What a beautiful day in Dawson City -- sunny and 54 degrees, which would reach 81 degrees. After breakfast we headed out to explore Dawson City at around 10:00 a.m.
Our first stop was at the Dawson City Visitor Center located on Front Street in Dawson City. This two-story building is a reconstruction of the old Alaska Commercial Company (ACCo) office building that once stood on this corner. ACCo began operation on the Upper Yukon River in 1869. In the early 1890s, the company faced major competition for trade from the North American Transportation and Trading Company. After gold was discovered in the Klondike, both companies built stores and warehouses in Dawson City. The ACCo office was one of more than 50 buildings, mainly warehouses, along the waterfront constructed to house the large quantity of goods brought in by river steamers. ACCo became the Northern Comercial Company in 1901.
Today the visitor center is a 1897 replica of the Alaska Commercial Company store. At the visitor center, we watched the four historical movies: 1) "Where the Past is Present," 2) "Dawson During the Gold Rush," 3) "Frozen Gold of the Klondike," and 4) "In the Days of the Riverboats."
Inside the visitor center, you can sign up for various tours, get maps and brochures as well as buy souvenirs. We bought tickets for the Parks Canada guided tour of the S.S. Keno at 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon for a total of $20.50 for both of us.
After we left the visitor center, we began our own self-guided walking tour of Dawson City.
Above and below is the Yukon Order of Pioneers Lodge that was established in 1894 under the moto: "Do unto others as you would be done by." It was founded by miners and merchants at Fortymile, an early Yukon mining settlement. At that time, membership was limited to non-Indigenous men who lived in the Yukon Valley since 1888. Early mining camps used miners' meetings to enforce good behavior among the settlers. Indigenous people who lived in the area had their own laws and systems for resolving conflict, but those were either not know or not recognized by the settlers. As the Canadian government became more established in Dawson City with the Klondike Gold Rush,the Yukon Order of Pioneers evolved into a fraternal organization.
Above and below is Dawson City's hardware stores, with an old facade that dates back to 1903.
Below is Strachan's Groceries and Warehouse. In 1902,two restaurateurs used the property, and then from 1904 to 1914 it was a clothing business. It was also a bakery, a cigar store,and eventually a hardward store. Duncan Strachan purchased the hardware store in the mid-1930s and converted it to a grocery store in the 1950s. Strachan built the warehouse next door in the 1950s as warm storage for his grocery business. Its size and simple architecture are typical of commercial warehouses built after the Second World War.
Above is a view down 2nd Avenue in Dawson City.
Dawson Gospel Hall is a simple two-story frame structure that was completed in 1900. It was first occupied by merchants Robert Purves McLennan and Charles Milne. By 1902, it was operating as both a restaurant and barber shop. The building was owned by the Syndicate Lyonnais du Klondike and managed by Louis Paillard, although he never ran a business out of it. Andrew Rystogi owned the building between 1907 and 1933. Rystogi owned a number of buildings, saloons and hotels in Dawson City. In 1972, Northern Canada Evangelical Mission purchased the building to use as a Gospel Hall. By 1975, the Far Eastern Gospel Crusade of Canada had taken over the building. (See above.)
Above is the Downtown Hotel in Dawson City. It is set against a mountain backdrop and just one block from the Yukon River. And of course, you can't miss the bright red wooden building in the heart of downtown! The Downtown combines the look and feel of the Klondike Era with the most up-to-date safety and convenience features. The main building contains 34 modern, comfortable rooms, a fine dining room, a lounge, a gift shop and a banquet/meeting room facility.
Located inside the Downtown is the infamous Sourdough Saloon, where the biggest draw is its iconic "Sourtoe " Cocktail. Despite its unusual name -- and one very unusual ingredient -- some say it's delicious. Mel and I don't know because we didn't even want to try it. (Even though the full recipe for the "Sourtoe" Cocktail is a secret, they say it contains Yukon whiskey and one unusual and rather twisted ingredient -- a severed human toe!)
The "Sourtoe" Cocktail began during prohibition with a case of frostbite. In the 1920s, two outlaw brothers, Louie and Otto, were caught in a blizzard. Louie soaked his foot, and when the brothers got back to their cabin, Louie's foot was frostbitten with his right toe becoming gangrenous. Otto amputated it, and placed it in a jar filled with bourbon to commemorate the event. The drink tradition was established by riverboat captain Dick Stevenson in 1973.
To gain admittance to the club of drinkers of the "Sourtoe" cocktail, members must drink the cocktail and the lips of the participant must touch the toe, and then he or she will get presented with a signed certificate. Ingesting the toe results in a $2,500 fine and permanent barring from the premises. Over 100,000 customers have tried the concoctin to date as of 2023. However there is one rule when it comes to the "Sourtoe" cocktail: "You can drink it fast. You can drink it slow. But your lips must touch that gnarly toe."
Below is what the "Sourtoe Certificate" looked like as shown to me by a lady at Diamond Tooth Gertie's Gambling Hall.
Above is Lowe's Mortuary which is located within the historic downtown core of Dawson City. The building is a long, low single-storied structure of log and wood fram construction, whose plain false-front facade features painted lettering reading, "Lowe's Morrtuary." The building is topped by a combination of gable and shed roofs and its walls are clad in a variety of materials, including log, coved siding, and corrugated metal.
Built in the spring of 1898, this building originally housed a blacksmith, a provisions store and a ladies dress shop. Frank Lowe moved his business into the building in 1906. Lowe was a member of the Vigilante Committee that ended the reign of the notoriouus Soapy Smith in Skagway. Lowe sold the business in 1920, and although the ownership changed many times over the years, the business remained the same until 1953.
The Oak Hall building above was originally constructed in 1902. From 1902 until 1904, the Standard Library Restaurant provided Dawson City's early population with the comforts of home: writing, smoking and games rooms, a "natatorium" with porcelain warm tubs and plunge baths, and lodging for 100 men. In 1910 the building became Oak Hall Clothing. These "clothiers and haberdashers" took pride in the products they carried, emphasizing brand names rather than prices. Herbert Winaut ran a dry goods store here from 1926-1942, eventually selling the building to Jack and Pretoria Butterworth, who operated Butterworth's Store unti 1957.
Raven's Nook is the mini-department store shown above.
The Bank - British North America shown above that opened Dawson City's first bank in a tent in 1898, moved into these premises in 1899. By providing the essential services of assaying, buying and shipping gold, it helped integrate the local currency of dust and nuggets into a cash economy. As larger gold companies with their own assayers and capital took over mining, the bank became a more peripheral service, acting as payroll source for the dredges. It closed in 1968 after the last gold dredge fell silent.
Shown above and below, the Midnight Sun Hotel is a seasonal hotel in Dawson City. Built in the early 1980s and designed to look like a Gold Rush-era building, it has 20 guest rooms, a restaurant, tavern and a store.
The Yukon School for Visual Arts is Canada's most northerly post-secondary fine arts school and it receives its accreditation through the Applied Arts Division of Yukon College.
Mel walks by Klondike Motors that is a boarded up mechanic shop in Dawson City.
Above is the Moosehide Slide in Dawson City. The story about this slide goes like this:
"Many years ago, before the white man came into this countr y, people of the Hän tribe lived at the mouth of the Klondkike where Dawson City is situated. Sometimes a member of the tribe would go missing, and it was said another tribe from the south, was stealing them. One day members of the Hän tribe were at the very top of the hillside at the north end of Dawson City, and the other tribe was at the foot of the hill. They were fighting and someone at the top cut down a tree and this started a slide. The rock slide buried and killed all members of the tribe from the south."
The massive scar on the hillside to the north is a prehistoric landslide, and not the result of mining activity. The Moosehide Slide is a dominant feature of the Dawson cityscape. In the Hän language the slide literally means "weathered moosehide hanging." The slide, which may be a result of two separate geological events, took place at least 1,700 years ago.
For centuries, spotting Moosehide Slide marked the end of the journey for people traveling down the Yukon River to the Klondike. During the goldrush era, the landslide deposit and its flanks were temporarily occupied. In about 1908, a flume was built across the slide to transport water from Moosehide Creek; its foundations can be seen to this day. In the late 1970s, the lower part of the landslide deposit was quarried and recontoured.
Above this activity, the rock cliffs spawn occasional rockfall, which has accumulated at the base of the slide. The middle to lower section of the landslide debris is currently moving at a rate of about 4.5 cm per year. The moving debris exhibits traits common to both earth flows and rock glaciers, though neither of these mechanisms is confirmed. Trenches and tension cracks are evidence of ongoing movement along the edges of the slide.
Above Mel walks along the street in Dawson City with the Moosehide Slide on the mountain side.
(Details on the Dawson City landslide looking north-east from West Dawson City.)
The Dawson Daily News moved into the building shown above in 1910, the sole survivor among seven gold rush newspapers. It provided Dawson City with a window to the outside world and remained a profitable business until the early 1920s. Thereafter, it was essentially a one-person operation and shut down for good in 1954, its true legacy being a repository of Klondike history, faithfully recorded since 1899.
Above the Dawson Lodge, built in the 1940s as warm storage for the Caley grocery store next door. This historic log building in the center of downtown Dawson City has served as accommodation for weary travelers since the 1980s.
Caley's Store (shown above) is a building that was constructed in 1901 as a furniture store and boarding house. Frank Lowe, of Lowe's Mortary, ran the furniture store from 1902 to 1908, and then he moved to a new location. Fred Caley purchased the two-story structure in 1948. He ran a grocery and clothing store out of the ground floor and lived upstairs. Caley was born in England in 1904. He arrived in Dawson City when he was 18 years old to search for a long-lost uncle whom he never found. While primarily a grocer, Caleb had a keen interest in mining and often provided grubstakes -- credit for food and supplies ahead of the mining or prospecting season.
Caley is famous for grubstaking Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizen Art Anderson who staked asbestos claims on his trapline near the old Forty Mile townsite. The area became the Clinton Creek Asbestos Mine and town site. Anderson was later inducted into the Yukon Prospectors' Association Hall of Fame.
While the above building dates to 1899, it did not become Madame Tremblay's Store, a dry goods and novelty shop until 1913. Emilie Tremblay had first come to the territory as a young French Canadian bride in 1894 with her husband Jack.
After 15 years on Eldorado Creek, and with the era of the individual miner on the wane, they moved into Dawson City. There they completed their transition from miners to merchants by investing their earnings from the creeks in the store. Tremblay ran the store until 1936. (See Madam Tremblay's Store below.)
As the first substantial building erected by the Federal Government in Dawson City (completed in 1900), the post office was the link to the rest of the country and to the goldfields.
The two-story Post Office, also known as the Former Post Office, is a substantial wooden building, which stands out at the corner of King Street and Third Avenue in the Dawson Historical Complex Historic Site of Canada. It is a prominent local landmark distinguished by its three-story octagonal corner entrance tower. Its regularly spaced windows and pedimented doorway, as well as the detailing of its decorative wood trim, reflect a classical source for its design. The walls are clad in horizontal wood siding.
The Post Office is an important example of the work of Thomas W. Fuller prior to his becoming Chief Architect of the Department of Public Works. The building is an excellent example of a pre-First World War post office executed in wood, and it is unique in Canada in that, although built in wood, it is clearly a federal building and carries many of the features of the more substantial masonry federal buildings in southern communities. It is the key element in establishing the turn-of-the-century character of the King Street and Third Avenue area and is an important regional landmark.
We hadn't paid for this tour through Parks Canada, but the door to the post office was open so we decided to take a peak inside. Mel checks out the post office boxes (see below).
Above is the tour group in the post office, while below is an old picture of the General Delivery window at the post office.
Above and below are a couple more pictures from the inside of this historical post office.
Klondike Kate's Restaurant is shown above. It is easy to imagine what downtown Dawson City looked like in 1905 while standing at the intersection of King Street and Third Avenue. Across the street, the owner of the Dawson Daily News had just moved Madame Tremblay's Store building a block west from King and Fourth Avenue. The Palace Grand theatre was called the Auditorium then, named by owner "arkansas Jim" Hall who made a fortune from his Eldorado Creek claim. Even with Dawson City's declining population, this was a bustling area day and night with two theatres, two newspaper offices, the post office and a nearby hotel.
Klondike Kate's Restaurant was constructed before 1901. Like many comnmercial buildings of this era, it has a single story simple frame construction, with a false front and corrugated metal covering the roof. From 1904 to 1915, this lot was used by a photographer and two grocers. In 1917, the building was sold to the Northern Commercial Company, who used the site as storage or as a grocery store. In 1977, the interior was converted to a cafe, and the following year additioinal buildings were added to the site to us as a motel. In 1990, Klondike Kate's opened, named after a dancer and performer who worked in Dawson City at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush.
On the side of the historical white building above is the first stanza of Robert William Service's poem, "The Spell of the Yukon." The passage from Robert W. Service's poem, "The Spell of the Yukon" is painted in bold black paint against the building's bright white wood paneling.
Robert W. Service was a British-Canadian poet and writer. The poem's first passage is written on this historical building and starts out like this:
"I wanted the gold and I sought it:
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine, scurvy -- I fought it:
I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold and I got it --
Came out with a fortune last fall, --
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it
And somehow the gold isn't all."
Boardwalks make walking a little easier on some of the street in Dawson City.
In 1892, the North American Trade & Transportation Company that was founded in Chicago to set up trading posts along Yukon River.
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Above is a picture from the Grand Opening of North American Transportation & Trading Company's department store in Dawson City.
St. Mary's Rectory and Catholic Church is the third Roman Catholic church built in Dawson City. Father Judge, known as the "Saint of Dawson," built the first church in the far north end of town. It burned in 1898, soon after it was constructed. Father Judge was able to rebuild it through a generous donation of $30,000 from Big Alex McDonald, a Klondike miner and entrepreneur. The current St. Mary's Church was built in 1904, in response to the first signs of the town's decline. Father Emile Bunoz, who later became Bishop of Prince Rupert and Yukon, was the rector at the time. He decided to build this combination school and chapel away from the cathedral on Front Street and closer to the shrinking business center. Originally, there was a Catholic school on the ground floor and the church on the upper floor. The school had two large classrooms and a music room. Its intial enrollment was 54 students. The school operated until 1966. The second St. Mary's on Front Street was dismantled by Father Rivest and Pierre Nolasque "Jack" Tremblay in 1923. Most of the materials were used to construct Christ the King Church in Mayo, while the altar and the bell were installed here. The bell found in the bell tower is nicknamed "Maria."
Above is the rectory (parsonage) of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Dawson City.
Above is the Triple J Hotel that opened in 1974 with six cabins built by three long-time residents of Dawson City. It has been expanded to the present complex of 58 rooms -- cabin and hotel rooms, an 80-seat restaurant and a 56-seat lounge with an outdoor patio.
Above and below is the Robert Service School in Dawson City. Its new paint job -- a vibrant look -- was inspirted by Yukon artist Ted Harrison's painted rendition of the school.
The Masonic Lodge (shown above and below) was originally constructed and furnished by the Carnegie Foundation in 1903, to serve as a free municipal library for Dawson City residents. It opened on August 16, 1904, with building materials coming as far away as Toronto. Its architect was Robert Moncrief, who also worked on the Bank of Commerce building on the waterfront. The library's collection started with 1,700 books, periodicals and newspapers. When it opened to the public, it already contained Jack London's stories, just a few short years after London's experiences in the Klondike. The building quickly became a symbol of culture and community in town. The library was moved to the public school after a fire broke out on the main floor in 1920. The books were later transferred to the Dawson Museum. In February 1934, the building was sold to the Masonic Lodge. The Yukon Lodge No. 45 held regular meetings with local Masons until the 1980s, when it became a seasonal meeting place.
Diamond Tooth Gerties (shown above and below) is a saloon much like those in 1898. It is Canada's first casino and gambling hall and was first opened in 1971 by the Klondike Visitors Association. Gerties, as it is popularly known, as well as most of Dawson City is reminiscent of the area's Klondike Gold Rush History. Patrons are treated to a daily vaudeville show inspired by one of Dawson City's most famous dance hall stars from the Gold Rush Era, Gertie Lovejoy, who had a diamond between her two front teeth.
Gerties is quite unique among casinos in Canada, being the only one where patrons can gamble, drink alcohol and watch live entertainment in the same room. Diamond Tooth Gerties has been wowing visitors with its unique Klondike-period style and three different cancan-inspired show nightly hosted by Diamond Tooth Gertie herself, who will blow you away with her powerhouse vocals and cheeky conversation. And if that is not enough, the high-kicking antics of her "Gold Rush Girls" in their colorfulk skirts will have you dancing in your seats.
(Above is a picture of the historical Gerties building that was originally built in 1901 by the Arctic Brotherhood.)
The current Diamond Tooth Gerties building was originally a hall for the Arctic Brotherhood, a fraternal organization formed by 11 intoxicated men on a ship heading north to Skagway, Alaska. They decided that the organization's badges would be champagne and beer corks. The first formal meeting of the organization was in Skagway in February 1899. The Dawson City chapter, known as Arctic Camp No. 4, was founded in November 1899. At its height, the organization had a network of 32 camps in the northwest and roughly 10,000 members -- exclusively non-Indigenous men. The Arctic Brotherhood's motto was, "No Boundary Line Here," to show that the border between Alaska and Yukon did not affect the brotherhood, and perhaps that they did not recognize the border as it was formalized in 1898. The first Dawson City meeting drew just four men, but membership numbers rose rapidly. The hall was built with member donations and completed in October 1901. By 1931, the organization was defunct, and the last Yukon member died in 1956. From 1925 to 1933, the building served as Dawson City's community center. The Fraternal Order of Eagles used it between 1929 and 1943, after their building burned. Dawson City gained titled to the building in 1951. And then Diamond Tooth Gerties opened in 1971 as Canada's first legal gambling hall.
(Pictured from the left to right is a man called Jack, Gertie Lovejoy -- aka Diamond Tooth Gertie, Cad Wilson, and Tommy Dolan.)
Shown above is the Yukon University Tr'od
ëk Hätr'unohtän Zho,
situated within the Traditional Territory of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers.
The Westminister Hotel (shown above and below) has been in operation since the 1930s, with parts of the building dating from the early 1900s. It is a veritable patchwork quilt of Yukon history, with different sections at one time serving as offices for the Klondike Thawing Machine Company, a grocery, a boarding house, a diner and ice cream shop, and most notoriously as a bar and hotel.
The Hotel was originally registered to Mr. Vinnicombe, but collective local memory reaches back only as far as John "Curly" Salois, who sold the business to his nephew Fabien and his wife, Eileen around 1950. Fabien and Eileen ran the hotel, beer parlor, cocktail lounge and diner until the early 1990s, when a group of friends purchased the business. Eventually, Duncan Spriggs would become the sole owner and operator. During his tenure, Spriggs cemented the Westminister's reputation as the place to see the best live music in the territory. In 2010, Ducan passed the torch to Paul McDonagh, who has spent the last few years making major improvements and upgrades to this historic building.
We decide to go inside the tavern (aka Snake Pit) part of the Westminister Hotel complex. There was a very old-time feel inside the tavern and the floor slanted -- so watch your step.
Mel gets a beer and I enjoy a glass of ice water.
The El Dorado Hotel is shown above and below.
Below is Harrington's Store (aka Building 15) was built in 1902, as the frenzy of the Klondike Gold Rush was fading and Dawson City was becoming a more established community. William Harrington ran a grocery store on the ground floor, with living space on the second floor. Incorporated in the structure are portions of the single story 1901 commercial building that previously occupied the site.
The two-story commercial building is valued for its good aesthetic design. The building is characterized by its Italianate architectural treatment and its good craftsmanship, including the richly ornamented double front door and the painted cove shiplap siding.
Shown above and below is the Red Feather Saloon that was built in the summer of 1902. It was probably the last saloon built in Dawson City. With growing pressure from women's groups and the clergy, liquor licenses in Dawson City fell from twenty-three in 1900 to six in 1915. The Red Feather Saloon closed in 1915.
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(Above is what the inside of the Red Feather Saloon looked like.)
Bombay Peggy's (shown above) was built in 1900. The house was originally located in the north end of town on the northeast corner of Front and Albert Streets. The first owners were invoved in the mining industry, while subsequent owners used the building as a family residence and boarding house. One of the building's most notable owners was Margaret Vera Dorval, known by the locals as Bombay Peggy. The nickname originates from Dorval's wartime experiences in Shanghai, China, where an aviator boyfriend reportedly dropped gifts for her from the bomb bay doors of his aircraft. Bombay Peggy acquired the north end house in the early 1940s to run her bootlegging business and brothel. Throughout her tenure as owner, she had thought of transforming the space into a dining club or an art gallery, but ultimately, it remained a place where a working girl could rent a room and an old timer could drink his whiskey in peace.
When the current proprietress Wendy Caurns purchased the house in 1998, it was sinking into the swamp and rotting from the bottom up. However, its derelict condition could not hide its unique beauty, nor erase the years of local lore that were packed within its walls. After a cross-town move to Second Avenue and Princess Street and fourteen months of construction and restoration work, the building began its new life as a historic inn and pub.
In the spring of 2000, an official opening for Bombay Peggy's was held, and Father Tim Coonen of St. Mary's Catholic Church, performed a blessing ceremony for "the old whorehouse." It was a celebration of the new beginning and life of the beloved house, steeped in the tough but generous spirit of its namesake and Dawson City.
The Klondike Institute of Art and Culture is a vibrant artistic and cultural center at the edge of the Arctic that cultivates creativity through film, music, visual, literary, and performing arts. (See picture above and the next two below.)
Looking down one of the streets of Dawson City.
The Bunkhouse (shown above and below) is a seasonal budget hotel set along a quiet dirt road with views of surrounding mountains.
We walked along the banks of the Yukon River and found the statue of the miner below.
The information storyboards about the Goldfields and the Gold Miners were very interesting.
Below is the Yukon River flowing along Dawson City.
Above is a view of Dawson City's waterfront.
The Canadian Bank of Commerce building (shown below) is being restored to its original state. It is located on the riverfront in Dawson City. This is a handsome two-story wood structure of native spruce with ornamental pressed metal fronts sanded and painted to resemble gray sandstone. Despite its small size and modest construction materials, the building is an ambitious essay in classical architecture, featuring a cornice, pilasters, elaborate mouldings and artificial rustificatins, all executed in pressed metal.
The Canadian Bank of Commerce has a long-standing role in Yukon history and its prominent location in the historic Gold Rush town of Dawson City. Originally housed in a tent, the Canadian Bank of Commerce relocated several times before finally settling in the current building designed and built by W.P. Skillings and Robert Moncrief in 1901. Its grand architectural style reflects the important services that were performed by the bank such as the buying and melting of gold into bricks and the brokering of gold on world markets. This structure, with its sophisticated form, was a prominent and visible symbol of the bank's significance within the community. It operated as a bank until 1989.
Above is the Waterfront Building in Dawson City, while below is the Northwest Territories Visitor Center. We went inside the Northwest Territories Visitor Center to see if we could get any information on the fire in the Northwest Territories and the conditions of the Dempster Highway.
Inside the Northwest Territories Visitor Center (see picture above and several following pictures).
Above is the Dänojà Zho Cultural Center located down by the waterfront in Dawson City. It offers visitors the opportunity to discover the history and culture of the firsrt people of the Klondike, the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation.
Since our guided tour of the S.S. Keno Sternwheeler was at 1:00p.m., we only briefly looked at the S.S. Keno and all the storyboards along the waterway on our way back to the Visitor Center.
The S.S. Keno is a steam-powered sternwheeler that represents the importance of the lake and river steamers in opening up the area to newcomers. Riverboats provided vital transportation on the Yukon River and its tributaries from the 1890s to the 1950s. In 1922, the British Yukon Navigation Company built the S.S. Keno to transport silver-lead ore from mines in the Mayo District on the Stewart River and return with vital supplies. For 29 years, this wood-fired, steam-powered vessel plied the waterways of the Yukon, connecting northerners with the outside world until modern roads led inland.
We met in front of the Dawson City Visitor Center for our tour of the S.S. Keno.
Our guide provided some of the history behind the S.S. Keno.
One of the first things we learned about the S.S. Keno was that it brought ashore each fall using capstans (see below). As the labored breathing of horses, with their hooves hard-packing a circle on the ground around a string of creaking capstans on the river bank. Admidst men's calls, the cumbersome sternwheeler, was painstakingly winched onto shore. This was an exercise in precision and patience as it was vital to keep the tension equal along the line to prevent twisting and damaging the hull.
Above Mel goes aboards the S.S. Keno and I follow right behind him.
The S.S. Keno was built in Whitehorse in the spring of 1922 by the British Yukon Navigation Company to move silver lead ore (in 125-pound bags) on the Stewart River from the mines in the Mayo District to the Stewart Island on the Yukon River, and then return with vital supplies. On August 15, 1922 it was put into service.
Designed especially for shallow water work -- on the August 15, 1922 trip, it pushed a heavy barge with 70 tons of meat, with 50 tons on itself, and therefore demonstrated that it was the best light draft vessel ever turned out in these waters. With the 50 tons, plus 12 cords of wood, it drew only 21 inches of water forward and 19 aft, while most of the boats drew 30 inches empty.
In 1923, the wheel was set further back from the transom to enable it to back up more effectively.
On June 8, 1927, it sunk in shallow water just below Scatter Bar at Big Ben, when it hit a rock. It was raised and repaired.
In 1928, it got a new transom with 3 feet further aft, to provide it with better backing facilities to enable it to handle heavier loads downstream.
In 1930, a Foster-Wheeler economizer was installed in the stack -- as it uses the waste heat from the stack to pre-heart the feed water before it goes into the boiler with the direct result of this being increased economy in fuel consumption and easier steaming conditions.
In 1933, it was badly damaged just above Rocky Reach on the Thirty Mile. The barge Tookeno hit the beach with a corner, swinging S.S. Keno to bridge the river, breaking off the rudders and smashing the wheel.
In 1937, the hull was completely rebuilt to 140.5 feet long with 30.4 foot beam (it was cut in half to permit three meters to be added to its length), increasing its freight capacity/gross tonnage to 613.049 tons (net 416.128 tons). Four bulkheads were added, and the stern design was changed from bevel to transom.
For 29 years, this wood-burning, steam-powered vessel navigated Yukon waterways, connecting Northerners to the outside world until modern roads extended into the interior.
It was retired at the close of river navigation in 1953, re-furbished in 1960 and sailed downriver to Dawson City where it is managed as a historic site open to the public. In 1979, during the huge flood in Dawson City, the S.S. Keno just filled up wtih water and stayed in place; if it had been made watertight, it may have floated downriver and been lost.
The S.S. Keno is a wooden sternwheeler that is 130.5 feet long with a 29.2 foot beam and 56 inch hold. It is registered as 348.5 tons, but has a gross tonnage of 553.17 tons. It is licensed for 78 passengers, has accommodations for 53 people.
The engine room in the 1937 hull was 30.8 feet long, housing 2 horizontal high-pressure steam engines built by Clinton Novelty Iron Works of Iowa, and a locomotive boiler built by Vulcan Iron Works of Vancouver. The engine cylinders were 12-inch diameter, 54 inch stroke, rated at 9.6 NHP.
The S.S. Keno had a 23-man crew -- with a captain, a pilot, 2 mates, 5 - 6 deckhands, 3 firemen, 2 engineers, 4 waiters, 1 mess boy, 1 pantryman and 2 cooks.
The storyboard below tells about the treacherous Yukon River that can be swift and narrow or slow and meandering. Pilots often contended with sweepers, ice flows, rocks and sudden drops in water levels. Channels silted in and and ships ran aground on unexpected sandbars.
The storyboard above tells how the British Yukon Navigation Company tried to outwit the river by designing its vessels for the Upper Yukon River by making them narrower with a shallow draft. Having the wheel on the stern, rather than the side meant the boat could navigate in tight channels. The crews developed methods that allowed the boat to turn in small spaces, "hop" or lever off sandbars, and back away from shallow channels. By painful experience, they learned some methods worked better than others.
The storyboard above tells about fueling the fleet. Yukon sternwheelers ran on wood -- lots of wood.
Above is where the three firemen on the sternwheeler slept.
Above is the speaking tube used to convey message from the engine room to the wheelhouse.
Above is the telegraph system -- a communicating device used to transfer orders of change in speed or direction from the wheelhouse to the engine control room.
Our tour guide filled us in on what life was like on the sternwheeler.
The letter above is dated July 14, 1931 and reads as such:
Dear Ma --
This river boat is run with wood fire and we stop for wood every now and then. Arrive in Dawson tomorrow morning and spend 24 hours there. It is thrilling going down the river but it will take 4 days to come up.
Can just feel myself putting on weight -- pounds and at that am hungry all the time. Hollow legs. Freight is very high -- they said they didn't make anything on the passengers because they ate so much. They didn't make anything on me. I'm starved all the time.
We took on a Mountie's wife and her sister last night who were coming to Dawson. Where she was the boat only came once a year -- it would take more than love to keep me up here for a steady time.
Love,
Frances
Above and below is what the passenger cabins looked like.
Above is the dining area with all kinds of pictures along the walls. We were each asked to pick a picture that spoke to us and tell about it. Below is the picture I selected because it reminded me of myself as a young girl with curls.
Above Mel is in the kitchen area on the sternwheeler, while below is the stove.
Each new pilot on the riverboat was obliged to draw his own river chart as a tool to learn the river. Below is the river chart drawn by the new pilot Alfred Olsen.
Above and below is the 1901 "T. Eaton Company Limited" catalog. As you can see below, you could order almost anything through the catalog while on the S.S. Keno and it would eventually get to you onboard.
Above is the Flora Dora Hotel on Front Street. It has not been a functioning hotel in decades. Although it is decorated with suggestive mannequins in the windows, there is no evidence it was ever a brothel. It was opened during the Gold Rush days of 1898 and is now used for storage by the nearby Dawson General Store.
Above is a private workshop in Dawson City.
Above is the Dawson City General Store and market. We walked through the grocery store area, and although things were relatively expensive, they did have quite an extensive selection.
We decided to stop at Sourdough Joe's for an early dinner. Sourdough Joe's is named for one of Dawson City's founding members.
In August 1896 just days after the historic Bonanza Creek gold strike, prospector Joe Ladue staked not just a claim, but a whole townsite. Joe sold lots for only $5 in the winter of 1896, but by the next summer he was getting $8,000 for them. Joe named the town after a Canadian geologist, George Mercer Dawson.
In 1897, Joe Ladue's home was the local saloon, Dawson City's first. At the height of the Gold Rush, $5 in Dawson City got you a plate of beans and bread with stewed apples and a cup of coffee. A $2.50 meal in Dawson City was worth only $0.15 in Seattle.
Mel had the cod fish and chips (see above), while I had the fried chicken dinner (see below). They were both very good. It cost us $65.65 in Canadian dollars (which is about $47.87 in U.S. dollars).
While in Dawson City, we did the "Sourdough Challenge" and were rewarded with the certificate below.
After eating, we decided to drive out on Bananza Creek Road to see the claims and the Historic Dredge No. 4. Dredge No. 4 stands slightly over 59 feet high amid the rough and rugged Klondike Gold Fields on Claim #17.
We followed the signs to Dredge No. 4 and turned right onto Bonanza Creek Road.
Since Bonanza Creek road was a gravel road, we took our time. We crossed over Bonanza Creek.
(Boulder Hill mining operations in Yukon Territory between 1893 to 1903.)
We drove by Boulder Hill where the first dredge was in the Yukon, and then we went by Claim #33.
Claim #33 was located just a little bit up the road. It used to be a small family-owned and operated buisnes that offered visitors the opportunity to pan for gold, but is is now permanently closed.
Dredge No. 4 (the largest wooden-hulled dredge in North America) is a wooden-hulled bucketline sluice dredge that mined placer gold on the Yukon River from 1913 until 1959. It is now located along Bonanza Creek Road near Dawson City, where it is preserved as one of the National Historic Sites of Canada.
With its 72 large buckets, the dredge excavated gravel at the rate of 22 buckets per minute, processing 18,000 cubic yards of material per day. It was in use from late April or early May until late November each season. During its operational lifetime, it captured nine tons of gold.
Less than one mile south of the dredge's current site, further into the Klondike Valley, is the Discovery Claim where gold was found in August 1896 by prospector George Carmack, his Tagish wife Kate, her brother Skookum Jim and their nephew Dawson Charlie. This is considered the site where the Klondike Gold Rush began.
Integral to the operation of the dredge were the services available at Dawson City. There, financial serivess provided by the banks, administrative services provided by the Government of Canada, and the rail and steamship transportation network terminating at the city ensured that machinery needed for operation of the dredge would be readily supplied.
The above storyboard tells how the dredge was dependent on water. All placer gold mining required two things: water and gravity. Inside the dredge, a large pipeline sprayed water into the trommel to wash the smaller and heavier, gold-bearing gravel through the holes into the sluice tables. More water washed over the sluice tables, carrying away all but the heaviest particles. A hydro-electric plant 60 km away provided power to massive water pumps, winches, and the bucket line.
The above storyboard tells about maximizing the glitter. Over 46 years, Dredge No. 4 recovered 8 metric tons of gold. Lost digging time, meant lost money, so the dredge shut down only briefly for crews to clear out the sluices. The gold-laden dirt was taken back to Bear Creek Camp for final sorting and melting into bricks. At top production, almost 50 pounds/800 ounces of gold were cleaned out every three to four days. Twice a month the company would ship about a dozen new gold bricks to the bank.
The storyboard below tells about a huge gold floating gold pan. Dredges were floating gold-digging machines. To get gold dust from the ground, the bucket line dug down to bedrock bringing gravel up to the hopper. Gold is heavy, so gravity sorted it from the waste as it passed through the trommel and sluice. The sluice runs worked like gold pans, trapping the gold in riffles and coconut matting, sending the waste out the stacker.
The above storyboard tells how it was a long process. A dredge could only go to work after the ground was thawed to bedrock. First, prospecting crews drilled to find gold pockets. Crews then stripped trees, rocks, cabins, and even towns. They then blasted the muck with water cannons to reveal a layer of frozen gravel. Crews then hammered hollow steel points into the frozen ground to force cold water deep, thawing about 25 feet every two weeks.
Built in 1912 by the Canadian Klondike Mining Company, this machine worked the gravels of the Klondike River Valley. Dismantled and refurbished by the Yukon Consolidated Gold Company in 1940, it mined Bonanza Creek until 1959 and sank the next year when a dam burst. Dredge No. 4 illustrated the evolution of gold mining in this area, from the labor-intensive manual techniques of early prospectors to large-scale, corporate industrrial extraction methods.
The dredge lay dormant where it was decommissioned from 1959. In the spring of 1960, a dam collapse flooded the creek in which it lay, rotating it 180 degrees and lifting it off the shelf on which it was resting. It was purchased by Parks Canada in 1970 for $1, to become part of its proposed commemoratioin program for the Klondike goldfields. It was not until 1991 that it was excavated and in 1992 it was moved to its current site, where it is protected from seasonal flooding.
The above storyboard tells about following the piles of gravel. Dredges crawled slowly upstream. During one eight-month season, a dredge covered just 0.5 miles, working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To dig, the spud was lowered; winches and cables then swung it slowly in an arc, catching every last bit of gold-bearing gravel in the valley bottom. To move forward, the spud was lifted and the dredge was winched forward using cables attachedto "deadman," logs buried in the hillside.
(Longitudinal section through bucket dredge.)
Gold dredges float on a moving pond of water, picking up gold-bearing gravel using a chain of buckets at one end and discarding the waste gravel through the discharge stacker at the other. Inside the dredge, the buckets empty into a hopper that feed an inclined revolving circular screen, or trommel, where large volumes of water wash the fine material into the distributor, where it is directed to the sluice boxes.
Dredge No. 4, eight storys high and two-thirds the size of a football field, has a displacement weight of over 3,000 tons. It could dig material from 47 feet below water level to 17 feet above water level using iron buckets with 16 cubic feet capacities, processing 18,000 cubic yarsds per day. The Canadian Klondike Mining Company operated Dredge No. 5 on the Klondike River from May 1913 to October 1940. The Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation rebuilt the dredge, using the original machinery with new timber, at a Bonanza Creek site, operating it from 1941 to 1959. It is now a National Historic Site.
The above plaque tells of the achievements of "Klondike Joe," Joseph Whiteside Boyle who was born in Toronto and raised in Woodstock, Ontario before coming to Dawson City in 1897. He left the Klondike area in 1904, but returned five years later. He recognized the potential of large-scale mining and he was the head of one of the largest mining operations. He lived in Dawson City until 1916, when he left for England to help in the allied war effort. He died in London, England.
The above plaque honors and is a tribute to the engineers, and contractors who designed, built, and operated "Canadian Klondike Mining Company" Dredge No. 4 from 1912 to 1959. The all wood dredge was designed to float and support 3,000 tons, including a chain of 68 large iron excavating buckets. Gold dredging operations in the Kondike from 1900 to 1966 also included large hydro electric, water supply and machine shop facilities. Dredge No. 4 produced 300,000 ounces of gold and mined 65 million cubic yards of gravel.
After we had seen all we could at Dredge No. 4, we headed back to the campground arriving at around 4:30 p.m.
As you can see from the pictures, they are still actively mining in this area.
Tonight we went to Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall in Dawson City. Diamond Tooth Gerties offers multiple can-can vaudeville shows nightly throughout the summer -- ranging from traditional to progressively more bawdy and racier as the night goes on. Tonight we stayed to see the first two shows at 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. -- primarily because the last show didn't start until midnight.
Diamond Tooth Gerties was first opened in 1971 by the Klondike Visitors Association, making it Canada's Oldest Casino. Gerties, as it is popularly known, is reminiscent of the area's Klondike Gold Rush History. Each show is inspired by one of Dawson City's most famous dance hall stars from the Gold Rush Era, Gertie Lovejoy, who had a diamond between her two front teeth.
The building that houses Gerties was formerly known as Arctic Brotherhood Hall. It was built way back in 1901 in a mere three weeks by the Arctic Brotherhood, who were a fraternal social organization for men living in the northwest section of North America. Camp No. 4 of the Arctic Brotherhood was formed in November 1899 in Dawson City. When it was completed, the building was regarded as the largest and grandest building in the northwest. In 1925, the Arctic Brotherhood ceased to exist and soon after the Fraternal Order of Eagles moved in. Eventually the building was turned into a community hall. In 1967, the building was renovated and briefly renamed to Centennial Hall in honor of Canada's 100th birthday. In 1971, the town leased the building to the Klondike Visitors Association, who were running casino nights on the S.S. Keno after they had obtained a special gambling license from the Government of Canada.
We each bought a "Gerties 2023 Season Pass for $20 each (see below). This season pass allowed us entry into the casino as many times as we wanted as it was good for all summer long.
Red velvet curtains, wood floors and a unique balcony make this a unique gambling hall. We enjoyed the two shows we saw tonight -- it was a great time with Gertie and her dance hall girls wearing pretty colorful petticoats while they performed high-kicking antics.
Enjoy the pictures I took from the two shows below with Diamond Tooth Gertie and her dance hall girls.
Bedecked in fabulous eye-catching gowns Diamond Tooth Gertie entertains in the heart of the Klondike.
What a wonderful night at the can-can shows. We got home around 10:45 p.m. For sure, we will be high-kicking it again tomorrow night at Diamond Tooth Gerties.
Until then, good night!
Shirley & Mel
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