Dawson City's population languished around the 600–900 mark through the 1960s and 1970s, but has risen and held stable since then. The economic damage to Dawson City was such that Whitehorse, the highway's hub, replaced it as territorial capital in 1953. The population dropped after World War II when the Alaska Highway bypassed it 518 kilometres (322 mi) to the south. The downtown has been devastated by fire in November 1897 (that started when dance hall girl Dolly Mitchell threw a lamp at another girl in an argument), 1899 (that started in the Bodega Saloon), 1900 (that started at the Monte Carlo Theatre) and flooding in 1925, 1944, 1966, 19. Paul's Anglican Church, also built that same year, is a National Historic Site. When Dawson was incorporated as a city in 1902, the population was under 5,000. By 1899, the gold rush had ended and the town's population plummeted as all but 8,000 people left. It began in 1896 and changed the First Nations camp into a thriving city of 16,000–17,000 by 1898. Heggĭawson City was the centre of the Klondike Gold Rush. It served as Yukon's capital from the territory's founding in 1898 until 1952, when the seat was moved to Whitehorse. Dawson, who had explored and mapped the region in 1887. The current settlement was founded by Joseph Ladue and named in January 1897 after noted Canadian geologist George M. This site was also an important summer gathering spot and a base for moose-hunting on the Klondike Valley. The heart of their homeland was Tr'ochëk, a fishing camp at the confluence of the Klondike River and Yukon River, now a National Historic Site of Canada, just across the Klondike River from modern Dawson City. Prior to the late modern period the area was used for hunting and gathering by the Hän-speaking people of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and their forebears. History Packtrain in Dawson, 1899 (photographed by Eric A. Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest town in Yukon.

It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–1899). Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon.

Dredge modern