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

Dawson City Day 1

6/1 - 6/2/14
Gold Rush Campground and RV Park
Mostly sunny and partly cloudy in PM
Warmer every day, up to 21C by Thursday


Dawson City is quite the place, the Information and Parks Canada can plan your whole day or week for you.  So, starting off I went on a 90 min walking tour that lasted almost 2 hrs, lucky us there were only four of us. The walking tour was described as "Dawson Then and Now", excellent tour and stories of how it was during the gold rush.
We visited the bank of British North America, BNA, where the gold dust and nuggets were brought for cash.  The tellers had to examine the gold to see how pure it was.  Some creek beds were more pure than others.  They had a small Assay Office in the back of the bank where they would melt the gold to find out how pure it was, then a record was made of which creek the gold came from so that the next time the miner brought in his gold they would already know it's purity and be paid accordingly.
The original bank, Bank of Canada, I think, was on Front Street.  Robert Service, author of the famous "The Cremation of Sam McGee" and many others, worked at the The Bank of Canada, now called CIBC, that was on Front Street.

Old bank has been flooded many times.

 Bank of Northern America

Robert Service Cabin.  Still in excellent shape.

And here he is, Robert Service.  The chair he is sitting on is made of White Birch and if you look real close to the above picture you can see it sitting on the right of the porch

The Berton Home was across the street from Robert Service.  A very good book "I married the Klondike" by Laura Beatrice Berton, which was edited by her son Pierre Berton who grew up in Dawson City.  The book also has the Preface by Robert Service.

Next was the Red Feather Saloon, known as the working man's saloon.  This was just a saloon, no dancing girls or hanky panky going on.  The Parks Canada has restored this and other properties beautifully by studying pictures and asking the citizens for information or items they might have.

Original items from above the bar.

One of the  pictures of the original  bar















Next was the old Post Office.  When the river boat came in and blew their horn to announce their arrival which also meant that a bag of mail arrived.  Miners would all check their mail so the Post Office became the hub of information, not only to pick up their mail but to communicate with each other, sort of like Face Book.

Dawson City sits on Perma Frost left over from the last Ice Age.  As the ice melts buildings begin to sink. Dawson City, like everywhere else has warmed over the last hundred years or so by about 3 - 5 degrees centigrade.  Many of the older buildings are being raised off the ground using large timbers for the foundation and then insulating the floor.  This way it will help keep the ground frozen.  If they still start sinking they just go out and put a shim in around the timbers and the house will level out again.  The buildings in the picture will be left leaning but they are shored up to protect the building from falling apart.

Tonight we went to the famous Diamond Tooth Gerties and saw a spectacular show of Dance Hall Girls.
 Wow....they were good.

Looking from our campground North East and North West at 10:00 pm

That's it for today, thanks for stopping by.

Nancy

Whitehorse to Pelly Crossing and onto Dawson City

5/31/14
Pelly Crossing Campground
Free, on the Pelly River
Dry Camp, good level sites
Sunny skies and rain at campground

6/1/14 - Arrive in Dawson City which will be on next blot.

The road from Whitehorse to Pelly Crossing became rough and many pot holes and then suddenly smooth.  We just had to slow down a bit, but other than that a beautiful drive.  Some different type of scenery, more hills. We found this really nice town park that had about 30 defined sites and you could easily fit in another 30.  Across the street is the Selkirk Heritage Center, which was the best small Heritage Center I have ever been to.  Items were from their own area with many pictures all displayed exceptionally well.  I would highly recommend a stop at this Heritage Center.  They ask that you do not take pictures.

Klondike River

There were about 55 Road Houses

from Whitehorse to Dawson that 

serviced the Stagecoach 

This was a two story one and appears to have been very well built.

Inside, the opening in the middle was the front door with large windows on each side.

This shows the front door

A new bridge going in

Pelly Crossing, this is just butterflies along the Pelly River bank at our campground

Pelly River and bridge that we went across the next morning.

Looking back down at the Pelly River and if you look real hard you can see the bridge.  This was quite the hill we came up after leaving our campground

Gravel Lake, famous spot for migrating birds.

Just clouds, I underexposed this because of looking into the sun.

We are in Dawson City in a nice gravel RV park in town, can walk to most things. We have good internet here which surprises me, You get 2 hrs free in the morning and then 8 hrs later you get two more hours free. What a deal!

Bye for now, drive safe and have a blessed day

Nancy