Skip Larsen 1966 Travelogue
Gold Dredges in the North
Dateline: May 30, 2024. Last update: October 5, 2024.
The photos below, of YCGC Dredge #11, the Gold Room at Bear Creek, and other sites in the goldfields, were shot on Kodachrome slide film by Skip Larsen during a 6-week trip through the Yukon Territory and Alaska in 1966 - see the link above for more information about that trip and many more photos from it.
This was the final year of operation for the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation (YCGC) - dredge numbers 6 (at Granville), 8 (at Sulphur Creek), 9 (at Upper Sulphur Creek), and 11 (at Hunker Creek) were operating during the 1966 season.
Some of the people have been identified by members of Murray Lundberg's 21,000-member Yukon History & Abandoned Places group on Facebook.
Click on each image to greatly enlarge it.
Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation (YCGC) dredge No. 11 at Hunker Creek.
The dredgemaster on the left was Mario Deromerai. The man in the yellow hard hat was Johnny Hoggan, YCGC's superintendent for the shut down of operations - he retired when this was done.
Comparing a photo of the port side of Dredge 11 on Hunker that was published in The Klondike Sun on September 3, 1999, made us reasonably certain that it was No. 11 they visited. As well as the general structure, note details such as the window location and the side gantry structure. A photo posted in the Yukon History group a few hours after we posted this confirmed it.
It's thought to be Kim Greychuck doing the final cleaning of the gold in the Gold Room at Bear Creek - he was gently blowing the black sand off it.
John King is showing a couple of impressive pans of gold to the group.
John King on the left talking to the group.
A display of coins and jewellery recovered by the dredges.
While at Bear Creek, Skip got a couple of photos of the LeTourneau Sno-Freighter that had been sitting there since being rescued from a valley east of Eagle, where it had caught fire while on a DEW LIne resupply trip.
