Friday, August 5, 2016

Dawson City, AK - To Light a Fire

It rained all last night and all today until about 4:30 pm. Our raincoats have become our constant companions. Because we got in so late last night, we relaxed in the RV until 1:00 and then headed out. Well, relaxed is a relative term. Gary did laundry, I cleaned the windows on the RV - might as well use this natural water. I don’t want to look through mud dribbles. Boy, do I look focused on the task at hand.
20160805-IMG_9272-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
OK, now let’s go. Our first stop was the Klondike cabin of a gold rusher, Jack London. Now we learned a lot about Jack London when we were in San Francisco and visited his ranch about an hour north of SF. But, here is Dawson City is a cabin that he lived in the year he was up here prospecting for gold. Here’s a picture of the cabin now. Note the bottom two logs - those are original logs. (A cache that most miners and hunters had is also here though it is not London’s.)
20160805-IMG_9295-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
The rest of the logs were sent to Oakland, CA for another cabin to celebrate his life and works. If you really want to study Jack London, you’ve got to visit all three places.

Here is the cabin as it was found on his deeded site. Eventually, it was then brought to Dawson City for display and a museum was also opened.
20160805-IMG_9293-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
We listened to a docent tell of his life here in Dawson City. London was out of work, his short stories had all come back ‘rejected’ and he heard about the Klondike gold rush in 1897. He borrowed money from his sister, boarded this boat and came up. He landed in Skagway and with all the other miners, bought the 2000 lbs. of supplies required by the Canadian Mounties before they would let anyone into Canada and began his trek to Dawson City. He joined 3 other men who all helped each other get their supplies over the Chilcoot Trail, build a boat to ferry them down the Yukon and into the Klondike territory. He found a cabin on Henderson Creek, took possession, filed a claim and began to work it. Here’s a picture showing London who is the 2nd from the left in the right hand group of men. He looks much younger than the rest and he probably was.
20160805-IMG_9299-2-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
Since the gold miners ate mostly the 3 b’s: bacon, beans and bannock (an unleavened bread - you know, flour, water and baking soda - yum-m-m) many developed scurvy. London’s was so bad that he could hardly walk and had to leave the Yukon for home in California.

Here’s a recipe for Bannock for you. Maybe if you add some sugar? Fruit compote? Honey? Anything.
20160806-IMG_0261-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
However, he left his cabin which was found much later, after he became famous. How do we know it was his cabin? Well, his name was scratched in one of the logs, it was on his claim and he mentioned it in a letter to a friend. Good presentation and we then looked at all the pictures there in the room. The originals are in museums elsewhere, protected, but we got to see these copies.

Here’s an applicationo for a placer mine on the Henderson Creek, where his cabin was found. His signature is in the lower right.
20160805-IMG_9303-2-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
Although his stay in the Klondike was brief, it had a major influence on his writing. By the time he died at the age of 40, he was a successful, world famous author with such stories as: ‘The Call of the Wild’, ’To Build a Fire’ and ‘White Fang’ among his best known works.

Then we tried to visit the Dawson City Museum but the tickets were $7.00 for one day. It was 4:15 and the museum closed at 6:00. We’ll go tomorrow and thought we’d just wander through Dawson City this afternoon. By chance our walk took us by a corner building with an open door. Let’s go in. Inside were lots of pictures about the early days of Dawson City. What a find. Pictures along with quotes from people who lived there during the gold rush. Very nicely done . And, here are some of the pictures that I got. I’ll let you read the quotes yourself.

The Klondike Gold Rush started when these 3 men found some gold in the area.
20160805-IMG_9352-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg

20160805-IMG_9351-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
When those in the lower 48 heard about this they all began to ‘rush’ up to Alaska. However, it took them about a year to get to the Dawson City area and, by this time, those who had already been prospecting in Alaska had already claimed most of the good territory. Very few found any gold and most returned to the lower 48 poorer and wiser
Here are some miners at dinner. Fine dining it wasn’t.
20160805-IMG_9313-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg

20160805-IMG_9312-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
Here’s Dawson City at the turn of the century. Note all the tents along the waterside. Dirt streets, little sanitation, impure water. And prices were pretty steep as they were in all gold rush towns.
20160805-IMG_9316-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
These streets are definitely not paved with gold.
20160805-IMG_9311-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
The order was kept by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Dawson City was quite tame compared to other towns.
20160805-IMG_9315-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
However, as Dawson City grew and business men with families came up, the town attained a more civilized look.
20160805-IMG_9321-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
Churches, ladies’ clubs, libraries all bespoke of a growing city.
20160805-IMG_9322-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
The streets look a lot better than those several pictures above.
20160805-IMG_9324-2016-08-5-22-22.jpg
This little museum that we just happened upon had lots more about the history of Dawson City in pictures and quotes and was really interesting and well done.

But it’s getting late, the rain has stopped for a bit and we can get home, maybe, without getting wet.

No comments:

Post a Comment