Dawson City Day 3 of 3

6/4/14

Another beautiful day with a few clouds coming in toward the evening.  It was 37' this am, but warmed up quickly.  We sit in a valley with good size hills keeping the sun from us until about 7:30 am.
After having a delicious blueberry muffin at Cheechakos Bake Shop we drove out to the Dredge No. 4 on the Bonanza Creek and to the actual Gold discovery site.

 A fantastic tour of the dredge which was the largest wooden dredge in North America, at the time.  The dredge was built in Ohio and then piece by piece was shipped all the way to the Yukon, at a total cost of building and shipping about $450,000 then is was reassembled on the Klondike river.  I never really understood how the dredges worked and how did all those "tailings" get in so many piles.  Well this was all explained very thoroughly.  This was a very good tour and something you would not want to miss. (not too many pictures inside the dredge as I ran out of "space" on the camera)

Coming back into town we fuel at $1.65/liter.  The most we have paid so far, but we only needed enough to get us to Tok, AK a distance of about 200 miles.

In the afternoon we went out on a river trip with a local Native American; Tommy Taylor, of Fishwheel Charter Services, took us out in the river then turned the motor off and we floated downstream while told us about the river, fish, an the animals and his way of life growing up on the river.

 His family owns part of Dog Island where he lived most of his live as a youngster. There were many Musher's everywhere andthey were very useful in the winter months, but during the summer months they needed a place for them so they were deposited on "Dog Island" and Tommy's family helped take care of them during the summer.  I guess it was pretty good for the dogs because they were fed lots of salmon and ran freely all over the island.  When the snows started coming people then came to claim their dogs.
We traveled further down the river to a place that also belonged to Tommy.  This is where he builds his own fish wheel and will catch 800 - 1200 fish a season.  The fish are fileted and then hung outside.  Most of the fish were food for his 52 dogs along with his family.  The dogs are now gone and he only fishes with the fishingwheel a little.  There are only a few people on the river that know how to make the wheel.  The wheel making was taught to each generation, so he learned from his father.

This is Tommy's house.  He bought this cabin in Dawson City, disassembled it and then re-assembled it here on his property 6 miles down river, he also aded a second story.

A small cabin build by someone visiting him who had never build a cabin before but did a very nice job.  It's a one room with bunk beds, cooking area and eating area.  It's short because it takes less heat.  The guy stayed in the cabin for one year.

Out door oven, he made all his bread.













Back to Dog Island and up on shore we were treated to hot tea, and a wonderful warm afternoon.  We soon had to return to Dawson City as it was almost 5:00 pm, my how the time flies.

Cute outhouse

Very fancy with two stalls

Tommy Taylor
Fishwheel Charter Services

End of a great day.















Tomorrow we will be heading to Chicken, AK, but first we will drive down to the river and get on a small ferry to cross the mighty Yukon River.

(some of these facts might not be exactly right but I can only remember so much)

That's it for now, have a blessed day and thanks for stopping by.
Probably no internet for next several days

Nancy

Dawson City Day 2

6/3/14      


A lazy morning watching the sun come up with a good cup of coffee,  By 10:00 am we were at the Dawson City Museum.  By far one of the best small town museums we have seen in a long time, ended up spending about 3 hrs there.  All day they have programs going on, how to use a sluice box, panning for gold and then melting down the gold and pouring it into a form.

Using the sluice box with rocker arm

Panning for gold from the sluice box

The gold was then heated up to 2,000' and was then poured into a small form.
(pictures were too blurry)
Then the form was tipped upside down into water, a second later you could pick up the piece of gold and it was not even warm.









 A play about a miner's meeting that actually was a trial about ........I forgot his name was accused of telling people about all the gold they would be able to get when they got to Dawson.  However, when these people got to Dawson in 1898 all the claims were taken.  They actually wanted to lynch him or send him out into the vast wilderness where he would surely perish or 30 lashings.  This was an actual case from 1898 and the verdict was to send him out into the wilderness during the winter months.  Well, some how he survived and came back to Dawson.

Other various items in the museum below

A sample of the Hudson Bay Store













How do you tell how cold it is outside way back in the late 1800's?  This shows the bottles that you would have sit outside on your window sill;  Quicksilver froze it was 40 Below F, ect.

Mushers "Now" on the right and "Then" on the left

As I mentioned before Dawson was/is on perma-frost.  In the winter months the miners made a fire on the frozen mud and this would melt about 10 - 12 inches, they would dig that out, set another fire, waited for that to melt, dig it out and light another fire, etc.  They would eventually dig down 30 - 100 feet and all that gravel and dirt they brought up would just be piled up on the side.  Then in the spring when the water started flowing again they would shovel it into the sluice box.  They did not know how much gold was in their piles of frozen dirt until spring.  They might have had thousands or maybe not.  They often had two or three holes going at one time so they could dig on one while the others were burning.  These pictures will help describe the process.

The top floor of the museum is a court room that is used by a circuit judge that comes about three times a month.













As most western town they had many bars and brothels.  The last brothel shut down in 1961, but during the early 1900's they had several and like all good brothels they liked to help out. (Read the title of this very carefully, I had to re-read it)

We also visited to the Steam Locomotive Shop; a rail line was put up to Bonanza Creek, but was very short lived at the gold boom was over by the early 1900's.

This was to be a little "Company Engine"  Wouldn't that be fun to run around in?

 They had life-like looking mannequins, especially the hands.  I later learned that local people put their hand in casts for these hands, every thing was displayed extremely well.

After lunch a tour of the Grand Palace Theater, and what a grand place it was.  This was build by Arizona Charlie Meadows in 1899.  that saw every form of entertainment from vaudeville to silent movies.  This was short lived as the gold started panning out.  Today it has been refurbished (again by Parks Canada) and they now have High School Graduations there which was seven students this year.  They also have a Commissioners Tea, Plays, meetings; and they will soon be having a theater group for the summer..  This is truly a beautiful building.

On stage looking out, the higher up the floors the higher the price for your ticket.

Second balcony looking at the stage

A two room appt. for the actresses

Next was a melodrama at the Grand Place Theater where you could root for the best and boo at the others. Lots of fun.

Sam.........

John (or Jim)  Boyle

Klondike Kate

On the right was the narrator

After this we barely had time to zoom over to the Fire Fighter's Museum.  Very small, but very informative.  Most of the engines were in working condition for parades.

The Parks Canada owns about 23 buildings and they have done a remarkable job restoring these old buildings.  The town is not very large but by the time I walked all over up and down the streets during the day I am exhausted.

That's it for now, thanks for stopping by

Nancy