June 6, Dawson City

My biggest dilemma when visiting a place like Dawson City is where to start.  We had gone to the visitor center and it appeared the Dawson City Museum would be a good place to begin.  At this point, I'm kind of  "museumed out", but decided I go with the group anyway.  It was a good place to start and it turned out  the exhibits were good.

It's a big museum and also houses the old court house.

When I first saw this, I thought the man  was real.  It's a replica of a Miner's cabin. 

In  few short years Dawson City went from rustic to a civilized metropolitan city.  At the time it was the largest city east of Winnipeg and north of San Francisco.  

What was most memorable was the "storage room" up stairs.  All kinds of things were neatly organized by category and kind on neat shelves behind glass (which made picture taking difficult).  One shelf had nothing but lanterns; another old typewriters; another flatware, etc. . It was was interesting  to me because you could see ten different typewriters at once and made me realize how much thought is put into exhibits. It also made it easy for a curator to pick and chose what to put in an exhibit..

                                     Ok, what is so special about a bicycle wheel? Its made out of wood. Wow that would be very bumpy!

                     This was suppose to be the most comfortable motorcycle in the world in the early 1900's.

I know nothing about trains, but the museum had a "Train Shelter" which house  a dozen or so locomotives and other big machines. The following pictures are for my bother and cousin who just love trains:

                                          This is an old driller.

Our next stop was to tour Dredge #4.  I'm thinking to myself how could a dredge possibly that interesting.  I was totally surprised!

It was so big I couldn't get it the whole  thing in one picture.  The canvas tent is a protective cover while some restoration is being done.  A simple explanation  of how the dredge works is that the dredges' 65 huge scoops, scoop up placer gold and dump it into a trummel which turns and the gold and  small stone fall through the holes which go to a slough.Water is added to the remaining gravel  the slough action separates the gold. The gold being heavier  falls to the bottom and is trapped on mats. Then the  gold is washed from the mats and then a magnet removes other metals such as iron and black sand from the cache.  The gold is later melted down into blocks.   The rocks that were left in the trummel are dumped out on a conveyor belt which moves from side to side and the rocks are dumped off the belt back on the ground.  There are only 4 crewmen on the huge machine.  They work 8 hour shifts 24 hours a day.  The dredge is powered by electricity which was made up the river not too far away.  They worked until the temperature reached  -40 degrees.

                                          A diagram on how it works.  The white dots are rocks.

                                          Trummel

                                         Gears which power the scoopers and conveyor belt.

                                           The   gears are huge.

                                             Gear controls

                                           Scoops

                                         The crew worked to -40 degrees.  This was the ONLY heater and it was located near the controller on the top floor.

Afterwords we drove up to a spot on Bonanza Creek where gold was first discovered.  Parks Canada is creating a new interpretive center and has not finished it yet.  Again, we were  just a little early.

                                            Close up of the scopes
This was a busy day.  The next stop was Fish n' Chips at Sourdoughs.  Several WINS had highly recommended this place so we had to try it and it was as good as they said.

The next stop was Diamond Tooth Gerties.  I'm told no trip to Dawson City is  not complete without a trip to Gerties. It's a casino with a special gambling permit issued by the Yukon government.  They offer free shows every night.  The catch is they charge admission just to get in the door, even if you are going to gamble.  It's minimal..I think $6.00.  The admission fees go to the city and the casino  profits go back to the city after paying for the workers and the performers.  There are three shows a night and we went to the early one at 8:30 thinking that it would last at least an hour and the next one was at 10:30.  It was only 1/2  hour long.  Gosh, I think we could have gone to the later one and stayed awake..maybe.

                                         Casino floor.  Not like Las Vegas or Reno.

                                           The stars of the show

We arrived about 1/2  hour early thinking we would get good seats.  We had to sit in the balcony and so these pictures were taken petty far away without using a flash.

Whew..what a busy day.  I think I need a vacation!!