Dawson City was the epicenter of the Klondike Gold Rush when gold was discovered in 1886 on Bonanza Creek. This historic town is at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers. By the time the ice thawed on the Yukon River in May 1898, 30,000 prospectors and fortune hunters from around the world had arrived in Dawson turning it into the largest city north of Seattle and west of Winnipeg. Today, historic Dawson is a small town with about 1,900 residents, 13 bars, several restaurants and hotels. While gold mining is still a part of the Dawson area, most mining is done by individuals on small claims that have been passed down in families.
Gold seekers who survived the grueling trek over the Chilkoot Pass to Dawson found most of the claims had already been staked. Although many were disappointed, fortunes were made by enterprising men and women who opened businesses to supply and entertain the prospectors coming in from the gold fields.
We spent a day exploring Dawson by driving around, taking a couple of tours, checking out a couple of restaurants and going to a show at Gold Tooth Gertie's.
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| Dredge #4, built in 1912, mined the Klondike River Valley until 1960. It's the largest wooden hulled bucket line gold dredge in North America. Now a National Historic Site, it's open for tours. |
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| There's all kinds of stuff at Jimmy's Place. |
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| Many of the buildings in Dawson have been restored or replaced with replicas. |
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| The unpaved streets and boardwalks add to the historic feel of Dawson. |
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| During our walking tour, Arizona Charlie, a character from the 1890's, told us about his adventures and enterprises during his days living in Dawson during the Gold Rush. |
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| Prospectors would bring their gold to the bank, where is was weighed and exchanged for paper money. |
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| One of Arizona Charlie's "gold mines" was the Red Feather Saloon. |
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| Dinner at Klondike Kate's was excellent. |
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| Dome Mountain is the highest point above Dawson City. |
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| It was a full house at Gold Tooth Gertie's where gambling, drinking, and can-can dancers entertain. |
Leaving Dawson, we took the short-cut to Alaska via the Top of The World Highway. We crossed the Yukon river on a ferry then started driving on Highway 9. The Top of The World Highway is a wide gravel road winding it's way atop the mountain ridge. The border station is at Poker Creek, Alaska where the gravel road turned into smooth as silk pavement; welcome to the United States! After 9 miles of blissful driving conditions, the highway suddenly turned to SH...shall we say a horrible mess, making us slow down to 10 mph in the extremely scenic and dangerous Goat Trail section of the highway. The Goat Trail (as the locals have named it) is mainly 1 lane with a 1,000 foot drop to the river valley. With no guard rails and soft shoulders, I kept my eyes shut most of the time while clenching my jaw and other body parts. Jim did an excellent job driving white knuckled and getting us safely to Chicken, Alaska where we stopped for lunch and to recover and unclench before getting back on the bumpy, bucking road out of Chicken to Tok, where we hooked back up with the Alaska Highway.
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| We got in line at the ferry at 8:45 a.m. with 12 RV's in front of us. |
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| At 10:30 a.m. we boarded the ferry. |
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| We're on top of the world, eh! |
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| The border crossing at Poker Creek, Alaska is the most northerly U.S. land border. |
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| Ahh, beautiful smooth pavement. |
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| Not really, just had lunch. |
We arrived at the Sourdough Campground and had to ask ourselves "is this Alaska?"; the temperature was 92 degrees! Everything was very dry and Smokey the Bear was telling us the fire danger was Extremely High and there was suspension on all burning.
Alaska recently legalized marijuana and the joke is: The capitol of Alaska will be moved from Juneau to Tok. Ha Ha.
June 10th we celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary by cleaning the Jeep and RV inside and out as the dirt and dust from the roads had put a gritty layer of dirt over everything. After working all day, we got our sweaty bodies cleaned up and went out to celebrate our anniversary at Fast Eddies restaurant, which was 1 of 3 restaurants (including a food truck) in Tok. The halibut and salmon we ordered were delicious.
June 11 we woke up to pouring rain and cooler temperatures. Packing up in the rain, we got on the Tok Cut-Off Highway and headed for our next adventure in Valdez.
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