Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines
The Regular Stuff: Chat, Buy, Sell, Off Topic, etc. => General Discussion - Model & Toy Steam Engines – Stirling Cycle – Flame Lickers – Small Antique Originals => Topic started by: Stoker on July 02, 2025, 12:01:01 pm
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Still looking around Dawson City and the Klondike gold fields it becomes obvious how very steam dependent were these early pioneers. Whole little narrow gauge short line railroads were set up to service the region, actually done more to haul equipment and supplies in than gold out, though they did do both!
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Well then how about a steam winch ..... especially one that is attached to the bow of a Yukon River Sternwheel Steam Boat?
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Then for the rest of the story:
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For a little peak inside, here's the Port Engine that helps turn that big paddle wheel:
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Also seen, apparently just sitting out on somebodies claim are a couple of old vertical single cylinder steam engines of significant size. Probably used for hoisting or dragging ore buckets, timbers and the like back in the day!
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It has been fifteen years now, since I spent four months up in Alaska and the Yukon & NW Territories. Traveled around a whole bunch, but really focused on the Klondike around the Dawson City area, and the Forty Mile River in Eastern Alaska, then most especially in Central Alaska in deep wilderness in the heart of the Alaska range.
It was all sooooooooooooooo AWESOME, but so long ago now.
However, there is so much that could be of interest here on the Forum, that I thought I would share some, as the Evil Microsoft Cloud & One-Drive try to tempt me into paying the extortion for the Data Knapping that they have done to me, by occasionally releasing "your memories from this day" come-ons, that I cannot directly access myself without paying their ransom!
Be that as it may, with screen capture and some finagling, I'm able to post up a few of the photos from those lost times and images, here now.
So ... here we go:
For placer mining in the perma-frost along Bonanza Creek, a system was soon developed whereby steam boilers were used to force steam into the ground to thaw the gravels and allow them to be mined, by using a system called "driven steam points" that were perforated pipes with a strong point on the end so they could be driven into the frozen ground, then hooked to a boiler to force steam through the perforations and thaw the ground. The setups looked something like this...
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