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The second Klondike replaced an earlier boat of the same name and worked the Yukon River between Whitehorse and Dawson City. She is preserved on the riverbank at Whitehorse.
History
The first Klondike was launched by the British Yukon Navigation Company in 1929. She was a breakthrough in sternwheeler design: her cargo capacity was about 50% greater than other boats on the river, with no loss of shallow draft. She was the first boat big enough to carry her cargo tonnage without pushing a barge. In 1936 she struck a reef and broke her back. The company immediately built the Klondike No. 2, which Parks Canada calls a virtual carbon copy of her predecessor.
For her first five years the new Klondike carried merchandise, supplies and a few passengers from Whitehorse to Dawson City. Downstream the run took about 36 hours, with one or two stops for wood. Beyond Dawson she went on to Stewart Landing to load silver-lead ore for Whitehorse. The upstream run against the current took four or five days. The ore trade stopped in 1941, when the territory’s largest silver-lead producer suspended operations, but traffic for the building of the Alaska Highway partly made up the loss. Ore production resumed in 1946. All-weather roads built in the early 1950s ended the sternwheelers’ role as freight carriers. The Klondike was refitted as a cruise ship, but the tourist trade was not yet big enough to support her. She ended her last run up the river at Whitehorse in August 1955.
Hull
Gregory Foster’s 2001 Hull Lines & General Profile records lines taken from the actual frames when the hull was opened up during the restoration that began in 2000. The work was led by head shipwright Wayne Loiselle. According to its notes:
- The frames are spaced 16 in on centre.
- The planking is 2½ in in the topsides and 3 in below and on the bottom, all of Douglas fir.
- The hull is very low-sided and shoal, and needs multiple keelsons and chine trusses to hold its shape lengthwise.
- Seven waterlines are marked on the original frames at one-foot intervals. This suggests the boat was lofted and built to a design that has not yet been found.
- The forebody is finely modelled, the midsection flat and box-like, and the stern round in section.
The superstructure profile on the sheet follows J. R. Lisoway’s drawings of 1970–72.
