Dawson City (5 June)


Dawson City seems much bigger than suggested by a population of a bit over 2,000 people. Only Front Street is paved but many of the other streets have board walks, especially in the commercial areas.  Most houses are on piles made of two pieces of wood (about 15x15cm) and then another two pieces at right angles and so on. We spoke with a builder who was restoring a place and he said that it was because of the permafrost. The piles would sink but every few years they just jacked the house up a bit, levelled it, and put in another layer of wood to hold it there. The more expensive alternative was to dig holes about 4 meters deep to get below the permafrost, put in a broad base and then pile up from there.

There are numerous new buildings, many of them hostels or hotels. The girl in the (ordinary) cake shop told us that they are full through the summer as workers come in for the mines, service industries, tourism, and government.

Jack London, author of Call of the Wild and White Fang, is revered in Dawson City, which surprises us given that he came for the Klondike gold rush, didn’t find gold, and stayed only one year before returning to California.  There is a Jack London log cabin in the city and we visited, to find that it isn’t really his cabin but a replica, made with a range of recovered materials, some of which came from his actual cabin somewhere out of town.


In the evening we joined our group for dinner at the Drunken Goat Greek Restaurant. It was easily the best meal out we’ve had since beginning this trip. Our travel mates tried a range of dishes and universally agreed that the food excelled. We opted for a platter for two with pita bread, dolmarie, spanakopita, prawns, Greek salad, garlic rice and a few other items. It was delicious and we were unable to eat it all so took a parcel of the remains with us.  After dinner we visited Diamond Toothed Gerties. The drinks were cheap because they wanted people to gamble, so we had drinks, didn’t gamble and watched the can-can girls. It was good fun.
 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas

Image
Our big adventure started with a flight from Auckland to Las Vegas. We are staying in Sam's Town Hotel and Casino. Its marvelous. So kitsch. There are 2,600+ one-arm bandits, roulette and other tables,  betting on sports across 60 screens showing everything - horse racing, dogs, NBA, etc. There's a bowling alley, multiplex cinema, shows, a pool, conference rooms, oodles of restaurants including a 24 hour McDs. The atrium has real trees and other plants, running water through an impressive 3 story waterfall, and fake but animated animals - bear, mountain lion, woodpecker, squirrel, eagle, deer, etc. Its as close as some of the people here will get to nature. It's easy to be appalled but we're enjoying seeing Trump's America; it's great - again 😁. Tomorrow we take a shuttle and check out the strip. We don't pick up the motorhome until May 3.
Read more

Las Vegas to Beatty via Death Valley

Image
We set off at 8.00 this morning, taking about an hour to clear the traffic lights and traffic but we were soon in desert. The first picture shows us at a morning tea stop.  In true western style, there was also a horse at this stop although it arrived in a truck. We eventually arrived at the visitor centre at Furnace Creek in Death valley. As the photo shows, it was 103degrees Fahrenheit (39.5C). It's a fascinating area with a strong recent history of mining for gold and other minerals (we visited an abandoned borax mine). It has also been full of characters and stories, some of which are believable. This was a wagon used to pull out borax with a 20 mule team. We visited Rhyolite, an old abandoned ghost town (there are even sculptures of ghosts) where gold was found in 1904, a town established in 1905 and had between 5,000 and 8,000 residents in 1908 before the mines went bust. The population had dropped to 14 in 1920. Death Valley is stunning. The land form...
Read more

Motorhome

Image
On Thursday we went to collect our motorhome. It's made in America and very different from the more commonly seen European styles in New Zealand. The decor, floor plan, finish and style are quite different. We have an island bed (yippee) and there is also a slideout. That is, when we park we can push part of one side out about 50 cm giving us more space. Actually, "we" don't push it out; we just press a button and it happens. After collecting the motorhome and getting told how to manage it we went to Walmart for some groceries and then to Arizona Charlies where we stayed overnight. There are five motorhomes in our group with the operators in one that they own and an Australian couple and two other New Zealand couples as well as us.    
Read more