July, 2018
From Whitehorse we have chosen the “road less traveled” as we head north to Dawson City on the Klondike Highway, and then over the “Top of the World Highway” to Chicken Alaska.
Beautiful scenery, very remote, but with waysides every 100-200kms, so there is always food, fuel and Yukon Territory campgrounds.
Dawson City is where the Klondike Goldrush in the 1890s happened. Clare hiked the Midnight Dome in 1965…we drove up!

Parks Canada has restored and manages about 15 sites in the area- one being Claim #6 on the Bonanza Creek just up from the Discovery Claim (the first one here), where we panned for gold.

To get here, most prospectors landed in Skagway and head to go over the Chilkoot Pass – 30-40 times to get the law required gear up to Bennet Mtn. (there are famous photos of the ice steps over the pass with hundreds of men packing gear up and over) 100,000 prospectors said they were going to the Klondike, 30,000 actually made it, and about 4,000 actually found gold! Dawson City peaked at 30,000 pop (2,000 now) and Grand Forks up on Bonanza Creek had 10,000!
After the small claim placer panning and sluicing was done, hydraulic mining took place and then the big companies with huge dredges took over. Check out this tailings pic:

That is on the Klondike River- the tailings stretch for 10km and are 1km wide in places. The river runs thrugh there somewhere.  Giant dredges did this well after the goldrush days of panning and small sluices.
We went to the local Saloon and Casino for the Can-Can Show

perhaps similar to the old days, probably tamer, but entertaining anyway. And we had a great dinner of local game sausage and artic char fish at one of the many restaurants.

There have been great wildflowers along the roadside for weeks and weeks, for miles and miles.

Mountain lupine is blooming here now.