Northern Trails And Tales

We finally have a large cache of pictures from the trip. Click the picture below to see more….

(Sorry, I lost the timestamps, so the pictures are in alphabetical order.)

-dan

Some of you are thinking Lawrence Ferlinghetti, at least the over-60 crowd, but I’m speaking specifically of the never ending daylight in Dawson City. The sun “sets” about 11:15 PM and rises again about 1:30 AM. But it never really gets dark. Just dusky. So you couldn’t sneak off with your sweetie without being seen, but you could weed your garden at midnight without problem. The hens up here struggle because they refuse to roost in the daylight and finally collapse of exhaustion unless sheltered in a shuttered chicken coop, and this is actually a practice followed by egg producers….. Anyway, I spent part of Father’s Day reading the biography of a woman named Laura Burton (”I Married the Klondike“) who came to Dawson City as a young kindergarden teacher in 1907, just as the gold rush was slowing down, and stayed on into 1932. Her’s was truly a fascinating life. And, while I still may be a rebrobate, I no longer want any of you accusing me of being a male chauvinist…. I may tell you a bit more about Laura Burton in a later blog but today I want to focus on Dawson City as it’s fairly representative of the few other towns there are up here in the Yukon….. Dawson City didn’t really exist until the stampeders came to the area n 1898 to kick off the gold rush. It quickly grew to 30,000, almost all men and almost all seeking gold, though the men who usually struck it rich were those who provided supplies to the miners. It’s interesting that more than a few men made huge fortunes in the gold fields, but almost to a person they died paupers. A few, like the Guggenhiems increased their fortunes from afar, and today we sit in a campground in what’s called Googieville, the supply base for the Guggenheim interests. But by 1905 the gold rush was essentially over and the miners moving out. The high point for gold extraction was 1900 when $22,275,000 of the shiny stuff was mined. The town dwindled to 800 hardy souls doing God- knows-what by the 1940’s. Today, the town harbors 1,200 people who basically cater to tourists. But the town resembles the gold rush era at least in part because no one rehabbed the buildings, some of which are collapsing these days, and also due to an ordinance up here that requires that all new buildings, of which there are precious few, resemble gold rush housing. So the houses are generally older, many dating back more than a hundred years. A few still have sod roofs, many are chinked logs, a couple rough sawn wood, some shingled, and almost without exception, they are small. As far as I can determine, none have cellars. There are a few houses that stand out because they were obviously built by wealthy folks and have been well maintained or restored, but they are still small by today’s standards. A thousand square feet would be really on the huge side. They are now frequently painted in guady colors (the better for tourists to photograph) but a hundred years ago they were almost all gray. The commercial area and housing exist together on eight avenues intersected by a dozen streets. The town is roughly a half mile by maybe three quarters of a mile. That’s it. But it’s magnificently situated on the Yukon River which rolls unendingly by. The largest building ,by far, in town is now the Dawson City Museum but formerly was the government administration building. It’s front is about 100 feet long and it’s a two story gorgeous example of neo-classical architecture. There are still a few churches, some in disrepair, a few smallish motels and hotels, a couple restaurants, but none very large, and a casino about the size of a convenience store. On Front Street (that fronts the river of course) there are a number of shops and boutiques. All sport false fronts and period signs. All in all, a very “western” effect and quite charming. One important note. Like every other town in central and northern Canada that we have seen, it has a multitude of recreational facilities such as outdoor heated pool as well as indoor pool, hockey rink, soccer and softball fields, youth center, and on and on in some towns. This probably reflects the rugged weather and need to have something to do….. All of which leads me to the social aspect of life in Dawson City from the turn of the 20th Century until today. From it’s very beginnings the town has had many balls, dances and celebrations, practically on a weekly basis. Many of the balls were for the golden crust only and featured gowns from Paris and gentlemen in formal wear. Social manners were strictly observed. This drove women moving to Dawson to tears as they came with the roughest of clothing prepared to survive in the frigid arctic and then were forced to spend small fortunes to dress for these events. But many other socials were conducted for the population as a whole, often by churches and the townspeople attended pretty much as a whole…. Speaking of chuches, naturally the missionaries were here en masse. When they didn’t enjoy success among the miners they reached out to the aboriginals. Which leads to a cute story. A missionary visiting a village for the first time in several years encountered a man calling to his daughter, Gasoline. When the missionary inquired how she came by her name, the man replied, “You named her, Father.” Several weeks later, getting back to Dawson, the missionary checked the baptism records. You got it: Kathleen…. By the bye, Dawson City always had the best of the best. Whether it was food or clothing, shipping costs were so high that merchants just ordered the best in the belief that there was no sense wasting good shipping money on inferior wares…. Am signing off here, but if folks want stuff other than I’m providing on the blog, please let me know. I’ll try to accomodate….