Ted & Cheryl's escape from the COLD: After the Gold Rush

Sorry for the long delay between entries. We've been so busy taking pictures that we didn't have time to post them on the blog. We were WiFi-less for a few days so that didn't help either. Same as before - newest entries at the top, oldest at the bottom, captions below the pictures (and a big thanks to Neil Young for the title of this entry!)

Another whoops! We realized after we posted the pictures that we had a much better picture of Dredge #4. This gives you a good idea of just how big it really is. Our truck looks like a dinky toy. The Canadian Klondike Mining Co. went bankrupt in 1921 and in 1923 the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation took over its operation. After Dredge #4 was shut down in 1959 it sunk into the silk and mud of Bonanza Creek and became partially encased in ice. When it was donated to Parks Canada, they faced a huge challenge in trying to free it and then restore it.

This is the top of the world - as we saw it. Many people raved about the drive; some said it was the highlight of their trip. We weren't that impressed - maybe the weather gave us a negative opinion. It was mostly trees and valleys. If we had to travel on a gravel road, we'd prefer the Dempster.

It was another cloudy, overcast day with intermittent rain so it wasn't the best day to enjoy the view. The road was gravel most of the way and the Canadian side was much better maintained than the American. Ted said if we'd been going the other way, he'd have turned around! At least the rain kept the dust down.

June 18 - On our way to Fairbanks via the Top of the World Highway. First we had to cross the Yukon River on the George Black Ferry.

I think he really enjoyed the girls, I mean show! Diamond Lil and the can-can girls put on a great show.

I couldn't convince Ted to have a Sourtoe (that's right, toe!!) cocktail at the Downtown Hotel, but he did agree to go to the can-can show.

Diamond Tooth Gertie's - This casino has Klondike gambling tables (specially licensed in Yukon), but it is also home to nightly can-can shows.

We then hurried back to Discovery Claim to watch the pilot drop bucket after bucket of water on what was left of the fire. Fortunately the fire was contained quickly. It was quite an experience to be right there when it happened!

We thought the fire must be out so we drove on to Claim #6. Suddenly a helicopter landed right in the open area in front of us and the pilot got out and hooked up a large water bucket to the helicopter. He then took off and dropped the bucket into a large pond just in front of the clearing.

The smaller plane was acting as a spotter plane and indicated to those on the larger plane where the bright orange fire retardant should be dropped. It dropped 4 loads of retardant before leaving the area.

While out retracing the steps of the sourdoughs, we had a bit of excitement. When leaving our trailer, we heard a large crack of thunder but thought nothing of it. When we reached Discovery Claim a few minutes later, we started chatting with a couple from Oregon and suddenly we noticed smoke and flames in the trees on the mountain across the road. We realized that lightning must have started a forest fire. Two planes started circling the fire area.

. . . sourdough like this one. Some stampeders never know when to quit!

Mining for gold is still big business in the Yukon. Of course, tourists enjoy panning for gold the old fashioned way. Claims are staked all along the creeks and rivers in the Yukon so there are only a limited number of "free" areas where you are allowed to pan on your own. It takes practice to develop from a cheechako (newcomer) into a . . .

Originally fires were started in the permafrost to thaw the ground to make it easier to access the gold. Then someone had the bright idea to use water cannons which used pressurized water to thaw the ground much faster. Behind the water cannon you can see tailings. There were gravel piles like this (and much larger ones) all over the area.

This picture should have been under the last one - whoops! The front of the dredge had a conveyor system consisting of several buckets which were lowered into the water and dug into the ground under the water. The buckets picked up dirt, rock and gold and dumped the materials into a large turning cylinder which separated the small pieces from the larger ones. The large materials (mainly rock) were conveyed off the back arm of the dredge into huge piles called tailings. The company made millions of dollars with the dredge before it shut down in 1959.

This is the riffle box in which the finer materials passed through washed by water. Gold is 16 times heavier than water so it settled to the bottom and was held in place by the riffle. Every 2-3 weeks the dredge would shut down, employees would leave the dredge and company officials would clean out the riffles and remove the gold.

This is the control room of Dredge #4. Only 4 men were needed to run the dredge. Large crews were required when moving the dredge to a new location once the old location was mined out.

This is Dredge #4 built in 1912 for the Canadian Klondike Mining Company's claim on Bonanza Creek. This is the largest wooden hull bucket-line dredge in North America. This dredge was built in Ohio and moved in pieces to the Yukon by ship and train. It was assembled in the hole that was created for it and floated on the water. Water was necessary for the dredge to be moved and for washing the materials it picked up in its buckets.

Then big business got involved and dredges hauled in the gold quickly and efficiently. Forget the pan, shovel and sluice box!

Then things got a little more complicated - sluice boxes were the way to go! Both panning and sluice boxes are types of placer mining. This sluice box is located at Discovery Claim on Bonanza Creek where gold was first discovered in August, 1896 by George Carmack, Skookum Jim Mason and Dawson Charlie. The Klondike Gold Rush was underway!

June 17 - Gold mining began as such a simple thing - a shovel and a pan were all a miner needed. This is Claim #6 where tourists are allowed to pan for gold.

A view of Tombstone Mountain Range. Unfortunately our camera has developed a small scratch that shows up as a "dot" when we zoom. We'll probably upgrade the camera when we get back "home".

Two Moose Lake - you can really see the tundra vegetation here.

We didn't see any mammoths, but we did manage to see woodland caribou on Anglecomb Peak. We were really excited when we spotted them grazing on the side of the mountain. This is when we wished we had more zoom on our camera! Those little brown dots really are caribou!

Here you get an idea of what Beringia must have looked like as we drove above the tree line and on to the tundra. Can't you just picture a woolly mammoth making its way down the valley?

June 16 - The Dempster Highway. We drove 72 miles up the 456 mile highway to Inuvik. The road is all gravel but it rained a little so that kept the dust down. The scenery was incredible.

An inukshuk (pile of rocks) and the view to the east from the top of the Dome.

We drove up to the top of the Dome where we had an amazing view of the Yukon River Valley and Dawson City. The Klondike and Yukon Rivers actually meet at Dawson City.

This is the cabin of Jack London, author of "The Call of the Wild" and "White Fang".

This is Pierre Berton's childhood home. It is now used as a writer's retreat. His books "Klondike" and "The Klondike Quest" were strongly recommended by several of our tour guides for anyone wanting to read accurate historical accounts of the Gold Rush.

8th Avenue in Dawson City is known as Authors on Eighth. There definitely was a wealth of creative people who called Dawson City home. The cabin above belonged to Robert Service whose poems included "The Cremation of Sam McGee", The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Spell of the Yukon". Poetry readings were given several times a day.

This is what happens when permafrost causes the foundations of buildings to shift. No wonder so many buildings needed to be stabilized.

This is the Canadian Bank of Commerce where Robert Service first met Sam McGee and asked to borrow his name.

Dawson City was the capital of the Yukon until 1953 when it was moved to Whitehorse which was deemed more suitable since it was on the railway, the highway and had a large airport. Dawson City was declared a national historic site in the early 1960s and many buildings have been restored, reconstructed and/or stabilized. We had supper at Sourdough Joe's (on the right). Mmmmmmm good!

We made it to Dawson City! I'm sure the stampeders of 1898 said the same thing!!

This is what is commonly referred to as a "drunken forest". The trees do look a little tipsy to me.

Fireweed is the territorial flower of the Yukon and growing right next to it is the wild rose, the provincial flower of Alberta. We're all friends here! Fireweed lined the roads of Yukon, Alaska and Northern BC; it is the first plant to start growing after a forest fire.

June 15 - On the way from Whitehorse to Dawson City we stopped to check out Five Finger Rapids which were another navigational hazard for the stampeders.

"There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee". Robert Service took liberty with the name of the lake; it's actually Lake Laberge, but here it is!

Where else could you find the world's largest weathervane - a Douglas DC-3. The restored plane was mounted on a rotating pedestal in 1981 and now acts as a weathervane, pointing its nose into the wind.

Ted is standing beside a cast of the largest woolly mammoth skeleton ever recovered. They also had exhibits on Giant Steppe Bison, Giant Beaver (400 lbs), short-faced bears and other unusual animals from the past.

A skeleton and a reproduction of the scimitar cat that once roamed Beringia.

Wow! Two museums in two days! This one was really fascinating. This is the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre. I had never heard of Beringia before, but it is the name of the sub-continent (including the Bering Land Bridge) that once connected Asia to North America. During the last ice age, part of the Yukon and most of Alaska were left untouched by glaciers or ice sheets probably because the climate was too dry. As the ice sheets in other parts of the world grew, ocean levels fell and it became possible to cross from eastern Asia to western North America. Plants, animals and humans moved in both directions. The landscape was mostly a grassy tundra that supported a large number of grazing animals such as muskox, caribou, mammoths, saiga antelopes and even lions roamed the area. When the ice began to melt, the land bridge disappeared and Beringia ceased to exist. The diorama above shows us what Beringia probably looked like 20,000 years ago.

This is all that remains of Canyon City, a once thriving tent city on the "Trail of 98". It was located upstream from the treacherous Whitehorse Rapids and stampeders in search of gold (not the Calgary red and white football ones in search of a Grey Cup) stopped here to plan their next move. By June of 1898 a huge bottleneck of boats had collected here; 300 boats had already been wrecked in the rapids and 5 people had drowned. NWMP Inspector Sam Steele issued an order that all boats had to be piloted through the rapids by skilled "river rats". Soon tramways were built on both sides of the river from Canyon City to Whitehorse to transport people and goods around the rapids, the White Pass and Yukon Railway was completed and Canyon City's reason for existence was gone. All that remains now are a few depressions in the ground and some pilings next to shore.

Ted & I on the banks of the Yukon River at Miles Canyon. I'm at a loss to explain why he's tilting!

June 14 - I love the Yukon River!! It is so beautiful. This is Miles Canyon, 2 miles south of Whitehorse. The Klondikers faced a daunting challenge here because of the narrow channel through the canyon and the scary Whitehorse Rapids. The Rapids were eliminated by the construction of the hydroelectric dam, but the scenic canyon remains. We crossed the suspension bridge to the other side. You should be proud of me - I didn't cry or crawl across this one!

You are looking at the world's longest wooden fish ladder. It was built in 1959 to provide access for chinook (king) salmon and other species above the hydroelectric dam to make their way to their spawning grounds.

This is a view of downtown Whitehorse and the Yukon River taken from the east side of the river.

The S.S. Klondike is a sternwheeler built in 1929 by the British Yukon Navigation Company. It was the largest on the Yukon River being able to to carry over 300 tons. She carried mail, supplies, passengers and silver lead ore between Whitehorse and Dawson City (460 miles) until 1955 when she was retired and later donated to the Canadian government. She ran aground in 1936 at the confluence of the Teslin and Yukon rivers, but salvaged parts were used to construct a new ship almost identical to the first that was launched in 1937.

This is a reconstruction of a miner's tent filled with all the supplies he required. I'm afraid I wouldn't last a week in a tent during a cold Yukon winter.

As you may have realized by now, Ted & I are not big museum-goers, but we did visit the MacBride Museum in Whitehorse. Its exhibits included the history of mining, the gold rush, First Nations, NWMP, Yukon wildlife and minerals and reconstructions of historical saloons, dental offices, restaurants, etc. The building above is Sam McGee's cabin. If you're familiar with Robert Service's poetry, you'll know that Sam McGee is the "star" of the poem, "The Cremation of Sam McGee". Sam McGee was a real person who was a customer at the bank in Dawson City where Robert Service worked. Service liked Sam's name and asked permission to use it in one of his poems. Little did Sam know how famous his name would become!!

June 13 - Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon and the "Wilderness City" of Canada. The Yukon Territory has a population of approximately 32,000 people and 24,000 of them live in Whitehorse. It's a modern, friendly city with the Mighty Yukon River flowing through it. The storefronts on these buildings were redone to reflect the Klondike Gold Rush era. Many buildings had beautiful murals painted on the sides like the one on the left. Somehow the satellite dish looks very out of place!

We stopped for a break at the turnout/information kiosk at Teslin. Behind the kiosk is the Teslin River Bridge, the third longest bridge on the Alaska Highway. Teslin has a large native population and the community's economy relies on traditional hunting, trapping, fishing and crafts.

I guess those who didn't get a chance to put up a sign at the Sign Post Forest left their mark by creating a rock message. There were several hundred of these messages stretching alongside the road for several miles.

These are just a few of the signs; there are street signs, license plates, city signs, homemade signs, even an old TV tray with names scratched onto it. It would take hours and hours to look at them all.

Watson Lake, YK - Yukon's Gateway. Its best known attraction is the Sign Post Forest. It was started in 1942 by a homesick U.S. Army G.I. working on the Alaska Highway who erected a sign here pointing the way and stating the mileage to his hometown, Danville, IL. Others followed his lead and it continues to this day.