Tuesday 23 July
We left the campground early to continue along the Taylor Highway, through Jack Wade Junction until we got to Boundary where we crossed the border into Canada, where we lost an hour due to the change in time zones. We continued on the Top of the World Highway until we got to West Dawson. We crossed the Yukon River on the car ferry into Dawson City. This was Chris and Ross’ favourite place in 1996.
We went to the Visitors Centre where we planned our activities for our time in Dawson. Mum visited the bathroom, went to wash her hands, and while turning the tap off, it came off in her hands, creating an indoor water feature which reached right up to the roof. As always, we definitely made our mark. We then checked into the Bonanza Gold RV Park where we had showers and then went out on our adventure.
First, we visited Dawson’s Palace Grand Theatre, once known as the “prettiest little theatre north of San Francisco”. Arizona Charlie Meadows opened the Palace Grand in 1899 and has been reconstructed since due to the wear and tear on the building caused by the permafrost, which is frozen ground the buildings are built on, which freezes in winter, and melts in summer, causing the buildings to move. We went to the show, ‘The Greatest Klondiker’ at 4pm where there were three past Klondike characters and as an audience, had to vote for our favourite, through stories and competitions. One of the activities required audience participation, and Josh and Dani were pointing at Mum to get them to pick her, but ‘George Carmack’, one of the Klondikers came up to Josh and said, “Oh I see we have a volunteer”. So Josh’s plan backfired on himself as he was selected to go up on stage.
Once this show was finished, we went around the Dawson Museum, which is in the Old Territorial Administration Building. It features the Kings of the Klondike and City Life Galleries, First Nation and pre-gold rush exhibits. The museum also houses a Courtroom which is also used as Council Chambers a couple of times a month.
We went on a ‘Then and Now’ Downtown Walking Tour at 6:30pm which was an hour and a half, taking us around the town highlighting the history of Dawson City through the eyes of past and present residents (wouldn’t recommend our tour guide). We were able to enter the old Bank, the old Post Office and the Red Feather Saloon buildings as part of the tour, where we were greeted by George Carmack from ‘The Greatest Klondiker’ show, which added to the experience as he talked about how it was back in his days. We headed back to the camper and cooked homemade burgers made out of squashed chicken meatballs in the carpark of the Visitor’s Centre.
We then headed to the Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall to watch a can-can style performance by Diamond Tooth Gertie and her Gold Rush Gals at 10pm. We enjoyed Gertie’s Garter and Klondike Kate’s cocktails during the show.
We headed down to the Downtown Hotel where we participated in one of the most disgusting things I have ever done. At the Sourdough Saloon in the Downtown Hotel, Ross, Chris, Tayla, and Danika each had a Sourtoe Cocktail, which dares you to down a shot featuring a real human toe at the bottom of the glass. Ross had bourbon and the girls had honey whiskey as it had to be 40% in order to sterilise the toe. He talked us over the rules; you must drink your shot and the toe must touch your lips to be awarded the certificate. If you swallow the toe, you will be fined $2,500 and are banned from the Downtown Hotel forever. People donate their toes from different causes, whether it be frostbite, diabetes, or deformities. While we were waiting in line, we definitely met some characters and had some good chats. Once we reached the front of the line, we sat down at a table with the Captain, who went through the ritual with us, quoting “You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch this gnarly toe”, before he put the toe in our drink. If we completed the challenge, we became a member of the Sourtoe Cocktail Club and gained a certificate. The toe that we had, was extremely long and was removed because it was deformed, which made more sense as to why it was so big! We all completed it and it definitely was not as bad as we thought! Why did we do it? Who knows. When in Rome, right?
As we felt like our walking tour didn’t give us as much information and history of the town, as we wanted, we also got the self-guided audio tour, which had 15 chapters. We each put our headphones on and drove around the town while listening to the narrator giving us some history about the town, which was very good. We decided to wrap it up for the evening and finish it in the morning, as it was getting late. We ended up getting to bed at 2am (this was 1am U.S. time which wasn’t as bad).
