Day 27 of Our RV Journey to Canada & Alaska - 6/08/14 Sightseeing at Dawson City

We left at 9:15 am to drive in to Dawson City to check out some sights that we are interested in seeing.

Earlier Bob walked to the Klondike River and the only animals he saw was a beaver and squirrels, and took a few pics to share.  I was glad he didn't walk up on and startle a bear.

Dawson City is another small tourist town; a  historical gold mining  river town with the Klondike River and the Yukon River running into each other, and are next to the city.  Dawson City was Yukon’s first capital, when the Yukon became a separate territory in 1898.  Whitehorse became the capital of the Yukon in 1953. We went to the visitor information center, walked around the little city & went into a few of the shops.

A couple of newspaper articles were hanging on the wall in one of the shops about a guy killing a world record moose in Oct 2013 that ended up scoring 263 1/8 points.  The previous world record moose scored 261 5/8 pts.

The Commissioner’s Residence was probably the nicest building in Dawson City (known as a mansion in the early years).  It was the official residence of the Yukon’s federal government representative - the Commissioner of the Yukon - from 1900-1916.  It was not open, but I took a couple of pictures of the exterior.

We also went to Dredge #4 . It was one of  two dozen dredges that worked this area.  It was built in 1912 and was the largest wooden hulled bucket line gold dredge in North America.  In 1913, it began operation and dug its way upstream, sinking in 1924.  In 1927 it was refloated and operated until 1940.  Then it was rebuilt on the Bonanza Creek valley and worked that valley  from 1941 - 1959.  It is the size of 2/3 of a football field and is 8 stories high.   It could dig 48 feet below water level and 17 feet above water level using hydraulic monitors and washing the gravel banks down.  The dredges were very efficient means for mining gold.

Piles of rocks were all over the area around Dawson City; this was the rock that went through the dredges.

We stopped for a short while at a place called Claim 33 Gold Panning.  It wasn’t much. Tourists can pan for gold there.

After going to the dredge, we went to the Midnight Dome which is about 7 miles up into a nearby mountain. It is a great place to go to for a scenic view overlooking the Klondike & Yukon Rivers and Dawson City & more.  (It reminds me a lot of Lover’s Leap right outside of Hannibal MO where it overlooks Hannibal and the Mississippi River.)  It is a popular place to celebrate the long summer nights.  The nights this time of year doesn’t ever seem to get dark.  We look out several times during all hours of the night and it looks like daytime all the time.

We also went as close as we could to check out the ferry that we will be taking tomorrow. We will be taking our “home on wheels” across the Yukon River on the ferry in order to get on the Top of the World Highway (Hwy 9) to continue on with our travels.

We have been told that tomorrow’s travels will be slow moving, due to road conditions.  Uhhh!!!  It is a narrow road that winds along the top of the mountain range with steep grades, few guardrails and cautions of soft shoulders.  Sounds like a long, nerving day!!!

Bob filled up with diesel today.  (31.32 gal  = $164.55Cap)

Ginger & Jesse fixed a delicious dinner tonight and then we all sat around the fire.

Have a good one!!!

jl