Road to Carmack

On my bucket list for this trip was a chance to pan for gold in the Yukon. Dawson City has two places a greenhorn like me can try his luck. Claim #33 is a commercial claim that will teach you how to pan and gold is guaranteed. Sure enough. At the bottom of my pan were five small flakes of gold worth maybe four dollars. This is like my slot machine adventures. I traded fifteen dollars of cash for four dollars of gold!

The second part of the adventure was a trip up the road to Claim #6, a public spot on Bonanza Creek. Here you can pan for wild gold. With shovel and pan in hand, I tried my luck for an hour or so. It was a lot easier to find gold at the first stop. I found nothing in my pan. I froze my feet in the creek water and came away with a sore back but the fun of trying it was worth the effort. Charlie played in the creek and chased his Frisbee. It was time well spent. 

When the crowd of other tourist arrived we headed out for our drive toward Whitehorse. We had decided to make this a two-day drive so after four hours we found a nice Provincial campground near Carmack on the Klondike Highway. The price is cheap at $10.00 and since I didn’t hit the bonanza in the creek, that’s about what we can afford. The bugs are starting to appear so spending time outside requires bug spray to be comfortable. The campground is small and quiet so sleep will come easy tonight.    

Panning on Bonanza Creek

Dawson City, Yukon

Today, we did the history tour of Dawson City. We found good Wi-Fi at the Tourist Center. After checking email and uploading blog pages, I did the ninety-minute self-guided walking tour. With all of the miners here in 1898 this was the largest town north of Seattle and west of Winnipeg. Over 1.7 billion dollars in gold has been mined from this area and there are still active mines today finding more. We have found good restaurants and the shops are interesting. They are not your typical tourist type shops. This is a working community with 1800 full time residents. We enjoy watching the new arrivals at the campground and the mud caked condition of their RV. One look tells you which direction they came from. 

Thursday was spent trading baby-sitting chores for Charlie. One of us would go wondering for a couple hours, then return to work the sitting shift. That meant being with Charlie and relaxing in the sun in the lawn chairs. I did the tour of the S.S. Keno, the last working paddle wheel steamer on the Yukon River. River transportation was the only means of travel until 1955, when a modern road was finally built to Dawson City. I also became totally immersed in the history of this town with both the self-guided tour with MP3 player and a guided tour lead by a park guide. We were taken into many of the old buildings that have been preserved or restored to their original glory. With the dry and cold weather here, the wood stays in amazing condition. The main concern is foundation damage from the permafrost. Most buildings are built on stacks of timbers so the ground underneath will stay frozen. 

I have made a friend of a raven here. He seems to follow me all over town. They have distinctive calls and this one makes sounds like water dripping. I talk back to him. Karen thinks I’m nuts. On her wonderings today she bought a sculpture of a Raven at the native museum, as a reminder of my friend in Dawson City.

We took Charlie for a long walk in the evening to wear him out. We left him alone and went to Diamond Gerties Gambling Hall to watch the early Girlie, Girlie Show. It was a fine performance of music and Can Can dancers depicting the style of entertainment from the Gold Rush Days. The show was being filmed for a BBC documentary so maybe we will become famous on the small screen. Karen had the microphone for part of one song. The whole show was a lot of fun. Our stay in Dawson City was been wonderful. The three-day rest was needed. Tomorrow we will move down the road for the next adventure.

Library

 The effects of permafrost:

Riverboat on the Yukon River

Bob's new friend

Can Can Show at Diamond Gerties