Dawson City, Yukon is the heart of the world-famous Klondike Gold Rush. In August of 1896, three Yukon "sourdoughs", George Carmack, Dawson Charlie, and Skookum Jim found gold in Rabbit Creek, now called Bonanza Creek, and changed the history of the Yukon forever. Their discovery triggered what was argueably the world's greatest gold rush stampede as nearly 100,000 souls yearned to strike it rich in the Klondike gold fields. By 1898, Dawson City was a modern city of nearly 40,000, situated upon a muddy moose pasture
the place doesnt look like its changed much at all except its maybe a bit quieter, the roads are dirt and the pavements are boardwalks, it realy feels like your walking round in a movie set or something. and its not so "restored" as skagway so you get a real feel for how it used to be back in the day. we did a city tour a couple of days ago and a guy asked if one of the buildings was original and the tour guid said yep original, built in 1898, he was amazed by this and how old it was and i thought wait a minute MY house is that old! lol funny how americans history isnt realy that old when you think about it
our lunchtime stop at moose creek, food and staff were good, the amount of mosquitos in the place was not!! 2 people there having lunch came up to me and said, "wernt you on the ferry to skagway" its funny how we keep bumping into people, lol
debbie all packed up and heading to the hostel
the hostel we were staying at was over the yukon river, only way across is by free ferry that runs as part of the highway, back and forth 24 hours a day
sign for the hostel
the entrance to the hostel sight
our home for the next 9 days, cabin number 3. its a pretty good deal at $41 a night but there's not running water or electricity but its a pretty cool place. and its run by a funny german man called dieter, who's lovely
this is our drinking water, dieter trucks it in from the town, not sure where he gets it but when we went to try and find the pool that was on the tourist map it was gone, we think he stole all the water, we even think it tastes like ppol water, lol
this is the ladies toilet facilities
this is where we wash our hands and have a bath in creek water
this is a demonstration (fully clothed you'l be glad to hear) of how we have a bath here
first make a fire and heat the water in this barrell
then you mix the hot water with the cold water in a bucket as demonstrated by the lovely debbie
then you pour the warm water over yourself with a jug, splish splash, its actualy good fun, debbie even admitted to enjoying it, gasp!!!
if you want you can sit on one of the little stools, we didnt while bathing, i mean naked people have been sitting on them, yuk
there's lots of cool stuff round the hostel, ths is an old sign from diamond tooth gerties, famous gambling hall here
this is where we keep our food
me in the kitchen, we have so far managed to make quite a few dinners on the outdoor stove, altho starting a fire in this heat seems crazy to me!! debbie has discovered i have a hidden talent to chopping firewood, being brought up on a farm comes in handy sometimes
my handy work
cooking dinner, so hot trying to stir your food esp since its so hot anyway!
debbie putting her feet up while i do all the hard work!!
another succeful dinner acomplished
and another
debbie braving the heat of the stove to stir the dinner
we'v been keeping nice and slender with our morning workouts at the hostel gym
doing our shopping with our wee wheelie basket
well i think il leave it there for today, im all blogged out and debbies getting bored, so i think we'r gona head to the general store and buy some stuff for our last out door dinner in dawson, its a bit cooler today so the fire should be fine. stay tuned for pics from around the city soon. we'r flying to vancouver tomoro and i think we'r going to stay there for about 5 days, so plenty blogging chances :)
