The Yukon: A Brief Photo Tour

Today's post has some of my favorite photos from the wild and scenic Yukon Territory of Canada.  It is a wonderful place for a vacation.  It is so popular with German tourists that there are non-stop flights from Frankfurt to Whitehorse.  The Japanese are also common visitors to the Yukon.

 

Map from the Yukon Travel website.  The site is an excellent website for planning a trip to the Yukon.  The link is below.

 

Source of Map Yukon Travel Website

 

 

Plaque memorializing the early prospectors making their way over Chilkoot Pass.

Helicopter with the Yukon River in the background, fire weed, placer gold nuggets mined by modern-day, small miners, and abandoned exploration and mining equipment (1970's Ford Bronco).

 

 

Photo of large landslide on the south side of Little Salmon Lake between Carmacks and Faro (photo date August 7, 2012).  Oblique view of landslide from Google Earth (lower left),  vertical Google Earth image (north is up).  The arrow shows the approximate location and direction of the photo of the landslide taken from Highway 4.  Google Earth images from 2004 through 2008 show that the slide develop and moved over a 5-year period.

 

 

The beauty of the Yukon and a bear footprint next to a rock hammer.

  

Majestic mountains in the southeastern area of the Yukon looking towards the Northwest Territories.

 

The Yukon River at sunset.

 



Gold Rush, Yukon - Some Photos From My Visits

This post is for the fans of the show Gold Rush on the Discovery Channel,

Last Friday (January 22, 2015) I watched a new episode of the Gold Rush series on the Discovery channel.  I was amazed to see footage of an abandoned gold dredge on Thistle Creek a tributary of the Yukon River.  What was amazing is that I first visited the dredge in 2009.  The dredge is located about 100 kilometers south of Dawson City of Klondike fame.  One of the main characters in the TV series is Tony Beets.  He has purchased the dredge and plans to get it up and running later this year.  He has already refurbished another dredge in the Klondike and it is producing placer gold.  The Thistle dredge only operated for about 5 years during the 1940's.  It will be great to see it brought back to life.  Tony Beets, best of luck with your venture!



Helicopter photo of the Thistle dredge from the TV episode.



Tony Beets flying to Thistle Creek.



Jack Hoffman and some of the Discovery film crew at the Dawson airport in 2010.



Helicopter photos of the gold dredge at Thistle Creek.



Photos of the dredge and visitors that was taken in 2009.  The visitors are geologists (the writer is the third person from the right).  The lower left is looking at the controls in the wheel house and abandoned dredge buckets (lower right).



Small scale placer mining in the White Gold District, Yukon.



Local wildlife and fauna.

A humorous warning on bears in Canada.

Best regards from Reno!

A Photo Excursion to the Klondike Gold Fields, Yukon

The Klondike Gold Fields of the Yukon Territory have had an estimated placer gold production of 20 million ounces of gold.  The Yukon and Skagway, Alaska, are the location of the last major gold rush.  Since my first trip to the Yukon in November 2008, I have had several more trips including one in June of 2015.  The Yukon is a great region for tourists with hunting and fishing, site seeing, beautiful and rugged mountains, great rivers, wonderful restaurants in Whitehorse and Dawson City.  It is now a very popular destination for German, French and Asian tourists.

There has been considerable information written on the Klondike, so this is merely an introduction to the excitement of the Klondike Gold Rush and the scramble from Skagway to the Klondike from 1897 to 1900.

On the night August 16, 1986, gold was discovered by Skookum Jim , Taghish Charley, Shaaw Tiaa , and George Washington Carmacks (husband of Shaaw Tiaa).  The gold nuggets were found in Rabbit Creek, later renamed Bonanza Creek.  Carmacks and the others staked claims on the discovery.  The claims were filed at Forty Mile on the Yukon River north of the Klondike.  Carmacks also spread the news of their discovery.  Many more prospectors staked claims on Bonanza Creek and the surrounding area.

The placer gold was deposited in the drainage of the Klondike River, White Channel Gravel (Pliocene conglomerates with round pebbles and cobbles of white vein quartz), and in the modern channels of Bonanza and Eldorado Creeks.  The placer deposits of Bonanza and Eldorado Creeks are some of the richest in the world.

The enigma of the the Klondike is that a lode gold source for the placer gold has yet to be discovered.  There are only modest lode gold deposits in the bedrock of the Klondike Gold Fields.


Embroidered patch for the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park.



Stampeders packing their supplies over Chilkoot Pass near Skagway.

Satellite image of the Klondike District.

Dawson City with the Yukon River (left) and Klondike River (right) looking north.

Dawson City looking south.



Dredge tailings placer mining along the Klondike River (looking westerly).

White Channel Gravel overlying Klondike Schist (black rocks.)

Open cut mining of the White Channel Gravel.

Quartz veins in the Klondike Schist.

Gold nuggets from the Yukon.



Gold nugget formed from an aggregate of gold grains and quartz grains.



Gold dredge on Thistle Creek south of the Klondike District.

Drag line excavator on Thistle Creek, it was brought to the Yukon after it was used to build the Panama Canal.

Three abandoned river boats on the banks of the Yukon River.

Riverboat on the Yukon at Dawson City 2015.

Sourdough geoscientist from Alaska and a statue of "Kleopatra" from the Dawson Museum.

A Yukon sunset.



The following books on the Klondike are great reads...

• The Illustrated Robert Service, 2006, distributed in Canada by PR Services Ltd., Whitehorse, Yukon, 1-866-648-4144.  Great poems by Robert Service and historic photos of the Klondike Gold Rush.
• The Klondike Quest a Photographic Essay 1897-1899, Pierre Berton, 2005, The Boston Mills Press, 239p. Excellent text and photos of the Klondike experience.
• The Streets were Paved with Gold, Stan Cohen, 2001(first printing 1977), Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., Inc., 202 p.  Mostly photographs, but also includes historic maps and newspaper articles on the Klondike discovery.
• The Call of the Wild, Jack London with illustrations by Philippe Munch, 1996 (story first published in 1903), Penguin Books USA Inc., 126 p.  This is the classic story of the Klondike by Jack London.  This edition is beautifully illustrated with colored drawings and historic photographs.

The Yukon and Dawson City are worthy of your "bucket list."