The Yukon River Steamboat Study Area
In 1898, there was an unprecedented boom in the construction of stern wheel steamboats on the West Coast to service the Yukon River routes leading to Dawson City. Of the 266 stern and side wheel steamboats to operate in the drainage, 131 were constructed in a single year, in over 44 shipyards from southern California to Alaska. The boom quickly wound down, and with the construction of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad to Whitehorse, there was excess capacity on the river. A number of steamboat companies either went backrupt or were purchased by their competitors, and many ships were left on shore, where they had been hauled every fall to avoid damage in the river ice.
The most significant of these abandonment areas is located at West Dawson, where the remains of seven great stern wheel steamboats now lie in an historic shipyard. Because these vessesls are not submerged, they have not been damaged by river ice except in the case of the Julia B. Today the West Dawson site provides an unparallelled opportunity for historical nautical archaeologists to study seven great vessels literally lying side-by-side.