Dawson & the Gold Rush

First impressions of Dawson...

Large piles of rocks on both sides of the road... even a housing development nestled into several acres of land looking like this named Dredge Estates.... or something like that!

There were lots of old buildings & many contrasts.

 The first thing we did was walk around & look at the 'city'-- that was easily accomplished. There is a simple grid of wide streets. This was one of my favorite buildings, a Baptist church built directly on the earth--with the result that when the heating for the church melted the permafrost below.... oops, the building went uneven as did the ground.

There were lots of sweet old houses hanging on.

The Moosehide Slide at the north end of the town. It might seem like it happened yesterday. Nope! It's been there for a long time.

                                    ...someone running towards the Yukon River...

...my kind of old...

I think it's the imagined story that pulls me so.

...the cable-ferry crossing the river...

                    Suddenly we seem to be in the land of very long days, sundown at 9:30.

There is lots of weathered grey, lots of repairs & interesting construction.

 

Stressed paint, stressed wood...

We spent a day up at Bonanza Creek where the first exploring gold panners made their big discovery. The three of them were Dene. Here's George & Ian at the spot on the creek.

Not long after the find, while there was a massive surge of small-time operators gathering in Dawson, the Big Boys rushed in with huge dredging operations-- two names stood out for me: the Rothchilds & the Guggenheims.

We saw what was left of one of their dredging plants on Bonanza Creek.

Most of what was in this plant was brought in from away: the wood for the dredge shed from BC; the machinery brought in by barge on the Yukon River from various places in the US; the extra water needed to wash free the gold bright in from a lake 30 km away by an aqueduct made from California redwoods; & that's just what I can remember! It was a massive undertaking with a huge environmental impact.

The dredger had to have its own machine shop. There was no 'sending out' for machinists when breakdown happened.

This is the tip for the de-golded gravel. Up the slant & over & out.

Under it is a raven's nest built after the mill stopped running. I'll show it to you below.

On this bed of rollers was a rubber mat. The gravel went up & out here.

Under the tip conveyor belt run an old raven's nest now abandoned.

 The dredging digging buckets operating at the business end of the dredger. They are h.e.a.v.y cast iron.

The racket of this plant was so intense they had to signal instructions to the workers with a bells/siren system. Of course they all went deaf.

Nearby was a small operation...

And further down the road a larger one.

Way at the top there is a huge excavator. There's still gold in them-thar hills.

One of the things that I found interesting was what got left behind. Everywhere are abandoned machines or machine parts.

                                    The seat of the bulldozer with real horsehair.

Finally back in town for a final walking outing before leaving for the Dempster Highway to go north, I find some relics in town that I can place better.

I was really in awe of what happened here.

That's it for now.