Friday, June 26, 2009 – Day 57
An overcast, drizzly day with a high temperature of about 12C. A good day to spend indoors; and that is exactly what we did. We were at the Dawson City Museum, when it opened at 10:00 AM. The locomotive shed which is next door is only open a couple of times during the day, so we went there first. I should mention that probably 98% of all the buildings in Dawson have tin roofs, and because the locomotive shed has not interior partition walls and no insulation to deaden the sound, the rain was making a sharp pinging sound on the roof. The locomotives housed here were from a railroad dedicated to servicing the mining area. Dawson owes it’s very existence to the gold rush and fittingly the theme of the museum is dedicated to gold and the gold rush.
On the back deck they offered a demonstration of a rocker box. (Basically a large cradle shaped contraption that could process more gravel than a single gold pan. Although the final separation must still be done with a gold pan.) A couple of volunteers from the audience supplied the manpower for the rocker box while Museum staff performed the final separation with the gold pan. The gravel to be processed was supplied from a claim in the Bonanza Creek area and was guaranteed to contain gold. Sure enough at the end of the demo there were two tiny nuggets of gold in the pan. The staff member estimated that they were worth about $10 each. Now I wonder…how could they guarantee that there was gold in that bucket of gravel???
Unfortunately the original museum had burned to the ground along with almost every artefact it contained. The new museum is housed in one of the original Territorial Administrative buildings but I would guess that the artefacts are not quite as old as what was previously on display. Although, Dawson’s history only goes back a little more than 110 years ago anyway. In its heyday Dawson was the largest city north of San Francisco and west of Winnipeg and was sometimes referred to as “Paris of the North”. Today the population of Dawson is 1,800 full time residents and it is no longer the Territorial Capital.
This afternoon we had a date with a Parks Canada interpreter at the Commissioners Residence. At one time this was the official residence of the Territorial Commissioner when Dawson City was the Territorial Capital. If you were arriving by riverboat the first building that you would see would be this large two and half story residence at the bend in the Yukon River. It was meant to give the impression of stature in an otherwise frontier landscape. The interior was no less ostentatious. The interior has richly carved woodwork with a dark wainscoting. The parquet flooring is laid in an intricate multi coloured pattern. Parks Canada has done an excellent job of restoring the residence to its former grandeur.
Dawson is a comfortable, tourist town without all the boisterous hype of Skagway. Other than Front St. along the Yukon River none of the streets in the city are paved. The sidewalks are slightly elevated boardwalks and up till very recently they dumped their sewage directly into the river. Local bylaws mandate that the buildings must reflect a turn of the Century character, although the bright colours on some of the buildings break with that tradition. Dawson City is like that shabby old pair of slippers you like to put on or that big, soft easy chair that seems to welcome a little nap.
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