved to a road as we know them today.
Dredge #4 remains pretty much intact from it's working days. (Left) is the back end where the gold would fall down going up the conveyor; the white box spit out larger rocks. (Right) shows the conveyor stairs the buckets traveled up after the buckets were full of sand and rocks scooped out of the river.

Below left are the buckets used to dig out the river bottoms in search of gold. (Left) is a very good pictorial description of the buckets digging in the river, the bucket traveling up and dumping onto the next conveyor moving upward where the gold nuggets will be separated from the larger rocks, and finally portraying the rocking being pushed out the back end.

Above is a very small example of the "spit out" large rock piles created when mining the waters. Huge piles of rocks lay on both sides of the road approaching Dawson City. Often large pieces of gold were spit out of the dredge because the pieces were too large to fall through to the gold holding bins. Is it possible to find gold in them thar hills of rocks today? Maybe....

Above is an active mine digging out the hills for gold. It was soon discovered around Dawson City that most of the gold was actually in the hills instead of the rivers. Why, because over time the rivers dug out the hill sides and became lower and lower.


At Discovery Claim people may pan for gold whenever they wish for no fee. Don't think much is ever found there, but it is fun trying.

A view of the Yukon River and Dawson City from high above standing on the Midnight Dome, elevation 2,911 feet above the river. On the evening of the summer solstice (June 21st) folks gather to celebrate the 24 hour sun, by gathering on Midnight Dome to drink and party. They have come to watch the sun set on one side and rise immediately on the other side of the Dome.

Another view of the Yukon River seen as you are approaching the Midnight Dome.

Also from the Midnight Dome we could see the Top of The World Highway across the river we will be taking tomorrow on our way to Chicken and Tok, Alaska.

The following are views of the Old and the New Dawson City.




National Historic Site, established in 1901

Front Street of Dawson City, just across from the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers.

Established in 1904

The only way to get from Dawon City to the Top of The World Road is to take a very small ferry across the river. As you can see, there is room for RV's and ferry does come in pretty level to the ground so we won't scrape bottom.


TTFN K&D