Saturday, May 29, 2010

May 26, 2010

Dawson City

image_map

 

Left our quiet, tree filled campground at 8 am.  Easy drive of less than two hours, with several stops for viewing, to Dawson City.  Driving in to town felt much like driving Highway 50 east of Sacramento.  The landscape, not the population.  Several miles of gravel tailings.  Nothing but rock hills along the road.  Roadside businesses are built on tailings, including the RV park we are in.  Half of the park is filled with an Alaska RV tour.  First we have seen.  Remember coming across this particular outfit a number of times in my research for our trip.  Much of their published itinerary is included in what I have put together for us.  The park owner says they will not be leaving ‘till Saturday.  Hope that is right.  We are leaving Friday.  The road we will be on is not one you want to share with 15 other RV’s at the same time.  Starts with a ferry ride across the Yukon River.  It could take over three hours to get all of them across the river.  The rest of the road is over 100 miles of gravel.  Would rather do that with no traffic.

Dawson City is interesting.  Hard to describe.  A gold rush town in arrested decay, restored decay, historic decay and restoration, and just plain decay.  All can be found on the same block. (The town is more than one block  :)  ) One paved street.  Haven’t seen a traffic light since Whitehorse, 300 miles away.  Lots of historic sites and buildings.  Canada’s national park system, Parks Canada, has taken over many of them and restored many of those.  We saw two of Parks Canada’s programs today.  The first was an hour long presentation on Robert Service done at the cabin he occupied for nine years and where he produced many of his most famous works. 

DSC03872

Robert Service was known as the Bard of the Yukon.  He wrote many poems and novels about the Canadian North.  I did not know of Robert Service but I have heard several of his poems before.  One that others may have heard is “The Cremation of Sam McGee”.  Robert Service was not the only writer to get inspiration from Dawson City and surroundings.  Jack London also spent time here.  His cabin is two blocks from the Robert Service cabin.  Or half of it anyway.  The other half is in Oakland.  Share the fame I guess. 

20100527-108 jack London's Cabin

The second Parks program was a walking tour of Dawson City led by a guide dressed in period attire.  She was very good.  Lots of history of the town, the gold rush, life in the far north (she has lived full time in Dawson City for 19 years.  Why I do not know.), and many other things.  Nonstop for over an hour and a half.  Neat thing about the tour is that we got to go inside several of the buildings that are normally closed to the public.  These buildings have been totally restored  outside AND inside.  We saw the bank, a saloon (there were many in the towns heyday), and the first post office.  Each looked like it could do business tomorrow. 

DSC03876 

Bank

 

 

 

 

DSC03879

 

 

Saloon

 

 

 

Interesting information about building in Dawson City.  The entire town is built on permafrost.  That is ground that is frozen year round.  The top inch or two may thaw but for the most part it is frozen solid.  If a building is placed in a conventional manner, on a foundation placed on/in the ground, the warmth from the building will melt the permafrost.  Now you have mush.  Like a building sitting on oatmeal.  Houses tilt or even fall over.  Every building that wants to stay a useful building is built off the ground.  The raised portion is covered by a fascia but that doesn’t retain the heat.  I imagine the floors are super insulated.

Later we went to the ferry, walked on, and took a ride across the river and back.  Probably five minutes each way.

DSC03882

In the evening we went to Diamond Tooth Gerties, a 1890’s style saloon and gambling hall, to take in some ambiance and watch a show.  Admission was cheap ($6) and we had a two for one pass so it was even cheaper.  Admission is good for two nights and there are three shows each night, each getting progressively more risqué. There were a number of table games.  No roulette or craps, and in a concession to more modern gambling, there were slots.  The show was singing and cancan style dancing.  For the price, it was almost ok.  Sue commented that now we know why we paid $24 (x2) to watch the Follies in Whitehorse.  Sue got $2.00 worth of tokens (2) and played 10 cent slots.  She left with $3.00 so we came away winners and almost paid for the ‘entertainment’.

DSC01492

Back to our covered window home for the night.  Sunset is now around 11:00 pm and it is light all night.



No comments:

Post a Comment