page_title: SS Keno
section_title: National Historic Site
hierarchical_section_title: SS Keno / National Historic Site
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial view of central Dawson City, Yukon, Canada.
context_page_description: The SS Keno is a preserved historic sternwheel paddle steamer and National Historic Site of Canada. The SS Keno is berthed in a dry dock on the waterfront of the Yukon River in Dawson City, Yukon, Canada.
  The vessel was constructed in 1922, in Whitehorse, by the British Yukon Navigation Company, a subsidiary of the White Pass and Yukon Route railway company. For most of its career it transported silver, zinc and lead ore down the Stewart River from mines in the Mayo district to the confluence of the Yukon and Stewart rivers at Stewart City. It was retired from commercial service in 1951 due to the extension and improvement of the Klondike Highway in the years after World War II.
  Following its withdrawal from service the SS Keno was laid up at the BYN Co. shipyard in Whitehorse, before being selected for preservation and donated by the company to the Canadian Government in 1959. On 25 August 1960 the Keno left Whitehorse to sail downstream to Dawson City. In doing so she became the last of the Yukon's sternwheeler steamers to navigate the Yukon River under her own power.
context_section_description: Late in 1958 the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC) announced its opinion "that it is of national historic importance to preserve a typical representative or representatives of lake and river sternwheel steamship transport." In 1959 four of the surviving sternwheelers were offered by the White Pass company to the Canadian Government for preservation. The SS Keno, SS Casca, SS Klondike and SS Whitehorse were all out of the water in Whitehorse, and were offered to the government on an "as is, where is basis." In preparation for the forthcoming Dawson Gold Rush Festival, planned for 1962, the board decided to move one of the vessels downstream to Dawson City as a centrepiece for the celebrations. The board selected the SS Keno to be that vessel and preparations were made for her downstream voyage.
  On 20 August 1960 the Keno was re-floated from the ways at Whitehorse. Her intended pilot for the final voyage, Emil Forrest, was assisting with the process but suffered a fatal heart attack during the course of the day. While continued preparations for the trip were made to the vessel, a replacement pilot was hurriedly found. On 25 August, under the command of Captain Frank Blakeley and Pilot Frank Slim, the SS Keno left Whitehorse for the final time with a crowd of hundreds gathered to see her off. The most significant of the preparations made to the ship before its departure from Whitehorse were modifications to her superstructure to allow her to pass under the newly constructed highway bridge at Carmacks. Erected since the cessation of steamer traffic on the river this bridge had not been designed to permit vessels as tall as the Keno, let alone her larger fleetmates, to pass beneath. In order to negotiate the limited clearance the SS Keno's pilothouse was removed and placed on the roof of the saloon deck, and her smokestack was rigged to hinge backward to lie flat against the roof of the Texas. With her hydraulic tiller installed in the observation room on the saloon deck, Pilot Slim manoeuvred the Keno under the bridge with her bow facing upstream (the better to control the downstream progress of the ship in the fast flowing river) with only 11 in (28 cm) to spare. From Carmacks her voyage down the Yukon River was relatively uneventful – she successfully negotiated both the Five Finger and Rink rapids – until she ran aground on an uncharted bar near Minto. With the assistance of CBC reporter and amateur diver Terry Delaney, she was winched off and resumed her downstream progress to Dawson.
  Three days after leaving Whitehorse the SS Keno arrived in Dawson City, becoming the last of Yukon's sternwheeler fleet to navigate the river under her own power. She was subsequently winched up onto the banks of the river and installed in a permanent dry dock. The HSMBC spent much of the following two years completing refurbishment and restoration work on the vessel, before the SS Keno was officially declared a National Historic Site of Canada on 1 July, Dominion Day, 1962, during the opening ceremonies for the Dawson Festival. The vessel formed the first meeting and entertainment space for the newly formed Klondike Visitors Association tourism group, and it still forms a major tourist attraction in Dawson City. Following the destruction by fire of the second Casca and the Whitehorse in Whitehorse in 1974, and the Tutshi in Carcross in 1990, the Keno is one of only three Yukon sternwheelers that survive in good condition, from a fleet that numbered at least 250 in total during the century between 1855 and 1955.
caption: Dawson City, Yukon, with SS Keno's white superstructure clearly visible on the bank of the Yukon River
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