July 18 - There's Gold in Them Thar Hills!

We decided to hang around in Dawson City for 3 nights.  Here's a view of the Bonanza Gold RV Park and our campsite from Midnight Dome - zoomed in about 42X on our Lumix camera.  Gosh, we even have a tree at this one!

One Monday, we set out for some gold panning on Bonanza Creek, which is where the gold discovery happened that started the 1900 or so Klondike Gold Rush.  First stop was Dredge No. 4.  This thing was really huge.  It floated in it's own pond, digging up rock and dirt in front, processing the gold out of it, then spitting it all out behind.  This dredge sat sunk in 18 feet of sediment and ice for many years, which actually preserved it well, before the government recovered it and put it on display.

Here's a view of the cockpit, where everything was controlled, and an old-time picture of the operators.

This is the big tumbler that everthing went into, washing the dirt and rocks.  The smaller stuff with the gold in it went through the holes.....

and into these sluice troughs where the gold was caught in matting.

There's more info on the dredge if you click here.

After taking the tour, we drove down to "Claim 6", which is owned by the Klondike Visitors Association.  Anyone can pan here and keep all the gold they find.

Lots of people came and went, trying to find a bit of gold.

We stayed for 4 or 5 hours, digging dirt from the side of the hill across the road, then washing it in the creek.  Fun, but we found out it was pretty back-breaking work.

All this for a few flakes of gold - not even enough to buy a cup of coffee.  But we'd do it again, and probably will in Alaska.

There are several claims along the creek, and with gold at over $1500 per ounce, people are really working them.  Around here they call it the "third gold rush".  Here's a couple spots where they were mining.