June 14,15 - Dawson City, Yukon

We decided to give Dawson City 2 days. At this point in the trip, we were ready to have a couple of days in one spot. On the morning of the 14th, we were really tired so we slept in which is unusual for us but we needed it I guess. We didn't get on our way for the day until about 11am. The first thing we did was go to the Visitor's Center to find out the scoop on what was happening in town. We were here before in 2009 but we wanted to make sure we weren't missing out on anything new. The  Visitor's Center is really nice - a huge old log building with lots of nice displays and a few movie theatres you can watch documentaries in for free. We watched a really good one about Dawson City in the 60s narrated by Pierre Burton - an old NFB flick. We also watched another short film on the paddle wheelers with a lot of great old footage of them plying the Yukon river. The old Keno paddle wheeler has her final resting place along the river in town. These graceful old boats were the life's blood of the region during the gold rush. 

We walked the old part of the town for a few hours, doing a bit of a grid and enjoying all the old heritage buildings. Some of them have active businesses in them, some of them are restored but not in commercial use but can be viewed while on a town tour. Many, though, are still as they were left when the majority of the town was abandoned back in the 1960s. 

We went to a little theater show at the Palace Grand Theatre that was put on by Parks Canada which was cute - a depiction of 3 of Dawson's key historical figures. 

Dinner at Klondike Kate's was excellent - some of the best seafood chowder we've had. They have a really nice covered outdoor patio which was a nice cool retreat on a very hot afternoon. In the evening, we went to the Dawson City "Must-Do" - Diamond Tooth Gertie's - a casino, saloon and theatre. There were three shows at 8:30, 10:00 and Midnight - each one of them was different and they got bawdier as the evening went on! The shows were fantastic - the woman who plays Gertie is an incredible singer and showperson. She was here in 2009 when we came the first time and she was just as fabulous this time around. The dancers were also incredible. It is absolutely worth it to hang around and catch all 3 shows. It's just a great evening of entertainment and the talent is first rate. When we finished up at1am, it was still quite light out. The sun was down but just barely and there was only just a wee bit of dusk...

The next day, we headed up Bonanza Creek to Dredge #4 - in it's heyday, it was one of the biggest mining dredges ever built and it is still the second largest dredge in existence. Parks Canda has done a great job of restoring it and we went on the one hour tour. Our tour guide was really well informed and was able to answer the many questions people had. This was another really good attraction, well worth seeing.

Afterwards, we headed back towards Dawson and went up to the Midnight Dome which looks out over the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers and towers over the townsite of Dawson City. The view is spectacular and the Dome is where many hang-gliders take off from. 

Back in town, we had the great fortune of running into friends from home who have been mining south of Dawson for many years during the summer. We caught up on news and had a good visit and then had dinner at Sourdough Joe's Restaurant. More excellent seafood chowder... Of course, a hot evening wouldn't be complete without a promenade down the boardwalk with an icecream cone. The hugest icecream cones in the world can be found at Klondyke Cream and Candy - a single scoop for $3 the size of your head! OK. Maybe not quite that big but close! It's attached to Cheechakos Bake Shop which sells no end of beautiful baking and home made sandwiches... 

After dinner, we had just enough time for a quick wander through the Dawson City museum which is very well done. 

One of the things we really got a kick out of were a small group of ravens (about 5 of them) who were hanging about in a tall tree behind our campsite over the 2 days we were here. They were really fun to watch and they make sure a wide variety of wonderful sounds. Caws and glub, glub, glubs and even some noises that sound like words (hello), cries, laughter and other human sounds. Two of them spent an hour landing at the top of a tin roof and sliding sideways down and then circling around to do it again. What a hoot! 

Overall, Dawson City is really a gem of the Yukon. The history here is incredibly interesting and amazing. We were continually floored by the temerity and ingenuity of the people who had the courage to throw themselves out there and try their luck, especially the early folks who didn't have the benefit of others blazing the trail before them. Even today, the current 1800-2000 year-round residents are made of tough stuff to not just survive but thrive in the long, cold, dark winters but almost all of them that you talk to will say how much they love it there. 

We would really like to do the Dempster Highway again at some point - not this trip on our motorbikes but some day we'll come back and head up to Tombstone, Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk once more. There is a magic in the North... :)