Day 13 - Klondike Spirit

The weather forecast for today seemed grim, with clouds and a 60% chance of precipitation (or "participation", as Sandra calls it).  Luckily we had a couple of bad weather options up our sleeve, the first of which was a visit to the Dawson City Museum, the largest museum in the Yukon.  Just as we got there we were pointed to the locomotive exhibition in an adjacent building, which is only opened three times a day (I'm not sure if they think someone is going to nick one of the exhibits).  There a chap dressed in period costume (I'm not sure which period, possibly very early 20th century) gave an informative talk on the four steam locomotives in the building, as well as their use in the period following the Gold Rush.  These engines had a relatively short use, as they were expensive to run and were soon replaced by sternwheelers and the road system.  They were mainly used to carry cordwood to huge boilers that had been built to inject steam into many square miles of permafrost in the area in order to melt it so that it could actually be dug up, until someone with a physics degree pointed out that the rate of cooling between two bodies is proportional to the temperature difference between them (think along the lines of warm water put out for the birds on a winter's day freezes quicker than cold water put out for the birds), so in pumping steam into the permafrost they were expending a ridiculous amount of energy, and all they really needed to do was pump cold water into it.  So no need for cordwood for the boilers, and another nail in the locomotives' coffins.

From there we went around to the back of the museum where we were given a demonstration of the sluice box method of retrieving gold from paydirt.  Again it's fascinating how the density of gold, being so much greater than the surrounding water, dirt and rocks enabled such a rough and ready method to collect so much of the precious metal with little or no waste.

Then we wandered around the museum itself.  To be honest, though interesting, it was telling us a lot of information we'd already picked up from a number of other sources; I guess we're becoming Gold Rush experts now.  What was unusual about the museum was that a lot of the mannequins used in the exhibits had faces and hands cast from actual Dawson City townsfolk.  What was doubly unusual was that often the hands and face on any one mannequin were from different people.  Now that's just plain weird.

Prior to going to the museum, and just after we'd finished breakfast, we attempted to book ourselves onto a river cruise on the Klondike Spirit, a paddleboat moored further up the river, that we'd walked past a few times already.  Now it appears that you don't get many tourists in this part of the world who are going it alone; most are affiliated to a tour party, and the biggest tour operator in these parts seems to be Holland America.  Holland America block books cruises on the Klondike Spirit, and a party of two from the UK trying to book a similar cruise seems an alien concept to many, including the 15 year old pimply youth at the booking station associated with our hotel.  It took him a while to grasp what it was exactly that we wanted to do ("You're... you're not with Holland America?"), and when he finally worked it out, it took him even longer to print out our confirmation and ticket on his ageing laser printer.  But at last, we had it, our ticket for the 1 pm sailing of the Klondike Spirit.

I didn't hold out much hope.

We left the museum just after noon, stopped off at the Bonanza Market to buy sandwiches for our boat trip (every business here seems to have one or more of the words "Bonanza", "Klondike", "Eldorado", "Gold Rush" or "Sourdough" associated with it), then headed down to the visitor information centre to pick up a leaflet about the drive to Beaver Creek we'll be taking on Friday.  We then crossed the road to where there was a building that had information about the Dempster Highway, which is on our itinerary for tomorrow.  It seems that this road to Inuvik is blocked at the moment north of Eagle Plains due to a washout.  How pleased was I that I'd decided not to drive to Inuvik: at best we wouldn't have been able to make it, at worst we'd have been trapped there, for the Dempster Highway is the only road in and out of that town.  I asked how long the repairs would take, and was told, "they'll be finished when they're finished, I guess".

It now being almost 1 pm, we walked over to where the Klondike Spirit was docked.  There was no one else there.  We waited a while but there was still no one else there, and by now it was even closer to 1 pm.  Gingerly we boarded the boat and found a man furiously text-messaging.  He looked surprised to see us.  I wasn't surprised at his surprise.  We told him we'd booked a ticket with our hotel for a cruise on this vessel, and he asked if we were with Holland America.  We told him we weren't, and said that nevertheless we'd still like to be part of his one o'clock sailing.  "But we don't sail until three o'clock," he said.  That was it, the pimply youth was off my Christmas list.  The text-messager assured us that our ticket would be valid at the 3 pm sailing, even though it had "1 pm" emblazoned on it.  "You'll be here at three, will you?" I asked.  "Haha, of course," he said.  "Haha," I said, not believing him in the slightest.

We disembarked and made our way along the river front to some picnic tables we'd spotted earlier in the week, and, with no sign of the 60% rain, we took off our coats and ate lunch in the sunshine.  It was beautiful.  So quiet, it makes us wonder how we will adjust to the pace of life back in England again.

After lunch we did a bit of souvenir shopping, then went back to the Klondike Spirit for sailing attempt number two.  Against all odds, Furious Text-Messager was there, and he remembered us.  A Swiss family turned up, talking to each other in their language which sounds like someone coughing in German.  And then, like a coach full of old, fat messiahs, the Holland America party showed up.  We all got on the boat (no one even looked at our ticket!), listened to the safety announcements read by a girl from Istonia into a muffled microphone through a PA system with the volume turned down to "1", and then we were off.

We followed the course of the Yukon for a little way, then turned and headed over towards the far bank where the sad and rotting corpse of an old sternwheeler lay.  Apparently there are other ruined boats like this dotted along the river, left there when their usefulness was over and there was no commercial viability in doing anything else with them.  We headed back the way we had come, fighting against the current (a sternwheeler could travel from Whitehorse to Dawson in just one and a half days, but Dawson back to Whitehorse would take four to five days, so strong is the current).  The town passed us by to port, but on the starboard side there seemed to be something odd in the hillside.  It was a Canadian flag.  The Istonian girl was mumbling something over the PA, but with the noise of engine it was impossible for me to hear her.  Suddenly, like sheep, all the Holland America people appeared and started taking pictures.  It was more than just a Canadian flag, it was a dwelling of some sort.  It turns out that this is where Caveman Bill lives, and has lived since 1996.  How fantastic.  Personally, if I'd chosen to live in a cave on the edge of the Yukon River, the last thing I'd want is a bunch of Holland America people taking pictures of my home.

The promised rain came then, and took the shine off the cruise.  We trudged past the confluence of the Klondike River, then turned and headed back to Dawson, docking just over 90 minutes after we'd set off.  By the time we'd got back to the hotel and showered, the sun had come out, so we sat out on the restaurant's deck area in the warm northern air, and I had elk stew and Sandra had salmon and chips.

We've pretty much done with the Gold Rush and the Klondike spirit that drove men to flock here in such numbers.  I thought it was perhaps a higher purpose that sent them here in search of gold, but the more I've read and the more I've discovered has convinced me that no, it was simple greed that called them here, and simple greed that called them away from this small town and on to Nome, Alaska where the next stampede occurred.

Tomorrow we're going to start the second stage of our holiday, getting more back to nature.  Walking boots at the ready...