We left Whitehorse not heading further west towards Alaska, but north on the Klondike highway to the Yukon Territory’s second largest town; Dawson City. Dawson City was one of only a few stops that we had pre planned. During the last year and a half of travel we had made friends with other Roadtrek RV’ers and one couple had said to not miss Dawson. It was one of the most unique towns that we would ever visit. With that in mind we had made a reservation at the towns only campground all the way back in April 2019. Today we would finally be seeing it.
The Klondike Highway
The Klondike highway runs from Skagway, Alaska to Dawson City, YT. Much like the Alaska Highway it is two lanes and extremely scenic. The only difference being that it seemed almost deserted compared to the Alaska Highway. We passed through green pine forests, bright blue & turquoise lakes, the rushing Yukon River and even saw a RV pulling a small helicopter on a trailer. The Yukon is always surprising you.
About halfway on our drive north we encountered something that we had not yet seen this trip in the west….smoke. Forest fires are common in the western parts of the USA and Canada during the summer. Some of these fires can be massive, spreading and burning hundreds of thousands of acres. This did scare us a bit as the Yukon is covered in pine forest, so if a fire were to sneak up on us there wouldn’t be many places to escape to. We kept on pushing forward though as the sky went from bright blue to hazy white. We thought that if we were not supposed to keep going there would be a road blockage at some point. Six hours after leaving Whitehorse we got to the edge of Dawson City.
Driving through the outskirts of Dawson is almost like driving through the surface of the moon in a way. You can still see the tree lined mountains on either side of the road in the distance but right next to the road it was as if someone dug holes in the ground, left the big piles of dug out rock right next to the hole and left it. This continued for a few miles until we reached the actual town. (We found out later that these were old surface gold mines and with so few people there, land was not needed and the rock was left as is.).
First thoughts on Dawson City
Driving into town the first thing that we noticed is that the pavement on the road ends. Instead of black pavement, the road surface is pulverized rock from the surrounding area that is almost a light tan or white color. It really brightens the town. The buildings are also constructed to look as if it were still the mid 1800’s in the middle of the gold rush. The sidewalks in town are also not concrete; they too are set in the 1800’s and are actual wooden boardwalk sidewalks. You really had to watch your step walking around, as some were pretty old and extremely uneven.
After checking into our campground we walked over to the visitors center to see what kind of tours were available in town. We booked a few before walking around and deciding that as it was a long day we should treat ourselves and go out for dinner. We chose to eat at Klondike Kate’s Restaurant (a ribs & salmon kind of place) before walking over to the towns big nighttime attraction, Diamond Tooth Gertie’s.
Diamond Tooth Gertie’s is a lot of things, a bar, a casino, and a late night hangout. Its main attraction however is its cancan girls and their three shows per night. Cancan is a style of dance that came into style in the mid 1800’s and involved a lively show with a lot of high kicking moves from the dancers. We walked in and paid our $15 cover charge. (This cover charge lasts 1 year from purchase, so it covered us for our entire stay in town). As Julie and I are not gamblers we found a seat and watched the show. The show consisted of the MC (Diamond Tooth Gertie) and four cancan dancers from across Canada. They did a number of dances with costume changes and even had some of the audience members on stage. It was all good fun. As they do 3 shows a night and we had heard that each was different we decided that one was good for tonight and that we should come back in a few days to see another show.
Once we left the building we had another surprise waiting. At this point it was late June and while we had gotten used to it being light almost 24/7, Dawson was as far north as we had been so far. We left the show at 11pm and stepping out onto Dawson’s white chalk streets we could have sworn if we had just judged the time by the light in the sky that it could not be much past 5pm. It was incredibly light and really blew our minds. We walked back to the van, pulled the shades down and headed off to sleep.
The next day we woke up and decided to have a bit of a rest day. We wouldn’t be moving Bubbles for 4 days so there was nothing to do with her for a while. Julie took a run which she missed doing but had quite a bit of trouble as there was still quite a bit of smoke in the air from nearby forest fires. I took to the laptop and worked out our budget for the next month. Once she came back we relaxed, showered and ate. We were pretty lazy the rest of the day, lounging, reading and telling a few jokes. We were just passing the time till nighttime.
Hysterical Historical Pub Tour
The previous day we had signed up for a guided pub-crawl around town. We look for these in almost every town we stop in as its always a local guide who knows most of what is going on in town and also tourist s like us just wanting a night of fun with new people. We met our guide and the group that we would be going with at a hotel in town. We would be going with Brian & his dad from Winnipeg and three friends, Chelsea & Dasha from Edmonton and Chris who now lives in Whitehorse.
The tour started with a beer and some history about Dawson City, why it was there and why it still looks like it’s stuck in the 1800’s. We were then told what its actually like living there. Most people don’t have in ground plumbing and only a few hours of daylight in the winter. It didn’t sound like the most inviting place in February. After stopping in a few of the towns’ bars we entered the last bar called the Sourdough Saloon.
This is where Dawson’s most famous drink/shot is located. Its called the Sourdough cocktail and it is not for the faint hearted. The cocktail is a shot with the liquor of your choice. Inside the shot glass goes an actual human toe. This is not a recent cut off human toe but one that has been dried, almost cured in a way. It almost resembled a little raisin. If you take the shot and let the toe touch your lips (and not swallow it for gods sake) you become an honorary Yukoner. As this was our 4th bar everyone was just inebriated enough to think that this was not the grossest thing in the world, lined up and took the shot. After the shot was done you signed the bars book giving your name, date and hometown. That was it. We were now Yukoners!
This is were the tour ended but Julie, Chris, Dasha, Chelsea & I were having such a good time we decided to keep the party going. We headed back to their hotel bar for a drink before walking over to Diamond Tooth Gerties. This time we saw their midnight show which was a bit more risqué than the earlier show that Julie & I had seen the night before. It was a lot of fun the 2nd time around and Julie and I really enjoyed ourselves. We left after the show ended and back to Bubbles well after midnight (although with the sun still out it seemed like maybe it was 530pm). It was great making new Canadian friends and hopefully we see them again soon in the future.
Goldfields Tour
We woke up the next morning excited for the day (and a little mad at ourselves that we had stayed out so late the night before). This morning we would be going on a goldfields tour. If anyone has seen the TV show “Gold Rush”, it is based near Dawson City in the Yukon. We were picked up at 9am by our very peppy French-Canadian tour guide Emma and we were on our way to our first stop at Bonanza Creek. Bonanza Creek was the first place gold was found in the Dawson City area. Once we arrived at the creek she showed us exactly where gold was first found and explained how gold claims were and are made.
We then drove up the road to Dredge #4 National Historic Site. This gold dredge was historic as it was (and still is) the largest wooden hulled dredge in the world. Its not panning for gold these days anymore (it ran from 1913 until 1954) but it was huge and really interesting to see and learn about. At its heyday it could process up to 18,000 cubic yards of material per day and in its lifetime processed over 9 tons of gold.
Lastly we got a chance to pan for gold ourselves. No we did not have a gold pan by the river testing our luck but went to a tourist shop where you were guaranteed gold. This is how it works. Dirt and about $5 worth of gold flakes are placed in a gold pan. You then go over to a water trough where you tilt your gold pan to sift out the dirt moving it gently back and forth. If you do it right you should end up with only gold at the end. While the process only took me around 5 minutes Julie shook her pan a bit too hard and the gold ended up in the water. It was ok though, she was given a new pan which she did much better at and successfully panned her gold! The owner of the business was able to find the gold that Julie accidentally sifted into the water trough. At the end the gold was placed into a water filled vial that we were able to take home. It was a great tour!
The SS Keno River Boat
After the Goldfields we were set for the 2nd tour of the day, the SS Keno. Like the bigger SS Klondike that we saw in Whitehorse, the Keno was a gold, silver and transit boat for Dawson City. The Keno would travel up the small Stuart River to the town of Mayo, which was near a mining district. Gold and silver would be loaded on and brought to Dawson City where it would then in turn be loaded onto the Klondike and brought to Whitehorse.
The Keno, unlike the Klondike was in great shape. Restoration projects had been going on since the 1960’s and you were able to venture into almost every room on the boat. There was a tour guide dressed in early 1900’s clothes to give you a sense that you were really on the boat when it was traveling the waters. Our favorite room was the kitchen and dining room where they had replicas of the canned goods and menu’s from the time that the boat was in service. All in all the menu items haven’t changed much from today. Since you’re in northern Canada it’s a meat and potatoes meal on this boat.
The Klondike Spirit River Boat
From the SS Keno we went on a ride on a working riverboat, the Klondike Spirit. After being on two grounded riverboats it was pretty neat to be on the Yukon River on an actual working boat. This paddleboat was a side-wheeler meaning that it paddles on either side. The boat also had an engine in the back but we were told that most of the propulsion did come from the two paddles.
On the boat ride we learned about the history of Dawson City as well as paddle wheelers in the Yukon. These boats were vital to the population not only carrying gold and silver to the rest of the world but food and other needed supplies back to town. This was particularly neat after being on the SS Keno and now on a working boat. It was as if history was coming to life!
Canada Day!
While planning for our stop in Dawson City back in April we thought that it would be pretty fun to be in Canada on Canada Day, July 1st (Canada’s Independence Day). We planned this to be our last day in town to end this leg in Canada with a bang. In Dawson Canada day is celebrated with a small parade and festival afterwards in the town’s largest park. After eating breakfast and putting on everything Canadian that we had (a shirt from New Brunswick for me and a moose shirt with the saying Canada eh? for Julie) we headed to main street to see all the action.
It seemed that the entire towns population had come out to celebrate. Small Canadian flags were given out and bigger flags put along the short parade route. The parade started with the towns fire department leading the way followed by a few trucks decorated in Canada’s colors of red & white. A few classic cars passed and finally the girls from Diamond Tooth Gertie’s on the final float. The best part was that candy was thrown out from every vehicle. We had a ton of fun catching candy and giving it to the kids next to us.
After the parade ended everyone walked over to Minto Park where a celebration was set up. There were a few huge sheet cakes all looking like big Canadian flags as well as watermelon and a few other types of fruit to eat. The national anthem was sang, then the mayor of Dawson City and the Premier of the Yukon (The Governor) both made speeches. We thought this was really cool for the Premier to be there considering that Dawson City was tiny compared to Whitehorse.
After getting our fill on cake and watermelon we played a few of the games that had been set up and checked out the classic cars that had now been parked at the edge of the park. The funny part about this was that all the cars belonged to the Fairbanks, Alaska Classic Car Club. Apparently no one owned a classic car in Dawson City.
After we got our fill of the festival we walked back to Main Street and did a little shopping. We wanted a few souvenirs to remember our time in the city. We then got an ice cream and a drink before going back to Bubbles to rest and prepare for the journey ahead.
We really enjoyed our time in Dawson City. It was the longest time that we had spent in a small city in a long time. By the end of our stay we knew every restaurant, bar, store and street name in town. We really did feel like we were Yukoners!
Next up…We drive the rough dirt road, The Top of the World Highway and finally cross into mainland Alaska!
