Dawson City is a town in the Canadian

territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, belonging or connected to a particular country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually a geographic area which has not been granted the powers of self-government, ...

Yukon Yukon () is a Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada’s we ...

. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–1899). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest municipality in Yukon.

History

Prior to the

late modern period In many periodizations of human history, the late modern period followed the early modern period. It began around 1800 and, depending on the author, either ended with the beginning of contemporary history in 1945, or includes the contemporary h ...

the area was used for hunting and gathering by the Hän-speaking people of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and their forebears. The heart of their homeland was

Tr'ochëk Tr'ochëk is the site of a traditional Hän fishing camp at the confluence of the Klondike River and Yukon River. Tr'ochëk lies on the upstream flat, an alluvial deposition of the Klondike River, at the river confluence. Dawson City is directly ...

, a fishing camp at the confluence of the

Klondike River The Klondike River () is a tributary of the Yukon River in Canada that gave its name to the Klondike Gold Rush and the Klondike region of the Yukon Territory. The Klondike River rises in the Ogilvie Mountains and flows into the Yukon River at ...

and

Yukon River The Yukon River is a major watercourse of northwestern North America. From its source in British Columbia, it flows through Canada's territory of Yukon (itself named after the river). The lower half of the river continues westward through the U.S ...

, now a

National Historic Site of Canada National Historic Sites of Canada () are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC), as being of national historic significance. Parks C ...

, just across the Klondike River from modern Dawson City. This site was also an important summer gathering spot and a base for

moose The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...

-hunting on the Klondike Valley. The current settlement was founded by

Joseph Ladue Joseph Francis Ladue (July 28, 1855 – June 27, 1901) was an American prospector, businessman and founder of Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. Ladue was born in Schuyler Falls, New York. His mother died when he was seven years old, and his father in 18 ...

and named in January 1897 after noted Canadian geologist

George M. Dawson George Mercer Dawson (August 1, 1849 – March 2, 1901) was a Canadian geologist and Surveyor (surveying), surveyor. He performed many early explorations in western North America and compiled numerous records of the native peoples. Biog ...

, who had explored and mapped the region in 1887. It served as Yukon's capital from the territory's founding in 1898 until 1952, when the seat was moved to

Whitehorse Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas ...

. Dawson City was the centre of the Klondike Gold Rush. It began in 1896 and changed the

First Nations First nations are indigenous settlers or bands. First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to: Indigenous groups *List of Indigenous peoples *First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...

camp into a thriving city of 16,000–17,000 by 1898. By 1899, the gold rush had ended and the town's population plummeted as all but 8,000 people left. When Dawson was incorporated as a city in 1902, the population was under 5,000. St. Paul's Anglican Church, also built that same year, is a National Historic Site. The downtown was devastated by fire in November 1897 (started when dance hall girl Dolly Mitchell threw a lamp at another girl in an argument), 1899 (started in the Bodega Saloon), 1900 (started at the Monte Carlo Theatre) and flooding in 1925, 1944, 1966, 1969 and 1979. The population dropped after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

when the

Alaska Highway Robert Service Cabin

Pierre Berton Pierre Francis de Marigny Berton, CC, O.Ont. (July 12, 1920 – November 30, 2004) was a Canadian historian, writer, journalist and broadcaster. Berton wrote 50 best-selling books, mainly about Canadiana, Canadian history and popular cultur ...

: Dawson City is home of the Berton House Writers' Retreat program, housing established Canadian writers for four three-month get-away-from-it-all subsidized residencies each year. Berton House was the childhood home of popular-history writer Berton. The program is now administered by the

Writers' Trust of Canada The Writers' Trust of Canada () is a registered charity which provides financial support to Canadian writers. Founded by Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Graeme Gibson, Margaret Laurence, and David Young (Canadian playwright), David Young; the W ...

. Berton narrated the 1957 film '' City of Gold'' which describes the excitement of Dawson City during the gold rush. He also wrote the book ''Klondike'', an historical account of the gold rush to the Klondike in 1896–1899. *

Martha Black Martha Louise Munger Black OBE (February 24, 1866 – October 31, 1957) was a Canadian politician. Black was the second woman elected to the House of Commons of Canada. Biography Martha was born in on February 24, 1866 in Chicago, Illinois ...

, the second woman elected to the

House of Commons of Canada The House of Commons of Canada () is the lower house of the Parliament of Canada. Together with the Monarchy of Canada#Parliament (King-in-Parliament), Crown and the Senate of Canada, they comprise the Bicameralism, bicameral legislature of Ca ...

, as a single mother in Dawson earned a living by staking gold mining claims and running a

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

and a gold ore-crushing plant. She later married George Black,

Commissioner of Yukon The commissioner of Yukon () is the representative of the Government of Canada in the Canadian federal territory of Yukon. The commissioner is appointed by the federal government and, in contrast to the governor general of Canada or the Lieuten ...

, and in 1935 was elected to the House of Commons for the riding of Yukon as an Independent Conservative taking the place of her ill husband. * Joseph W. Boyle, "Klondike Joe," entrepreneur, hockey organizer and adventurer. * Suzanne Crocker, documentary filmmaker. * John D. Ferry, chemist and biochemist, was born in Dawson in 1912 *

Lulu Mae Johnson Lulu Mae Johnson ( – October 25, 1918) was a dance-hall performer and hotelier in Dawson City, Yukon Dawson City is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–1899). Its populati ...

, manager of Dawson's dance hall in the early 1900s. She died on the

SS Princess Sophia SS ''Princess Sophia'' was a steel-built passenger liner in the coastal service fleet of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Along with , , and , ''Princess Sophia'' was one of four similar ships built for CPR during 1910-1911. On 25 October 19 ...

.''Lulu Mae Johnson'' at the ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''
/ref> *

Victor Jory Victor Jory (November 23, 1902 – February 12, 1982) was a Canadian-American actor of stage, film, and television. He initially played romantic leads, but later was mostly cast in villainous or sinister roles, such as Oberon in ''A Midsummer Ni ...

, actor of stage, film, and television, was born in Dawson in 1902 to American parents. *

William Judge Father William Judge (April 28, 1850 – January 16, 1899) was a Jesuit priest who, during the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush, established St. Mary's Hospital, a facility in Dawson City which provided shelter, food and any available medicine to t ...

, a

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest who during the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush established a facility in Dawson which provided shelter, food and any available medicine to the many hard-at-luck gold miners who filled the town and its environs. *

Jack London John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...

spent the late Autumn of 1897 and Spring of 1898 in Dawson. He spent part of the winter 1897–1898 in a cabin that was originally on Henderson Creek, a tributary of the Stewart River. In the 1960s, it was disassembled and moved to its present location adjacent to downtown Dawson. * Micí Mac Gabhann, an Irish language storyteller (

seanchaí A seanchaí ( or ; plural: ) is a traditional Gaelic storyteller or historian, serving as an oral repository. In Scottish Gaelic the word is (; plural: ). The word is often anglicised as shanachie ( ). The word , which was spelled (plural ...

) who lived in Dawson in 1897–98 and whose memoirs of the Klondyke Gold Rush ''Rotha Mór an tSaoil'' were published posthumously in 1959. * William Ogilvie, a Dominion land surveyor, explorer and Commissioner of the Yukon, surveyed the townsite of Dawson City and was responsible for settling many disputes between miners. *

Alexander Pantages Alexander Pantages (, ''Periklis Alexandros Padazis''; 1867 – February 17, 1936) was a Greek American vaudeville impresario and early film producer, motion picture producer. He created a large and powerful circuit of theatres across the Weste ...

, impresario, had his start in Dawson City. He opened a small theatre to serve the city. Soon, however, his activities expanded and the thrifty Greek went on and became one of America's greatest theatre and movie tycoons. *

Robert W. Service Robert William Service (16 January 1874 – 11 September 1958) was an English-born Canadian poet and writer, often called “The Poet of the Yukon" and "The Canadian Kipling". Born in Lancashire of Scottish descent, he was a bank clerk by trade ...

, known as The Bard of the Yukon for his famous poems " The Shooting of Dan McGrew", "

The Cremation of Sam McGee "The Cremation of Sam McGee" is among the most famous of Robert W. Service's poems. It was published in 1907 in ''Songs of a Sourdough''. (A "sourdough", in this sense, is a resident of the Yukon.) It concerns the cremation of a prospector who fr ...

" and many others which depicted the Gold Rush and the culture of the Klondike. Service was transferred to the Dawson branch of the Canadian Bank of Commerce in Dawson City in 1908. Then, he dwelt in a log cabin where he would pursue his writings with '' The Trail of 98''. *

Joe Vogler Joseph E. Vogler (April 24, 1913 – ) was an American politician and the founder of the Alaskan Independence Party. He was also chair or gubernatorial nominee during most of the party's existence. Originally known in his adopted hometown of Fa ...

, Alaskan politician, buried in Dawson. * Jan Eskymo Welzl was a Moravian adventurer, hunter, gold prospector, Eskimo chief and chief justice on

New Siberia New Siberia or Novaya Sibir (; , , ; ) is the easternmost of the Anzhu Islands, the northern subgroup of the New Siberian Islands lying between the Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea. Its area of approximately places it the 102nd largest islan ...

island and later a story-teller and writer. During his life in Dawson City he was called Perpetual Motion Man and was also known as an inventor. Books based on his stories were published in many countries all over the world. Buried in Dawson City. *

Black Mike Winage Michael "Black Mike" Winage (14 March 1870 – 15 March 1977) was a Serbian Canadian miner, pioneer and adventurer who settled in the Yukon towards the end of the Klondike Gold Rush and who allegedly lived to be 107 years old. Biography Born in ...

, a Serbian-Canadian miner, pioneer, and adventurer, who lived to be 107 years old, lived in Dawson City. * Weldy Young, professional hockey player for the

Ottawa Silver Seven The Ottawa Senators were an ice hockey team based in Ottawa, which existed from 1883 to 1954. The club was the first hockey club in Ontario, a founding member of the National Hockey League (NHL) and played in the NHL from 1917 until 1934. The c ...

Freedom of the City

The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the City of Dawson City.

Military Units

* The

Canadian Rangers The Canadian Rangers () are a sub-component of the Canadian Army Reserve under Canadian Armed Forces reserves that provides a limited military presence in regions of Canada where stationing conventional Army units would not be practical or eco ...

: 22 August 2022.

Notes

References

External links