We arrived late on July 8 at the downtown campground which means we are wall to wall with other rigs, but we can walk almost everywhere. As we arrived, the odometer on the car read 9,148 km (5684 miles) from Milton. The trailer has travelled 7,850 km (4878 miles) because of several side trips by car alone, including Fort Mac Murray, and soon “up the Dempster” to Inuvik.
The native people speak the Hăn language and belong to the Tr'onděk Hwěch'in tribe. Tr'onděk means ‘hammer stone’, used to pound the stakes in the river beds for salmon traps. Hwěch'in means people. Somehow the white people, trying to pronounce Tr'onděk, made it into Klondike. When a local native woman pronounced the name for us, it sounded a bit like Klondike (same intonation), so we can understand how this happened. They lived on the plain here by the river before the gold rush. They fished salmon and hunted caribou inland. When the rush of prospectors started coming in 1898, their chief realized that to protect their way of life the tribe must move. They settled 5 km downriver at Moosehide, a place that today is the site of a huge gathering every summer. They have adapted very well from their pre-contact subsistence to a successful self-governing body that owns many of the local businesses. Their pride is evident and to be admired.
The Gold Rush lasted only 1 or 2 years (1898/99), but the mining continued and prospered as large companies took over. Today there are 120 active gold mines in the Yukon, and the revenue from this activity is about $50 million annually. The Gold Rush story is so much more interesting than we had expected. To Skagway by boat, over the mountain passes with 1000 lbs of gear per prospector, building boats to carry them 500 miles downriver to Dawson. Of 100,000 that started, about 30,000 made it to Dawson area.
Did you know that Pierre Berton grew up in Dawson and that many of Robert Service’s poems are based on prospectors’ lives here and the beauty of the land? Joan gave us a wonderful book of Robert Service poems which takes on a whole new meaning as we learn about this land and its history! Dawson today has about 2000 permanent residents, but through the summer and especially during music fest, the population swells.
The buildings are from ‘that time’, and the new ones have the same design. The first buildings were put on the ground - frozen permafrost – and as the building warmed the soil, they moved and tipped. Two structures here have been left to illustrate this. Today buildings are placed on huge pressure-treated beams to leave space. The outer walls extend to the ground with ventilation to allow free flow of air. Many buildings have been restored and are in use while some are still in disrepair because the small population cannot afford to tackle it all at once. This adds to the charm and reality and provides great contrast and eye appeal.
We took a trip up to the Midnight Dome – a mountain top at 3000 feet with a phenomenal 360 degree view. We sat there for a few hours and enjoyed the peace and the view - there are some pictures to illustrate. The three of us panned for gold in Bonanza Creek and soaked up the atmosphere. No gold, though I imagined that some of the miniscule flakes left in the pan were actually gold – see picture. It could of course have been pyrite (fools’ gold) but the flakes were so small we could not save them. By swishing the sand and stones around in the pan, the gold (19 times heavier than water and much denser than any other material) will settle to the bottom. We learned the technique of washing the sand and rocks out of the pan – to leave any gold that might be there. We certainly have a small sense of what it could have been like to search for gold. To quote Robert Service:
There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder’,
It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.
Joan flew out on Tuesday, and it was really great to share one week with her. Dawson International Airport is the smallest airport we have been to. The arrival/departure hall was about the size of a large living room, the customs hall was a 2.5m corridor and the check-in guy took the bags to the plane. We could park free in front of the terminal and concluded that the ‘long term parking’ on the other side of the road must be less expensive because it wasn’t paved.
Anne-Grethe and I went to the 10:30 cabaret at “Diamond Tooth Gertie’s” and walked home at 11:30 with sun shining on the mountains around us! The sky is still blue and there is still a midnight show, if we want it. I think we shall call it a day!
We apologize for all the pictures, but we would like you too, to share this amazing place.
We have 3 more days here.
 |
| 15 Dawson |
