Dawson City

The Hän-speaking people of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in fished and hunted here long before the town existed. The heart of their homeland was Tr'ochëk, a fishing camp where the Klondike River meets the Yukon, and a base for moose hunting in the valley. In 1896 George Carmack, Skookum Jim Mason and Tagish Charlie found gold on Bonanza Creek, and in January 1897 Joseph Ladue founded the present settlement, which was named after the geologist George M. Dawson. The stampede turned a First Nations camp into a town of 16,000 to 17,000 people by 1898, and Dawson became the capital of the new Yukon Territory.

The boom was brief. By 1899 all but about 8,000 people had left, and when Dawson was incorporated as a city in 1902 it had fewer than 5,000. Fires in 1897, 1899 and 1900 and repeated floods damaged the downtown. Industrial gold dredges reworked the creeks for decades, the last shutting down in 1966. After the Second World War the Alaska Highway bypassed the town far to the south, and in 1953 the capital moved to Whitehorse; through the 1960s and 1970s the population sat between 600 and 900.

Tourism and modern placer mining have revived the town since then. In 1978 builders digging under an old hockey rink uncovered hundreds of reels of silent-era film preserved by the permafrost, now known as the Dawson Film Find. In 2004 the territorial government removed the bankrupt town council, and elections returned in 2006. In 2023 the townsite became part of the Tr'ondëk-Klondike UNESCO World Heritage Site, and on 17 May 2026 a gold rush-era hotel was destroyed by fire.

Dawson's identity rests on the gold rush and the writers who told its story. Jack London spent the winter of 1897–98 in the area and set stories such as The Call of the Wild in the Klondike; his cabin was later moved to town. Robert Service, whose Yukon poems such as "The Cremation of Sam McGee" made him the Bard of the Yukon, was posted here as a bank clerk in 1908, and the historian Pierre Berton grew up here — his childhood home is now a retreat for Canadian writers run by the Writers' Trust of Canada. The 1957 documentary City of Gold, narrated by Berton, won a prize at Cannes.

The Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in are a self-governing First Nation with their government in Dawson, and Indigenous people make up about a third of the town. In 2024 town councillors declined to swear allegiance to the King, in solidarity with a First Nations councillor-elect who refused in protest at the monarchy's historic relations with First Nations. The Yukon School of Visual Arts, a university-level art programme, gives the town a strong artistic community.

Entertainment keeps a gold rush flavour, from the vaudeville shows at Diamond Tooth Gertie's to the Sourtoe Cocktail, served with a real mummified human toe. Sport has its legend too: in 1905 the Dawson City Nuggets travelled to Ottawa by dog sled, ship and train to challenge for the Stanley Cup and lost by a combined 32 goals to 4.

About 1,600 people lived in Dawson at the 2021 census, a rise of nearly 15 per cent since 2016, making it the second-largest municipality in Yukon after Whitehorse. Tourism and gold mining are the main industries. Placer miners have worked the creeks continuously, and since 2016 large mining companies have invested in exploration across central Yukon, including the Coffee project south of the town.

The year has two rhythms. In summer the town fills with visitors, seasonal workers and miners, the ferry runs across the river and the shows and tours open. In winter the population settles, many businesses close, and the river is crossed by an ice bridge. Power comes mainly from the territorial hydroelectric grid, connected in 2004, with diesel generators as a backup, and fibre internet arrived in 2021.

Life is small-town: one school, the Robert Service School, runs from kindergarten to Grade 12, and the local newspaper, the Klondike Sun, comes out every two weeks. The town is built on permafrost, and leaning houses show how thawing ground can shift buildings — a growing worry for its infrastructure as the climate warms.

Food in Dawson follows the North as a whole: much of what is eaten is trucked a long way, and restaurants lean on hearty dishes, local game and fish. The Klondike prospectors kept sourdough starter alive through the winter, and long-time residents are still called sourdoughs. Bannock, a simple pan-fried or baked bread, is eaten across the territory.

For the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, food has long come from the land and river: salmon from the Yukon River, caribou from the Fortymile and Porcupine herds, moose, small game, and plants and berries. That tradition continues in country food shared among families.

Drinking is part of the gold rush theatre. Diamond Tooth Gertie's serves local beers alongside its shows, and the town's best-known drink is the Sourtoe Cocktail, a drink served with a mummified human toe in a downtown bar. The toe was stolen in 2017 and soon returned by post with a written apology.