“There are strange things done in the midnight sun, by the men who moil for gold…” Robert Service, The Cremation of Sam McGee (1904)
Dawson City, Yukon, Canada is the birthplace of the world famous Klondike Gold Rush which began as gold was found in local “Rabbit Creek” which is now known as “Bonanza Creek”. Dawson City was built in the wake of gold rush and is a classic boomtown (meaning it went from nothing, to huge and back to nothing in a very short amount of time). Dawson was founded in 1896 and by 1898 had a population nearing 40,000 but then just a few years later the population dwindled to 5,000.
Much of the City has been restored using vibrant colors and is remembered as a city of “wild excitements, misery, riches, debauchery, broken hearts, scurvy, frostbite and suicide.” At one point it was even considered lawless.
The city cleared out when it was announced that gold was found in Alaska.
Annually the city hosts the Yukon Gold Panning Championships.
Yukon Gold Panning Championships
July 1, 2009
Annual competitions open to “cheechakos” and professionals from the Yukon and around the world, with time trials and finals. Part of the Dawson City Canada Day celebrations. Visitors are welcome to enter. Contact the city at http://www.dawsoncity.ca/
My grandparents love to go gold panning, in fact growing up I remember them having a small baby food jar with a little bit of gold dust in creek water.
I loved to hear grandpa tell me how he panned for gold and found that when he was a little kid.
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