Klondike Highway Dawson City Day Two

Dirt streets and wooden sidewalks

June 15 Friday Started the day with a 90 minute interpretive walking tour of downtown Dawson City. Our guide, Janice, was wonderful; dressed in the style of the 1890's she was a great storyteller of the land of the Midnight Sun from 1896 through the early 1900's. She really made the time come alive explaining what had happened and how the people reacted to the situation they found themselves in as they headed to this harsh environment in hopes of becoming rich. 

Replica of a saloon- we thought it looked  a little like Farrells

Jack London's cabin

After lunch and some souvenir shopping, we made a stop at Jack London's cabin. Fortunately, another interpretive ranger was on duty to give us the history of Jack's time in the Yukon. He only spent one winter here, but his most famous books were the ones he wrote about the Yukon.

Dredge #4

The final tour we went on was to dredge #4. Dredge #4 is the largest wooden hulled, bucket line dredge in North America and is representative of the numerous machinces that worked the valleys of the goldfields. It is 2/3 the size of a football field and 8 stories high. The dredge moved along on a pond of its own making, digging gold bearing gravel in front, recovering the gold through the revolving screen washing plant, then depositing the gravel and large stones out the stacker at the rear. This gravel and large stones were the tailings which now line the land that was devastated at the time of the gold rush. Again, we had a wonderful park ranger giving an interpretive talk at the site.