|
|
June 25, 2010
Them thar hills
Dawson City has ambience, history.
BAILA LAZARUS
Outside the window of my little cabin at Klondike Kate’s, a misty dusk lights the streets. I can hear scattered voices of people returning home from restaurants and bars, and the boardwalks creak under their footsteps. “And this was odd,” as Lewis Carroll writes in “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” “because it was the middle of the night.”
Having light 24 hours a day is an almost supernatural experience. It tricks the body into thinking there’s no reason to go to bed. And with all that Dawson City has to offer in the summer, there’s a tendency to want to stay up and explore.
For those who want the experience of a trip with bustling town centres, instantly recognizable landmarks and retail strips of haute couture and world-famous restaurants, Dawson may not be your destination of choice. But if you are drawn to a slower pace, an abundance of historical features, a wealth of colorful stories and locals with welcoming smiles, they all await just a half-day’s journey from Vancouver.
While the region around Dawson was being prospected for gold long before the rush started, the turning point came in August of 1896, when large nuggets were found in what is now known as Bonanza Creek. Three (some say four) gold panners staked the first claim (Discovery Claim, now a Parks Canada historic site), and soon the word was out. By 1898, some say as many as 100,000 people tried to make their way to the Yukon, but less than half that completed the trip.
There were three ways to get to Dawson: Chilkoot Trail, White Pass Trail or via the Yukon River from Alaska. Most chose the first. They came up by water to Skagway, where they would then set out on one of the most treacherous journeys in the world: the 50-kilometre Chilkoot Trail that took them north, over the Canadian border, to Dawson City, where the Yukon and Klondike rivers meet.
To understand what it took to complete the journey is almost beyond comprehension. Imagine doing the West Coast Trail 12 times in a row, in winter, with 50 to 100 pounds of supplies on your back. At the Canadian border, Mounties would stop the travelers and force them to weigh their provisions, requiring them to have at least a year’s worth (one ton) before they would let them pass. This meant as many as 40 trips back and forth to the border. So a path that would take about a week to hike today was once a journey of several months.
Photos you can see in the tourist centres and in practically every hotel and restaurant, show people making the hike at the time, trudging up a 45-degree incline that makes the Grouse Grind look like a walk in the park. The flow was so crowded and continuous, it’s said that if you dropped off the trail to rest, it would be several hours before you could find a space to squeeze yourself in again. (Visit dawsoncity.ca/gettinghere to see an image.)
Within a few years, Dawson’s population had boomed to the tens of thousands and it didn’t take long before those with a few smarts and some entrepreneurial spirit realized there was money to be made. Bankers were one of the first wanting to get their hands on the gold. They offered $12 to $16 an ounce (about a teaspoon), depending on how clean the find was. Every merchant had a scale, so people could buy provisions with a few nuggets or even some gold dust.
Along with the bankers came grocers, doctors, cooks and bakers, tailors, builders, Mounties and, of course, the dance-hall girls. Take an historical walking tour set up by the visitors centre and you’ll be given a card with a photograph so you can be part of the historic lore. Be a postman, a minister or a hotel owner (I somehow ended up as “the woman of ill repute”) and the guide will bring you right into the spirit of the time.
Among those who joined the pilgrimage was Solomon Packer, whose gravestone is the only one remaining in the Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of town. Packer was a hardware store owner who was also a member of the Yukon Order of Pioneers. Though the order has its own cemetery nearby, Packer chose to be buried in Beit Chaim. He died at 57 in 1918. A list of names on a nearby post – Benjamin Zerrif, Isaac Simmons, Samuel Ross – is a testament to other Jews who braved treacherous conditions to live in Dawson.
Those interested in history will find no shortage of things to do in Dawson: take a paddle-wheel cruise, pan for gold, walk along Bonanza Creek, where it all began, or simply have a drink or poke around in any of the dozens of restored historic buildings. You can visit Jack London’s cabin, peek at Pierre Burton’s home or listen to readings of Robert Service’s poetry at the very cabin where he penned his famous “Cremation of Sam McGee.”
If you’re lucky enough to be visiting in June, you can participate in the summer solstice golf tournament that tees off at midnight, or get dressed in period costumes and join the locals at the annual Commissioner’s Tea, where the sun has always come out to shine. What better way to be part of both the contemporary and historical life in Dawson City – where the gold is all over town, not just in “them thar hills.”
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, painter and photographer. Her work can be seen at orchiddesigns.net.
^TOP
|
|
