I flew to Dawson City from Whitehorse on the tiniest of airplanes. It was fun and felt retro – due partly to the fact that there was absolutely no pre-boarding security checks. No x-rays, no pat downs, no assessment of liquids. It was like flying in the 1970s. The airport in Dawson City is literally a one-room affair.
Dawson City is now the farthest north I have been, as it is even farther north than Helsinki. Wandering North indeed. Dawson City is a Klondike Gold Rush town, founded officially in the late 1800s but replacing a First Nations village. It soared in population during the gold rush, and then dropped off. It currently has a population of about 1400 people but is a tourist destination for people who venture that far north.
It is charming. A proper old-timey town, along the Dawson River with mud streets and raised wood plank sidewalks, wooden buildings dating back close to 100 years and most painted bright colors. It kind of feels like you are in a gold rush theme park, except that everything is authentic.
Normally the place would be busy with tourists, but this was August 2020, so Covid kept most people away. Some things, like the historic Diamond Tooth Gertie’s gambling hall (complete with dancing girls) were closed completely and others, like a number of restaurants were doing outdoor eating or takeaway only. That said, I was still able to fully enjoy my visit.
I strolled past the buildings, walked along the river and did a little hiking.
I took an excellent historic walking tour put on by the visitor’s centre daily. They let us go inside some buildings that are otherwise closed to the public and had truly excellent stories about con men, prostitutes, and adventurers to had made Dawson City home.
The thing I kept thinking was: who are these people who live here? Who choose to live in a place where it goes down to -25C in the winter and where the sun largely disappears? Where they are near…nothing aside from wilderness. I assume the must all be criminals (joking – sort of) or people who have just rejected the trappings of a more conventional life.
What really blew my mind was that on the other side of the Yukon River from Dawson City is an area that is not part of any town and that is unconnected to plumbing or electricity and people live there and commute to Dawson by crossing the river by ferry when it is not frozen and walking across when it is (there is no bridge). Being that off-the-grid is enough of a stretch but twice a year – once when things are freezing and once when they are thawing – for about 4-6 weeks, it is impossible to cross. The ferry can’t run, but the ice is not firm enough for walking. So they just have to hunker down and wait. Crazy. Admirable, but definitely not for me. There is even a guy who lives on the other side of the river in a cave and has been doing so since the 1990s.
If you do cross the river on the ferry and walk along the river for a bit you will come to the ‘paddle wheel graveyard’. A place where several late 1800s/early 1900s paddle wheel boats crashed and were just left there. They are pretty much wrecks now, but you can still see what they were and you can climb all over them. It’s eerie and really cool.
That’s pretty much all I did in Dawson City – aside from drinking a drink with a human toe in it, but I’ll save that for the next post. There were lively bars with a serious dive quality that was appealing, but covid kept me out of such places. I was there for 2 days which was pretty good. I didn’t wish for more time. I recommend it if you are in that neck of the woods. It kind of made me realize just how big and, in places, wild and unforgiving Canada is.
