Dawson City, Yukon

 On the Yukon River

 Up on the dome road you get a good view of Dawson City and the confluence of the silty Yukon and clear Klondike rivers.

The Yukon River flows about 2,000 miles from down south near Skagway to Dawson, across Alaska and then it empties into the Bering Sea on Alaska's west coast. If you started from Dawson when the ice breaks up in May, you could float the whole thing just before it freezes again in October...

In the winter they stop running the free ferry and drive heavy trucks over the river to the road to Chicken, Alaska.

The native people caught King Salmon here every summer until the 1898 Gold Rush when 50,000 stampeders arrived to look for gold. You can see where the Klondike river bed was dredged up into vast fields of rock in the search for gold....the salmon runs have been badly depleted by that and by commercial fishing downstream...

In the evening we go back to see Diamond Tooth Gertie and her dancing girls. Later we gamble, drink Diet Coke and I pay the girls a dollar a dance from midnight to breakfast....we smell whiskey and fried moose burgers in the air....

The natives have intermarried with the miners. This is a picture of Georgette Macleod in a birch bark canoe on the Yukon...

We take a tour of the Yukon River with Tommy, our native guide.

Tommy caught over 1,000 chum salmon last year to feed his 52 sled dogs though the winter...

Tommy lives in this cabin about five miles downriver from Dawson. In the winter he travels overland 25 miles to Dawson for supplies by dogsled or snowmobile....

 I am a lumberjack and I'm ok...

Lot's of fixer-uppers are available in Dawson...

Mrs Phred above Dawson...

This is Tommy's fish wheel...

Tommy shows us one of the King salmon in his fish wheel trap....he built the fish wheel himself.

Tommy keeps his winter food in this outdoor cooler.

Tommy's guesthouse cabin...

Tommy has a sense of humor...

The buildings in Dawson that were built on the ground suffer from melting permafrost...the heated buildings melt the permafrost unevenly...most of the newer buildings are constructed up off the ground...

the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in People

Dawson, Yukon

Dawson was inhabited for at least 12,000 years by the Hän-speaking people of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in. Dawson was the center of their homeland, a salmon fishing camp at the confluence of the Klondike River and Yukon River. One evidential artifact is an awl, shaped from a mammoth tusk, carbon-dated at 12,000 BC. This site was also an important summer gathering spot and a base for moose-hunting on the Klondike valley.

The Klondike river flows clear and mixes with the glacial silt of the broad Yukon river. It’s a natural place for salmon to turn left and spawn. The Tr’ondëk constructed racks to dry and smoke the salmon for the long winter. There are little cranberries everywhere that are red, ripe and tart. They would be a good garnish for moosemeat.

Jack London came to the area in 1896, prior to the gold rush and found an uninhabited cabin 120 miles south on Henderson Creek. Robert Service’s cabin is still here, maintained almost as a shrine since he abandoned it in 1912. London’s cabin was discovered in 1967 and floated here to be reconstructed.

The Tr’ondëk were completely overwhelmed by a sudden influx of 40,000 gold seekers in 1897. Hand mining was soon overtaken by dredges which worked over the area several times leaving huge piles of tailings. A dozen Mounties maintained order in Dawson and there were no murders or robberies in Dawson during the first frantic years of the gold rush.

The attentions of the Mounties did not extend to Ladies of the Night, who were permitted to operate from small cabins in Dawson. The string of cabins all had signs advertising the sale of cigars and the name of the proprietress. The last bawdy house, operated by a lady known as Ruby, was finally closed by the authorities in 1961.

The leader of the Tr’ondëk asked the government for help in relocating his people. They were moved down the Yukon about three miles to a new settlement called Moosehide.

The Tr’ondëk have a visitor center. The center features a small display of photos and letters from “survivors” who lament pervasive alcoholism and the policies of the government schools. I watch a twenty minute movie about an annual event in Moosehide where the Tr’ondëk gather to try to recover and maintain their traditions of native dances and songs. The participants have native dress, but their features and hair colors are northern European. There are redheads, blondes and auburn haired people. Only a few show any sign of any native appearance.

In 1957 the population of Dawson had dropped to about 800 and we watch a period movie, "City of Gold", where the children play among the many abandoned buildings and relics. The 2007 population has grown to 2,000 and Dawson receives about 60,000 visitors a year.

The small crossroads community of Tok is 200 miles behind in Alaska. The next place big enough for a grocery store is Whitehorse, 330 miles ahead. Roads to both Tok and Whitehorse were constructed in the 1950s. Parts of both roads are now paved.

We mine the museums, watch the can-can show at Diamond-tooth Gertie's place, drink some whiskey and head on down the road.

Tuscan Halibut Recipe

Dawson City, Yukon

We drive 100 miles over gravel road from Chicken on the “Top of the World” highway to arrive in Dawson. The road runs mostly on top of mountain ridges, looking out over valleys and endless low mountains.

Here are pictures of the Highway and Dawson.

You can see the geology that produced all the gold. There are hundreds of miles of mountains that have been ground down and rounded by glaciation. The rivers are full of glacial silt. The lighter rock is ground to fine powder and carried out to sea. The heavier gold works it way down into gravel stream beds until it hits bedrock.

We stop to read about the caribou migration and three caribou trot past us, down a mountain path. Domesticated caribou are called reindeer.

We spend the afternoon in Dawson. The city suddenly sprang into being here on the Yukon River when gold was discovered. The news that a prospector had arrived on a steamer in Seattle with, “A ton of gold” was electrifying.

We go into town in the afternoon. There are little historical signs where the bawdy houses operated openly until 1961. We find a tennis court. Mrs. Phred wants to stay another day for the museums and the can-can show at Gravel Gerties place.

I make Tuscan Halibut again for Mrs. Phred. This time I follow the directions and put the beans and tomatoes UNDER the halibut.

4 sheets (12 x 18" each) Reynolds Wrap® heavy-duty aluminum foil
2 cans (15 oz. each) Great Northern or cannellini beans, rinsed & drained
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
4 tbsp. prepared pesto, divided
4 (4 to 6 oz. each) Alaska Halibut steaks
4 tsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. lemon pepper
4 lemon slices
Preheat oven to 450°F and combine beans, tomatoes, and 2 tablespoons pesto; mix well. Center ¼ of bean mixture on each foil sheet. Top with one Alaska Halibut steak; drizzle with lemon juice. Sprinkle halibut with lemon pepper. Top with lemon slices. Bring up sides of foil and double fold. Double fold ends to form four packets, leaving room for heat circulation inside packets. Bake 16 to 20 minutes on a cookie sheet in oven. Serve with remaining pesto. Makes 4 servings