Dredge No. 4, Bonanza Creek, Yukon Territory

Located on Bonanza Creek, where it came to rest in 1960, Dredge No. 4 symbolizes the historical importance of Yukon’s dredging operations in Canada. Dredge No. 4 was in use for over 40 years, during which time gold mining in the Klondike evolved from the labour-intensive manual techniques of early prospectors to large-scale, corporate industrial extraction methods.

Prospectors discovered gold on Bonanza Creek in 1896. As word spread, thousands of fortune-seekers flooded the region, many of them from the United States. This was the beginning of the Klondike Gold Rush. Dawson grew rapidly. Before long, it was the largest city west of Winnipeg. In response to this remarkable growth, the Canadian government established Yukon Territory in 1898, with Dawson as its capital.

In 1901, the first Yukon census revealed a population of more than 27,000. That figure dropped to roughly 8,000 a decade later, by which point the boom had ended. Further development depended on substantial investment in equipment. Built in 1912 by the Canadian Klondike Mining Company, this floating, bucket-line dredge worked the gravels of the Klondike River Valley until 1940.

The introduction of new dredges and other technologies increased the cost of operation. Smaller firms ceased operation and others merged to form larger companies, such as the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation. This was the age of corporate industrial mining in the Klondike, when there was large capital investment in infrastructure and technology, including hydroelectric power stations that powered the likes of Dredge No. 4. As a result, there were extensive changes to the natural environment in central Yukon.

In 1940, the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation dismantled and refurbished Dredge No. 4, then moved it to Bonanza Creek, where it mined until 1959. When a dam burst in 1960, Dredge No. 4 sank and became partially buried, its hull covered in six metres of frozen debris. Dredging in the Klondike continued until 1966, when the Yukon Consolidated Gold Company shut down its dredging operations.

In 1970, the Yukon Consolidated Gold Company sold Dredge No. 4 to Parks Canada for one dollar. Portions that were above ground were cleaned in the years that followed and public tours were offered. A gradual expansion of the interpretive program made Dredge No. 4 one of the most popular tourist sites in the region, visited by roughly 20,000 people by the late 1980s. During the summers of 1991 and 1992, it was excavated, refloated, and relocated to its current position. More recently, Parks Canada has made a significant investment in the restoration and stabilization of Dredge No.4, which is a designated national historic site.