Dawson City

In the summer of 1898 Dawson held perhaps thirty thousand people, most of whom had walked over a mountain pass and boated down the Yukon to get here, and for a moment it was the largest settlement west of Winnipeg. Almost all of them left within two years. What remains is a small town of around fourteen hundred where the streets are still dirt and the pavements still wooden boardwalks, kept that way deliberately, with false-fronted buildings leaning at angles as the permafrost beneath them shifts. Dredge No. 4, a wooden-hulled gold dredge eight storeys high, sits where it was abandoned in the creeks. Gold is still mined in the valleys, and you can pan for it yourself.

What you actually see

• The boardwalks and dirt streets - kept as they were, buildings leaning on permafrost.
• Dredge No. 4 - an eight-storey gold dredge left in the creek bed.
• The Midnight Dome - the hill above town, with the whole river confluence below.
• Panning the creeks - claims where visitors can work a pan themselves.

When to go

June to September is the season, with almost round-the-clock daylight at solstice and Discovery Day celebrated in mid-August. The Dempster Highway north starts here and is a summer proposition. Winter is dark and cold and most visitor businesses close.

Honest expectations

It is six hours from Whitehorse on a highway with few services, and getting there is most of the commitment. Many visitor operations run only from late May to early September. The town leans hard on the gold rush story and some of it is staged. The Dempster Highway beyond is gravel and hard on tyres.

Nearby

Tombstone Territorial Park is two hours up the Dempster; Whitehorse is six hours south.