Dawson now has a population of 1,700 (+/- ) permanent residents with income split nearly equally between tourism and gold mining. That, of course swells with all the fair weather business owners and their help that come back each summer to help the tourist unload their pockets.
The town is beautifully restored and all new buildings have to be built to look like they would have in the early 1900’s. It is fairly authentic down to Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling and Dance Hall. Here a tourist can lose his money at the tables or to the girls (except now the girls take your money as admission to the show). Sorry, this isn’t a picture of Gerties place, I guess I got so distracted by the girls that I forgot to take any pictures.
I did remember to take a picture in the “locals bar”. Slightly left of center there had been a local Indian sitting, but just before I took the picture he ducked out of sight (by falling out of his chair). The bartender had cut him off about 10 minutes earlier, seems as thought the bartender was a little late. The bartender then came over our table and said that tourists were welcome to come in and drink, but put the camera away. Seems as though this spot was the locals haven from the shutter clickin’ tourists.
Yukon gold is all placer gold, that is it is found as dust, flakes, or small nuggets in the gravel of stream beds. This is the kind of gold that the old miners used to pan for starting with the discovery of gold in 1897. When commercial (corporate) mining entered into the fray they used dredges like old number 4 here.
Dredging was a fascinating way to go for the gold, but it did scar the earth by leaving piles of rubble in its wake. You see this monster followed a stream bed by floating in a pond if its own making. It did this by eating up the ground in front of it, filtering out the loose gold, and then spitting the rocks out behind it. In this manner, it could move up a stream bed for miles, a few feet a day.
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