2005/08 Alaska and Back Again - Dawson City and the Klondike |
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Tuesday August 2nd
We were disappointed to wake up to a fine drizzle. Luckily the clouds were high and we could still see the 
scenery. We quickly covered the few miles to the Yukon River, and took the free ferry across to Dawson City. This crossing is notorious for delays, but that’s because almost all tourists drive the Top of the World from east to west and there is a long line up every morning in Dawson City for the ferry. As it can only take a couple of motorhomes at a time, the wait’s measured in hours. Going the other way there is no problem.
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The Klondike (Dawson City and Eldorado Creek) |
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We drove past the City and across the bridge on the Klondike River and checked in at the Guggieville campground. This is named after the Guggenheims, the family whose mining operation dominated the Klondike once the gold rush was over.
Once set up, we went back to Dawson to find out about touring the dredge. Dawson has been
kept much as it was a hundred years ago, with old buildings, gravel streets, and planked sidewalks. Of course, most of the shops are just there for us tourists. Although Dawson used to be the capital city of the Yukon, that’s been taken over by Whitehorse now.
We drove up the valley of Eldorado Creek, where the first gold strike was made back in the 1890s, to Dredge #4. The dredge tour back in Fairbanks cost over $20 per person, but this one in Dawson is run by Parks Canada and only costs about $5 each. The dredge was rotting away until the parks service restored it, 
and they really did a great job, considering that it had sunk into the permafrost and was full of 
ice.
These were amazing and massive machines. They floated in a moving pond. Buckets at the front gouged out tons of gravel, enlarging the pond. Centrifuges and sifters inside extracted the sand and fine gravel and finally the gold. The remainder was dumped out the back, filling in the pond. So these floating monsters would eat their way up the valley, extracting the gold and leaving the valley a mass of rubble. Apparently, they couldn’t use any oil or grease on the bucket train as that would interfere with the sifting process, and the screeching of the metal parts could be heard ten miles away.
The tour was very interesting. All the dredge’s internals are still there: gears and motors and a concentrator. Many of these pieces originally came from places like Ohio, and they were brought by train, steamer, and barge, 
with the dredge being assembled where it was going to be used.
After the tour John tried his hand at gold panning in Eldorado Creek, without any success. We drove up the Midnight Dome to see the view out over the Yukon and 
Klondike Rivers. Unlike last year there was no smoke and we had a good view of the country. From above the results of the dredging are clearly visible, like gigantic worm casts. We also went to see one more dredge, one that had not been restored, and only the two ends were visible; the rest had rotted away and sunk into its final pond.