After our late night hike last night and the show at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s at midnight, we stayed in bed until almost 11:00am today!

Dawson City is an interesting city in that one third of the buildings are original, one third are newly built to look like they were original and one third are arrested decay.  When the town is nothing but dirt streets, apparently they have to water them each morning to keep the dust down.  There is absolutely no such thing as a clean vehicle up here.  All the campers and cars are covered with dirt!

This morning we walked to the Jack London Museum where we learned about the author of “Call of the Wild’” short time in the Yukon.IMG 2696Jack London Museum

IMG 2698

This cabin is built from half of the logs of London’s original cabin, which was located on the North Fork of Henderson Creek.  The other half resides in London’s hometown of Oakland, CA.IMG 2697

Dredge #4

IMG 2706

Dredges were floating gold-digging machines, and Dredge No.4 was the largest wooden-hulled dredge in North America.  To get gold dust from the ground, the bucket line dug down to bedrock bringing gavel up to the hopper.  Gold is heavy, so gravity sorted if from the water as it passed through the trammel and sluice.

The dredge moved along in a pond of its own making, digging gold bearing gravel at a rate of 22 buckets per minute. It would operate for 24 hours a day for a season of approx 200 days, April – November, depending on the weather. Though only moving forward a half mile per season, it unearthed nine tons of gold, grossing 8.6 million dollars over 46 years. On its best day, it unearthed over 800 ounces.

It only took a crew of four to operate the dredge, but 150 other men were needed to prepare the grounds to allow the dredge to move forward.

IMG 2708

Closed doors tour

Late this afternoon we took an inside tour of the town led by someone from the Canadian Park Service.  He took us inside buildings that are normally closed to the public. We went inside the original newspaper building (The Daily Post) and saw all the equipment and typesets used around the 1900s and the old post office where we able to see the original mailbags, post office boxes and artifacts.  Our final destination was a building where old articles are archived and stored.  Interesting tour!

Can you guess what business used these?

IMG 2723

The mortician!

July 5

Trip Statistics

  • We drove 20 miles in the Honda and are now are at 5,756 miles total for the trip.
  • Stayed at the Goldrush RV Park $40.22 USD ($53 CAN)
  • Sunrise 4:07AM; Sunset 12:35