Day 21
Tuesday, June 28
Dawson City

We got to sleep late today!! I got up at 7:00 and Jenna managed to stay in bed until 8:00. There were no scheduled activities today so we had all day to do whatever we wanted, and there is a lot to do in Dawson City. Dawson City is an old, old town. The streets are all gravel because perma-frost is just below the surface. Because of this the roads lift up and settle back down frequently. It makes them a little difficult to navigate at times. They also have board sidewalks, and all the buildings are built on timbers that just sit on the ground. If they put a solid foundation under the house it will rise and fall with the perma-frost and soon the house will break apart. It is amazing the things they have to do to live in this area.

The ladies on the trip had a craft project planned for 10:30 this morning. They all made an American Flag out of a safety pin, beads and wire.
 
 
While they were doing that, most of the men went out to Dredge #4 to learn how they mined gold. The gold in this area is plaser gold. That means that it isn't a part of a rock; instead it is just gold dust and nuggets that can be separated from the surrounding rock and mud with water. They panned for gold in the late 1800's, but in the early 1900's they brought in dredges to mechanically dig out the gold and separate it from the rock and mud. Dredge #4 is one of the only surviving dredges. There were as many as 200 in use up until 1966. Dredge #4 is huge. It must be 250-300 ft. long and at least 5 stories high. It has a huge arm that sticks out in front that has 60 buckets attached to it. The buckets rotate around the arm - kind of like a chain on a chainsaw - and dig into the ground. The buckets empty their contents into a gigantic tube that is full of small holes - about 1/2".



  
 

That tube rotates and high pressure water is pumped into it. The water separates the gold from the rock and the gold falls out the holes into a sluice where it is washed again.


The gold falls to the bottom of the sluice and the remaining water and mud flows out into a pond that surrounds the whole dredge. The dredge actually floats in the pond. Meanwhile, the remaining rock in the big tube is forced onto a conveyer belt and it is carried to the back of the dredge and dumped out onto the ground. The rock or tailings as it is called are piled up in huge, long piles that cover the landscape for miles. Dredge #4 worked in Bonanza Creek for 24 years and covered an area 12 km long (that's about 7.5 miles).
 
 
 
 

By 1966 the price of gold was $35 an ounce and the cost of mining it didn't pay the costs. Also labor costs were escalating and that made mining gold a losing cause. The companies that owed the dredges let them go one by one until none was operating. Dredge #4 was left standing in drydock next to the pond it had been working. A few years later a dam upstream broke and a wall of water capsized the dredge. It was left for 20 years in mud, water and ice. Finally, the Canadian government decided to right the dredge and restore it as a tourist attraction. And the rest is history.


We returned to the RV park just in time for lunch and found all the women gone. Fearing a bear attack or possibly and Indian raid on our campsite, we all went to our RV's and fixed lunch. Soon the women returned from shopping downtown. Lucky for the men, a storm hit the telephone tower during the night and knocked out all telephone and internet service. Loss of telephone service meant that the stores in town couldn't process credit cards. Poor women, all they could do was window shop!

This afternoon, Jenna and I went to town to visit the Indian Interpretive Center. It was a bit of a bust, but I did learn that the First Nation, as they are called, readily accepted the white men who came to their territory only to soon realize that their culture was slowing being forgotten as they adapted to the newcomers ways. Only in the last 20 years or so have they worked to restore their sacred lands and to relearn their culture.

We shopped a little - phone service had been restored by then - and came back to the RV. I posted the blog for yesterday while Jenna cleaned the trailer. While she looked at Facebook, I put bubble wrap on the front of the trailer as we prepare for our trip on the Top of the World Highway. Since it is a gravel road we needed to protect the front of the trailer from rocks being thrown by the back wheels of the truck. Tomorrow's ride should be fun; we've heard that if it is clear you can see for miles so here's hoping for clear weather.

It's after dinner now and Jenna is taking a shower and doing her hair. We are going back to Diamond Tooth Gertie's for the 10:00 show. They do 3 shows each night and we hear the shows get better as the night goes on.

May not get a blog in tomorrow. The town of Chicken, Alaska doesn't have much to it. I'll blog about it, but it may be Thursday or Friday before I can post it. Till then - Happy Trails.