A 3-day, one-way drive up the Klondike Highway from Whitehorse to Dawson City, tracing the route of the 1898 Gold Rush: a riverboat museum, a scenic rapids stop, a saloon where the house cocktail still comes with a real preserved toe, a 1912 gold dredge the size of a building, and a bird’s-eye flight home instead of the long drive back.
Day 1Whitehorse & the SS Klondike
A gentle first day in the Yukon’s capital, picking up a one-way rental and touring the sternwheeler that once ran this same river.
✈️ Airport Arrival — Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International
~10 min to downtown Whitehorse
A small, efficient airport a short drive above the Yukon River — most car-rental counters, including the one-way desk needed for this route, are inside the terminal.
🚗 One-Way Car Rental — Driving Force Whitehorse
Book the one-way Whitehorse–Dawson rate in advance
A Yukon-based rental counter right at the airport that, unlike the major chains, offers a straightforward one-way rate for drivers ending the trip in Dawson City instead of circling back.
Driving Force Whitehorse · +1 867-668-2137 · drivingforce.ca
⛵ SS Klondike National Historic Site
~1 hour · $5 CAD exterior/grounds fee
A restored 1937 sternwheeler beached permanently on the Yukon River bank — once the largest riverboat on the Whitehorse–Dawson run, now a Parks Canada site telling the story of the river trade that supplied the goldfields.
SS Klondike National Historic Site · parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/yt/ssklondike
🏠 Overnight — Coast High Country Inn
From $175–225 CAD / night, for 2 people
A straightforward, well-kept hotel on 4th Avenue in downtown Whitehorse — an easy base for the night before the long drive north.
Coast High Country Inn · coasthotels.com
Day 2The Klondike Highway North to Dawson City
The heart of the trip: a 530-kilometer drive straight up the Klondike Highway, broken up by one of the Yukon River’s wildest stretches.
🚗 Self-Drive — Whitehorse to Dawson City
~530 km / 6–7 hours driving · paved throughout
A long but well-maintained two-lane highway through boreal forest and rolling tundra, with fuel stops at Carmacks and Pelly Crossing — the only towns of any size along the route.
🏖️ Five Finger Rapids Recreation Site
~30 min · free
A roadside viewpoint and boardwalk above a set of basalt pillars that split the Yukon River into five channels — the most treacherous stretch for the Gold Rush-era paddlewheelers the SS Klondike once piloted through.
🍺 Sourtoe Cocktail Club — Sourdough Saloon
~30 min · approx. $10 CAD, includes a club certificate
The Yukon’s strangest nightcap: a shot of whisky served with a real, preserved human toe dropped in the glass, inside the Downtown Hotel’s saloon — a Dawson City rite of passage since 1973. House rule: “you can drink it fast, you can drink it slow — but your lips have gotta touch the toe.”
Sourdough Saloon, The Downtown, a Coast Hotel · +1 867-993-5346 · downtownhotel.ca
🏠 Overnight — The Downtown, a Coast Hotel
From $165 CAD / night, for 2 people
A Gold Rush-era hotel on Dawson City’s Second Avenue, home to the Sourdough Saloon downstairs — wooden boardwalks and false-front facades line the street outside, largely unchanged since 1898.
The Downtown, a Coast Hotel · +1 867-993-5346 · downtownhotel.ca
Day 3Gold Dredges, the Midnight Dome & a Flight Home
A last Dawson City morning among the mining relics the Gold Rush left behind, then a bird’s-eye flight south instead of retracing the drive.
⛏️ Dredge No. 4 National Historic Site
~1.5 hours · guided tour by donation/fee, seasonal
An eight-story wooden gold dredge on Bonanza Creek Road, the largest of its kind in North America, which chewed through the Klondike goldfields until 1959 — a Parks Canada guide walks the machinery deck by deck.
Dredge No. 4 / Parks Canada Klondike NHS · +1 833-507-0980 · pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/yt/klondike
🏔 Midnight Dome
~45 min round trip by car · free
A short drive to a 884-meter summit directly above Dawson City, with a view down over the town’s grid, the Yukon and Klondike Rivers’ confluence, and the scarred goldfields beyond — named for the near-midnight sun visible here around the summer solstice.
✈️ Flight Home — Dawson City to Whitehorse (Air North)
~1 hour · from $97 CAD per person one-way
Air North’s short hop back to Whitehorse (or onward connections south) saves the 6-hour return drive — book the one-way car rental drop-off in Dawson to match.
Air North · flyairnorth.com
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