The quest for gold begins! After arriving in Dawson City, by water, by road or by air, many people believe their journey is over, but the true Klondike is not only in Dawson City. Visit the Klondike Gold Fields where thousands of people journeyed in search of gold. Try your search for gold at our adventure camp in the heart of the Klondike.

Sourdough Lifestyle!

Enjoy a part of Canada's Yukon and experience how the sourdough pioneers lived and mined for gold. You have the freedom to roam through eight placer gold claims, all in a row along the right fork of Hunker Creek. Our claims are 1150 meters (3800 feet) in total length and 600 meters (2000 feet) wide. Within these claims you may search and pan for gold and keep whatever gold you find. Yes! Whatever gold you find!

Enjoy A Relaxed Klondike Holiday!

We welcome 'drop-in' gold panners should you want to pan for one hour, or part of a day. You may also wish to stay in our comfortable 'kitchenette-style' canvas wall tents and enjoy the quiet, relaxed setting of the Hunker Creek valley. Bring your own food, do your own cooking and experience a Sourdough camp lifestyle. Reserve for one night or longer. From our camp you can look at Klondike artifacts, explore historical areas like King Solomon's Dome, Bonanza Creek and the Gold Dredges or view modern day operating gold mines from a distance.

Hike or mountain bike along the historic Ridge Road Trail to Dawson City. Throughout the Gold Fields you will find the remainder of the Klondike Mines Railway and miles of hand dug ditches where miners diverted water to wash away gravel and sluice their gold. You can look at old cabins that were once the homes of the Stampeders and still find the remainder of their activities. The Klondike is an explorer's paradise of Gold Rush history, but please respect this history. Photograph and leave what you find.

Learn about the engineering marvels that miners used after the Gold Rush, during the days of the gold dredges until 1960. Water ditches, dams, dredges and old time machinery can still be found today as a testimony to the miners of their efforts used in their search of gold.

History and Artifacts!

Walking throughout our creek valley you can find what remains of pioneer life during the Klondike Gold Rush. Rusted food cans, stoves, picks and shovels hide under the carpet of moss on the forest floor. Who knows, perhaps some of these were even used by Andrew HUNKER, a native of Germany, who was the first to discover gold on this Klondike River tributary named in his honor.

The area is full of gold rush history and is yours to view in a way not found by a simple visit to Dawson City. Travel and live in the gold fields for a true Klondike holiday adventure just one hour away from Dawson.

The picture above was taken in 1899 on claim 37 Above Discovery, now one of our claims. Photo courtesy Yukon Archives. This is how gold was mined during the gold rush. Panning a creek was only to find a good indication of more gold in the area. Most gold was found in the ancient or prehistoric creek beds, which had long been covered over by layers of new gravel and soil, known to a miner as 'overburden' or 'muck'. Today we remove the overburden for you by machines.

During the gold rush, miners hand dug holes or 'shafts' into the ground until they reached the ancient creek bed and the gold bearing gravel. This was done during the winter, thawing the frozen ground with fires and later with steam. Shafts could be 3 metres (10 feet) to 30 metres (100 feet) deep! Fires thawed the ground about 30 cm or one foot per day! A miner never knew if he would find gold at the bottom or not. Gold bearing gravel was then taken to the surface by a 'windlass' (hand cracking winch) and piled until spring when the creeks flowed again and the gravel could be sluiced.