Sharp's Travels

We left our campground at 9:40am for our walking tour of historic Dawson City. We met our costumed guide at the Grand Palace Theater to begin the tour. They have restored the theater and have summer productions there.

We toured the Bank of British North America. What a neat old building. It had a tin roof on it. We were shown the brothel, which was in business up until 1960---if you can believe that!

The Red Feather Saloon was neat. It had been restored back to its original state. We saw the Klondike Tanning Co. hardware store and the Westminster Hotel built back in 1901. We made a stop at the Post Office. The woodwork in these old building was beautiful. We got a behind the scenes view of Dawson’s past.

Spike took us up to the RCMP Cemetery. There were 8 or 9 sections in the cemetery. Everyone had to be buried in their own little sections.

Back in our vehicles again and up we go to the Midnight Dome. From the top, at 3200 ft, you get a spectacular view of the Klondike. You could walk out on the bluff and see for miles.

We also checked out Jack London’s cabin. He came to the Yukon looking for gold in 1897 at the age of 21. He built his own cabin and we got to check it all out. While he didn’t strike it rich, he later turned his Klondike adventures into fame and fortune writing books. Call of the Wild and White Fang were two of his well known books.

We also stopped at the log home of Robert Service, a well known poet. His cabin was called a gentleman’s cabin. It was much nicer than Jack London’s. This one had 2 rooms.

At 7pm we all gathered up our boots and gold mining pans and headed out with Spike to Bonanza Creek to try out our luck at panning for gold. We were lucky enough to find a few little tiny bits of gold. I also found 7 garnets and 2 quartz. It was fun. We shoveled up our dirt, sifted it and were all standing in the river panning it out. Before we knew it was 9:30pm and still light of course. By the time we got home it was 10:15pm. It was time to call it a day.

Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. See album: Dawson City 7-10-08