Silver Trail

Km 68.2 - Duncan Creek Road

A supply trail to the miners on Duncan Creek was established from Gordon Landing on the Stewart River in 1902. The community was virtually abandoned after 1903 when better mooring for the riverboats was found at Mayo Landing, at the mouth of the Mayo River. In 1904 a 24 mile wagon road was constructed from Mayo Landing to the mines along Duncan Creek.

Activities at Field Creek, a settlement along the road, reflect the changing times. Fred Field, an early prospector, first mined unsuccessfully at Field Creek. The property became a roadhouse and homestead in the 1920s, and Charles Stone hauled manure from the Treadwell Mine to the property for two months. He was trying to fertilise ground that was mostly cobbles left by a retreating glacier. Finally, the Treadwell Yukon mining company kept a garage at Field Creek for their 10-ton tractors, until the building burned in 1928.

Before WWI only eleven miners were working along Duncan Creek and that number diminished during the war years. In 1920 a number of the cabins were dismantled and moved to the Keno area. Interest briefly resurfaced in the late 1950s, when several United Keno Hill Mine employees started gold mining in their spare time.

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