Upon entering the elegant walls of Diamond Tooth Gerties, the sounds of a honky-tonk piano met my ears. I thanked him for the advice, grabbed my Sourtoe certificate, and decided I’d save the hike for another day. After sharing the tale of Dawson’s most illustrious beverage, the bartender recommended I take a stroll up to the Midnight Dome, the hill that overlooks downtown and the river. It was hard to imagine that in 1898 Dawson was the largest city north of San Francisco.On my way, I stopped in at the Downtown Hotel for the infamous Sourtoe Cocktail. We toasted Yukon brewed beers to our respective adventures before I headed on to Diamond Tooth Gerties for the evening show. They were flying back the next morning to meet up with their wives and canoes for a rendering of the miners’ voyage up the Yukon River. I sat next to two older gentlemen who had just driven their truck up from Whitehorse. My mouth was watering as I read over the menu of scintillating locally inspired dishes like alder-smoked elk and pecan crusted char. The enterprise is named after Kate Rockwell, a flirtatious dancer, vaudeville star, and rebellious woman of the Gold Rush. I ducked into Klondike Kate’s, one of the best eateries in Dawson. Starvation and malnutrition were serious problems along the trail for the Klondikers, so I made sure I didn’t fall into the same fate. I didn’t see his ghost so moseyed on in search of food. I walked by the supposedly haunted Palace Grand Theatre, which was built in 1899 by longhaired, mustachioed Arizona Charlie Meadows, a showman and cowboy. I found myself wishing I had a dog (named Buck, of course) trailing along with me. It was like I’d stepped into one of Jack London’s books or Robert Service’s poems, two legendary writers who took up residence here over a hundred years ago. The frontier façades of each shop, hotel, restaurant, and bar lining the grid of downtown held stories and characters I couldn’t wait to discover. Now this riverbank town is home to a year-round population of about 1,300 people who have turned this former tent dwelling into a bona-fide historical landmark. It was hard to imagine that in 1898 Dawson was the largest city north of San Francisco. I pulled my rollaway suitcase from the overhead bin and stepped onto the tarmac into a warm afternoon sun and the thrilling landscape of Dawson City. Instead, I flew in from Whitehorse to the sound of twin turboprops on a 30-seat plane. I also wasn’t pulling a pack mule and a years’ worth of supplies through cold, snow-throttled mountain passes only to arrive at Bennett Lake and realize I needed to build a boat to run 500-miles of the challenging Yukon River. The July journey wasn’t as arduous as the winter trek along the Chilkoot Trail pursued in 1897 by 30,000 miners, prospectors, businessmen, and conmen. Word on the dusty streets of this remote town is that even today you can pick up a pan, head to the creeks, and rustle up a few pieces for your own pocket.Īnd so I headed north like the stalwart Klondikers of the Gold Rush. In the summer of 1896, gold was found 300 miles south of the Arctic Circle near Dawson City in the Yukon Territory of Canada. The Klondike Gold Rush: Tales from Dawson City, Yukon
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