Dawson Historical Complex was designated a national historic site of Canada for its association with the full extent (1896-1910) and impact of the Klondike Gold Rush.

The heritage value of Dawson Historic Complex National Historic Site of Canada is embodied in its evocation of the time and place of the Klondike Gold Rush, which is conveyed by the surviving natural and built landscape features. Of particular value are the outlines of the original townsite survey, and the wide range and occasional concentration of frontier structures, which confirm the town’s early nature, diversity, northern isolation, and links to mining activity during the 1896-1910 period. Since the 1960s, Parks Canada has conserved and presented many of the buildings in the town, laying the foundation for its re-incarnation as a tourism venue.

Sources: Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Minutes, November 1959;

Commemorative Integrity Statement, September 1997.

Character Defining Elements

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.

Cultural History

In August 1896, gold was discovered on Rabbit Creek, later named Bonanza. When word reached the outside world, the Klondike Stampede began. Over 100,000 people started out for the Klondike goldfields and some 30,000 actually reached Dawson City in the summer of 1898.

A modern community quickly emerged at the junction of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers. Dawson City became the supply and service centre for the miners and was capable of providing the newcomers with all that they needed from champagne to oranges.

Dawson City, the heart of the Klondike, was named for Dr. George Mercer Dawson, a Canadian government geologist. A trading post on a mud flat at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, Dawson mushroomed in a single season to become a sprawling boom town, made up of log and frame buildings, and tents. In 1898-9, at the height of the rush, the itinerant population of Dawson was estimated between 20,000 and 30,000, making it the largest community west of Winnipeg and north of Seattle.

The decline of Dawson City was almost as rapid as its rise. With the development of industrial mining, the days of the individual miner were over and the population declined. Those who stayed remained optimistic. Dawson's survival as a community was the result of years of mining activity by the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation and its fleet of dredges. Nonetheless, the town and the economy continued to erode slowly over the decades.

Source: https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/yt/klondike/culture/lhn-nhs-dawson

Documentation Location

National Historic Sites Directorate, Documentation Centre, 5th Floor, Room 89, 25 Eddy Street, Gatineau, Quebec