Our next stop after Top of the World was Dawson City.  The only way to get across the Yukon River at Dawson is by a free ferry.  One small ferry running with lots of rv’s needing to get across means a long wait.  We’ve been on quite a few ferries with our trailer so no big deal.  But it sure makes me wonder why they’ve never built a bridge.

A junk truck.

This is Steve and Kathy.  We meet them about a month ago in the campground where John and another camper played music at the communal campfire.  They were telling us about their gold claim in Dawson City and told us if we came through there, they would take us on a tour of their claim.  So we contacted them and they spent a good part of a day showing us back country claims including their own.  They were quite entertaining.

This is one of their pieces of equipment.  I forget what it’s called but he uses it to dig up the dirt to get to the area where the gold is.

This is their dredge.

I didn’t get a picture but they also have a large dozer.  Kathy does most of the dozer work moving around the tailings (the rocks that are left after mining).  She is quite a woman who loves the mining as much as her husband.  Of course, the big nuggets made into rings didn’t hurt.  They were awesome hosts and it was fun to hear the story of how they got into gold mining.

And then there’s the town of Dawson.  The best way to describe it is it might have been the model for old school Knotts Berry Farm.  The streets are just dirt.  There are crooked buildings due to the permafrost.  There is a saloon where a piano player played awesome ragtime.  It’s like stepping back in time.

A crooked building.

A crooked old church.

Doesn’t every town have a pink hotel?

The view of the town and the Yukon River from Dome Mountain.

Here’s a few interesting rigs in the campground.  The vehicle on the right was shipped over from Switzerland by the owners.  We were surprised by the number of Europeans who ship their vehicles over and travel around.  And they are very different from our rvs.  The two on the left were tiny trailers that opened up into tents.  They were pulled by three-wheeled motorcycles.  You see all sorts of interesting people in places like this.

And, finally, just a typical scene from the road.