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from Whitehorse along the Klondike Highway or arrive by river, like the stampeders did in the 1890s. The town sits just south of the Arctic Circle, with a population that swells in summer to around 2,000, though fewer than 1,500 people call it home year-round. It’ s the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else, and probably has at least one story involving a moose, a malfunctioning snowmobile, or a narrowly avoided hypothermic disaster.
Dawson’ s significance in Canadian history cannot be overstated. It was here, in 1896, that George Carmack, Skookum Jim, and Tagish Charlie discovered gold in Rabbit Creek, later renamed Bonanza Creek. What followed was one of the greatest gold rushes the world had ever seen. Within a year, Dawson swelled from a seasonal fishing and hunting camp used by the Tr’ ondëk Hwëch’ in First Nation to a chaotic frontier city of over 40,000 hopefuls, hustlers, and hucksters. Tents gave way to timber buildings, saloons operated around the clock, and fortunes were won and lost before breakfast.
Though the gold rush fizzled by the early 1900s, its spirit never really left. Walking through town today, the legacy is everywhere. Buildings lean with charming defiance against the shifting permafrost. The streets remain unpaved, and the sidewalks are still wooden boardwalks. The Downtown Hotel serves up the infamous Sour Toe Cocktail; a shot of whisky with a real human toe dropped in it.
“ You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch the toe,” they’ ll tell you, deadpan, before you knock it back. It’ s as much a rite of passage as a tourist stunt, and if you’ re squeamish, maybe best left as a spectator sport.
But Dawson isn’ t just about gimmicks. It’ s a deeply creative town, with a year-round population
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