Canada Guide
The North
Dawson City
Few episodes in Canadian history have captured the imagination like the Klondike gold rush, and few places have remained as evocative of their past as DAWSON CITY (pop. 1772), the stampede's tumultuous capital. For a few months in 1898 this former patch of moose pasture became one of the wealthiest and most famous places on earth, as something like 100,000 people struggled across huge tracts of wilderness to seek their fortunes in the richest gold field of all time.
An ever-increasing number of tourists and backpackers are drawn here to explore the boardwalks, rutted dirt streets and dozens of false-fronted wooden houses; others come to canoe the Yukon or travel down the Dempster or Top of the World hwys into Alaska and the Northwest Territories. After decades of decline Parks Canada is restoring the town, now deservedly a National Historic Site. That said, in a spot where permafrost buckles buildings, snow falls in August, and temperatures touch -60°C during winters of almost perpetual gloom, there's little real chance of Dawson losing the gritty, weather-worn feel of a true frontier town. Small-time prospecting still goes on, and there are one or two rough-and-ready bars whose hardened locals take a dim view of sharing their haunt, let alone their gold, with coachloads of tourists.