| Campground: | Gold Rush Campground, 1207 Fifth Ave, Dawson City, YT Y0B 1G0, Canada |
| Total Distance: | 6208 Miles. |
| Traveled Today: | 0 Miles. |
| Key Highlights: | Biking and gold panning in Bonanza Creek Dredge No. 4 National Historic Site, Upper Bonanza Creek Road, Dawson City Discovery Claim Self Guiding Trail, Grand Forks Rd Free Gold Panning – Claim #6, Grand Forks Rd, Dawson City, Sourtoe cocktail at the Downtown Hotel, Dawson City |
To immerse ourselves in the spirit of Dawson City, we have saddled ourselves on our bikes (our replacement version of horse saddles) and headed to ride the Bonanza Creek – where it all started. Bonanza Creek flows into the Klondike River. In 1896 Skookum, Jim, and George Carmack went hunting in this creek – where the very clear and engaging interpretative trail of Discovery Trail is located today. On their way, they found gold in the creek. They immediately claimed the right to harvest it in the creek. The news of the Klondike gold traveled fast; in one year, a vast migration wave of 100,000 people started to fill this place.
Bonanza Creek is still a very active gold mining place, and it is fascinating to see all the different professionally active mines turning every stone in the valley to find some gold. This place is still living the Gold Rush heritage.
The bike ride is 20Km each way (40Km out and back) from the city. About 16 KM from our camp – we arrived at Dredge No.4: an enormous machine built around 1900 to mine the gold in this valley. We joined a guided tour of Parks Canada into the Dredge. It is an incredible machine, and the story of how it was designed, built, transported, and operated was eye-opening. The guide was very knowledgeable, and we can’t recommend this tour more.
From the Dredge, 2Km further up the river -we hiked the discovery Trai (as I wrote, where the first gold was found), and one KM further – we dipped our legs in the stream’s water to search for gold in Claim #6 (a claim that is open to the public for non-commercial gold panning). Again, I believe I am in love with gold searching, even though the reward was very little this time.
Nevertheless, we had a festive feeling – and as we got back to town, we went to the famous Downtown Hotel bar- to zip their favorite cocktail: the Sourtoe: A whiskey shot with a real (black by now) Human Toe (that was kept in alcohol, and by now turned black) that must touch your lips when you zipped the drink. So Yesterday, the 100,000th cocktail was served, and I was the 100,076 to join the club of the people who drank a cocktail with human parts in it. Dawson is a strange city!
We were so happy – that we stopped again at the Bombay Peggy’s Pub for the last cocktail. On the way back to our RV we ran into a fox (real one). Dawson City is a great place.