From Flapjacks to Fine Dining: Dawson City’s Culinary Whirlwind of 1896–98
Letter 12
Flapjacks, Flour & Famine: The Harsh Beginnings
When Joseph Ladue staked his townsite in 1896 at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, there was no town to speak of; just canvas tents, rough cabins, and the scent of campfire cooking. In those early days, “dining” meant boiling beans, frying bacon, brewing tea, and flipping sourdough flapjacks over open flames, if one had the supplies.
Miners at lunch on the trail
But by autumn 1897, Dawson’s sudden boom outpaced its ability to feed itself. As thousands surged into the Yukon following the gold discoveries, supplies dwindled. What followed became known in local memory as the “starvation winter.” Prices soared to staggering heights. Flour, which had sold for $6 per 50-pound sack in June 1897, was fetching anywhere from $35 to $100 by midwinter, and some sources even place it at $125. (For comparison, at this time, flour in New York or Chicago hovered around $2 to $3 per sack).
Other foods reached symbolic levels of extravagance. Fresh eggs, when available, sold for up to $3 a dozen (while the price in New York at that time was about 20–22¢ per dozen). Apples could cost $1 apiece. Butter, fruit, and even basic vegetables were treated as rare treasures.
One oft-retold story from this era tells of “Swiftwater” Bill Gates (not that Bill Gates), a flamboyant prospector, whose sweetheart, a dance-hall girl named Gussie Lamore, loved fresh eggs. One day, Swiftwater Bill was sitting in a restaurant when he saw his Gussie enter together with another gentleman. The pair ordered fried eggs (which were the most expensive item on the menu). As the legend goes, in a fury of jealousy, Bill bought up every egg in Dawson to frustrate the girl.
There are many versions of this tale. One says that Swiftwater had the eggs fried and flipped them through the window of the café to the dogs outside. Other versions claim that he presented all the eggs to Gussie as a gesture of his true emotions, or that he gave them to other dance-hall girls in order to awaken Gussie’s own jealousy.
Break-Up & Bonanza Menus: Spring Floods Bring a Feast
Everything changed when the Yukon River thawed in spring 1898. Hundreds of boats and barges arrived carrying thousands of tons of food and goods. Prices plummeted almost overnight. The very same sack of flour that had cost over $100 just months earlier now sat on the docks for a few dollars.
With Dawson flush with provisions, dining became less about survival and more about status. At small cafés, a decent meal settled around $1.50 to $2.50. Better establishments charged more and offered much more.
Cafe in Dawson, on Front Street
Take Belinda Mulrooney’s Fairview Hotel, which opened on July 27, 1898. The interior boasted linen-covered tables, real china, and menus featuring steak and oysters. It was the very image of civilization on the edge of the wilderness, and priced accordingly.
A printed ad for The Fairview Hotel, from The Klondike Nugget
But perhaps no restaurant better captured Dawson’s brief flirtation with high cuisine than the Regina Café, located beside the Northern Alaska Transportation & Trading Co. warehouse. Known for the best “set dinner” in town, the Regina served a Dominion Day (July 1) 1898 feast that could have come straight from a San Francisco menu:
Consomme, a la jardiniere
Rockpoint oysters, raw
Gherkins
Picalilli lobster cutlets, a la Newburg
Pickled English walnuts
Chicken Salad en Mayonnaise
Broiled Moose chops a Champignons
Tongue, Roast Beef, Boiled Ham
Bengal Club Chutney
Saratoga Chips
Assorted Cakes &Jellies
Pears Peaches
Edam Gheese
Cafe, Wines, Cigars
Curiously enough, the Yukon Midnight Sun prefaced the reprinting of the menu from the restaurant’s card with the following paragraph:
"The eatables on the card we publish below, and only add the remark that we hope the reading of the bill will cause no hard feelings among those who are eating beans and bacon and baking powder bread."
Served with proper silver and linens, the full dinner was priced around $2.50. Photographs from late 1898 show banquets at the Regina with formal service; proof that Dawson, in the blink of a gold rush, had gone from frontier grub to French-inflected fare.
Banquet at the Regina Cafe, December 1898
The prices in the restaurant were caused not only by the cost of bringing in the products; the labor in Dawson at that time was as ridiculously expensive as everything else. Travellers reported that restaurants and roadhouses preferred to serve tinned berries rather than to pay pickers to harvest the crop at their doors.
Two and a half dollars for a fine dinner might not sound like too much, but by the standards of that time, it was quite expensive. In the U.S. in the early 1890s, a full meal at a restaurant (known as a table d’hôte dinner) typically cost 50¢. Better establishments might charge 75¢ to $1, but those were top-tier.
From Starvation to Silver Service
The Klondike Gold Rush transformed Dawson from a muddy camp of flapjack-flipping miners to a boomtown with printed menus, china service, and moose chops in mushroom sauce. Behind the legend of gold lies the quieter (but no less fascinating) story of food: its absence, its abundance, and its wild price swings that marked the difference between hardship and high society on the Yukon frontier.
In just two years, Dawson’s dining scene became a perfect mirror of the Gold Rush itself: improvised, extravagant, absurd, and entirely unforgettable.