Yukon Register of Historic PlacesYRHP

Key elements which contribute to the heritage value of this site include:

- the setting on a flat of land bounded by the Klondike and Yukon rivers and bordered by hills;

- the grid street layout of the 1897-98 survey plot;

- townscape features of the 1896-1910 era including the orientation of lot lines and buildings, and the spatial relationship of built groupings of similar form, age and /or function within the townsite;

- the prevalence of boomtown facades, rough-and-ready (log, wood, metal and brick) finishing materials, and vernacular construction techniques, ad hoc additions, eclectic mix of Victorian and Edwardian components on buildings;

- early government buildings identified by the HSMBC, their distinctive forms, wood finishing materials, platform frame construction, and siting both as a government complex and distributed among other structures on the townsite (the Commissioner’s Residence, Old Post Office, Former Territorial Court House, Northwest Mounted Police Married Quarters, Old Territorial Administration Building);

- existing frontier buildings identified by the HSMBC in their original form, massing and materials (Daily News Building, Robert Service Cabin, Ruby’s Place, Caley’s Store, Klondike Thawing Machine Company, Billy Biggs’ Blacksmith Shop, Carnegie Library/Masonic Temple, Bank of British North America, Canadian Bank of Commerce, St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Yukon Hotel);

- landscape vestiges of the 1896-1910 era such as open public spaces, side and back yards, unpaved streets and boardwalks, railways;

- evidence of permafrost and the northern climate in shaping the town’s landscape;

- viewplanes from the flat of land that comprises the townsite to its defining natural features: the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, the Midnight Dome and surrounding hills, the Moosehide Slide.