Discovery Days

Ontario has civic holiday, we have Discovery Days (third Monday in August).

Gold was discovered in the Yukon territory on August 16, 1896. The discovery of placer gold on Rabbit Creek - later known as Bonanza Creek - touched off the great Klondike Gold Rush.

The discovery was made by George Carmack and his aboriginal friends Skookum Jim Mason and Tagish Charlie. While Carmack always maintained that he was the first to find gold, both Jim and Charlie agreed that it was Jim's discovery. The claim was registered the next morning on August 17.

At the height of the great Gold Rush, Dawson City -- named after George Dawson of the Geological Survey of Canada -- was the largest city west of Winnipeg and north of Seattle with a population of 30,000. Once the gold ran out, the adventurers moved on.

This Discovery Day, K & I visited the Old Log Church (it was free today) as well as the SS Klondike, the old paddlewheeler by the Yukon River.