July 13th, 2018
Today was a very busy and fantastic day! Yesterday, I heard about a sternwheeler graveyard that is near the campgrounds where I am staying. So, this morning after I had breakfast I took a hike along the waterfront and sure enough, I came across the graveyard! It was awesome!! There were seven in the graveyard, but can only view four of them.
I walked around them and counted three, and according to the map there were more further down the beach. I walked another kilometre through thick brush and did not come across any others at all. On the way back, I was approached by a young couple from Regina who were also looking for the other sternwheelers. It turned out that there were four in the vicinity and not just three. When I returned to the campground, I asked the park attendants about them and they indicated that the others have pretty much deteriated.
I had a quick lunch and then made my way to Dredge #4. What a monster of a machine, such ingenuity to have built this at the turn of the century. Impressive! The tour was quite informative and gives you an insider perspective to how they made it work … wow!
There were 6 of these monster machines built in the area around 1903. Each one cost about $500,000.00 to build, but they made that money back in one year. They float in a man-made hole full of water and dig the dirt in front allowing for it to continually move forward about 10 feet at a time. It moved forward by a winch that cabled dead trees ahead of it.
The buckets below were joined together and each one weighs about 2 ton ... add a shovel of rocks and dirt it equates to about 2.5 ton. Wow!
This is the cable system used to move the main bucket units.
This was the main control room and the one person in here actually controlled the entire movement of the Dredge! You have to know what each pull unit was for. LOL
The view from the main control room.
This is a photo that was on the wall showing where the Dredge #4 sat in the bog and was filled with muck up to the third level. After moving it just a few yards from its location to a little higher ground, Parks Canada worked two long summers cleaning it out.
This is what the dredge pile looks like after it has gone through the Dredge. This was a pile left from the Dredge #4 above in the early 1900's.
I drove further up the gravel road and stopped at the historic site where gold was first discovered in Bonanza Creek. It was quite interesting how it was found. …
Continuing further down the gravel road, I came across a working gold mine on top of a hill. For a little history lesson, in the 1800’s were the true gold panners who used pick and pan, in 1901 to 1960’s were the Dredge machines [they had 6 of them in the area] and when gold prices fell the mining companies just left everything, and after the 1960’s was the use of bulldozers and backhoe’s along with all the other similar machinery that was used in the past (except the Dredge machine). As was indicated that the number 1 need to find gold in this area is, water.
After watching them work on the hill, I started my drive back and stopped at the Free Gold Panning Site. There were a number of people panning gold here and you need your own equipment. They certainly looked like they were having fun.
I then headed off to my next tour with Parks Canada. This is a new tour which takes you into Bear Creek Ghost Town. The tour was spent visiting the old machine shop and the place where they refined gold into bars. This was an interesting tour, but I wanted to see the old buildings of the town. The guide indicated there were over 60 buildings in the area. It was a good tour.
In the Machinery Building all the tools and equipment were left there. The reason for this is that the mining company did not wish to move all the equipment as it had no further use for them. The town of Bear Creek was actually a working town built to make all the necessary parts for the Dredges and also to refine the gold into bricks. This was in operation from the 1903 (approx.) to the 1960's when they shut down operation because gold prices plummeted.
This is the building where the gold was processed into the bricks. They had bars on the doors and the windows.
After the tour I went up a side road and walked through the woods. I came across some of the old building that were also part of Bear Creek ghost town.
After taking a lot of photo’s, I started to walk back on this gravel road to the truck. A lad of about 35 stopped and asked if Charlie was home. I indicated I was just taking photo’s of the old buildings in the area. I asked him if he knew where there were some old vehicles still around to take photo’s. He mentioned one gentleman I could talk to about that. He then said for me to go up this side path and I would see some of the old machinery to take photo’s of and he invited to drive me to the path entrance. In talking to him, his family moved to Yukon in the late 1800’s and have been here ever since. He was quite the young gentleman and dropped me off at the entrance. I was not to be disappointed as not only did I get some nice photo’s of machinery, but also got photo’s of some old wagons that were left in the woods. Awesome!!!
I headed back over to the other side of Yukon River and drove up to get another panoramic of Dawson where it was such a fine evening.
A long day of walking through the woods, but it was very rewarding to say the least. Saw such amazing sites and met some nice people. An amazing day in the Yukon!