Panning for Gold and Trying our luck

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Drove about 8 hours to get from Whitehorse to Dawson City yesterday. We camped for a bargain $12 at a Yukon Government Campground amid the tiny little nasty bugs and a bit of rain. After trying for about 40 min to make a fire with wet wood, and cooking our dinner (Sauages) on it, we decided to call it quits and head into the tent. It was the weirdest thing - 11pm at night and the sun was still in the sky. We kept waiting for it to get darker - but it never really did. AFter about an hour of marveling at the "midnight sun" we finally fell asleep and were able to sleep for about 4 hours before the sun was beaming through our tent again - next time we tent we will use eye masks for sure! Tonight we are staying in a motel in Dawson City so it should be a bit easier to sleep.

We took in some gold rush history today. We panned for Gold in a real-live stake (we will keep you in suspense and not let you know if we found any or not!!) We went to the museum. We walked around the town and took in all the historic sites - including the SS Keno and the riverbed.

We keep marvelling at the fact that they built this town, the railways, the boats, all of it - for really only a 15 year period of occupation and use. Some of the houses (for instance, the Commissioner's Residence - a HUGE mansion was built in 1901 and the was last used as a commissioner's residence in 1916) were built beautifully and were boarded up less than 2 decades later - to remain that way until the present. But I guess that's "Boom Town".

The town is still stuck in the gold rush days for the most part, and the bus tours in town seem to like it that way. We are definitely some of the younger guests in Dawson City tonight!!

Tomorrow we drive into Alaska. Finally.

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Photos

big SS Klondike
Even Laura doesn't have enough hot air to move this baby

Cinnabun
That's a big "world famous" cinnamon bun from Braeburn Yukon

us
us after hiking 40 min to see the fiver finger rapids up close

road sign
make your choice

the dregged river
pretty much everywhere around here has been dregged heavily

big dregger
a national historic site now - parks canada is taking over

Jesse James
in his new hat in Downtown Dawson on the river

Comments

[hilary]

nice self portrait! I have noticed you guys are moving away from these....this worries me!