Dawson

Town in western Yukon Territory, Canada, at the junction of the Yukon and Klondike rivers; population (1991) 970. There is some agriculture here, but tourism is its main industry. Dawson was founded in 1896 at the time of the Klondike gold rush, and became a well-established mining city; from 1898 to 1953 it was the capital of the Yukon Territory. The population dwindled from 30,000 in 1898 to 745 in 1971, owing to the exhaustion of the Klondike goldfields.

The writer Jack London and the poet Robert Service both lived in Dawson.