Moccasin quest

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

DAWSON CITY, YUKON — A steady drumming of rain on the trailer roof roused us this morning. We have never found that to be a disappointing sound, because there are hardly any days this trip where we’ve had a solid day of incessant rain. And on those days, invariably we were traveling from one spot to another and it didn’t really affect anything we did.
Today was our last day in Dawson City, and now, as we prepare to head south again tomorrow, we’re both feeling a bit sad about it. This town has charmed many a cheechako (a local term for newcomers to the gold fields) into staying longer than intended, and we have been bitten by the same bug. I would come back to Dawson in a heartbeat. One of the things we have really enjoyed is the large number of young people here — a lot of them are students with summer jobs in the tourism industry, or working in exploration, or pursuing the arts, or whatever they can think of that will let them spend the summer here. It’s refreshing to see them around, or eavesdrop on their conversations as one sits outside sipping coffee on Front Street.
By the time we were ready for the day, the sky had lifted enough to make it worth our while to drive up the Dome Road, a steep winding route that brought us high above the town and provided a breathtaking view of the Yukon River, flowing eastward past Dawson and on to the north, as well as the Klondike and the confluence of the two with their separate colours. Down below we could see all the rooftops of the town and, to the south, the gold fields where machinery still scratches away in search of gold. Far off in all directions were blue and purple mountain ranges and the sky streaked with grey clouds. We didn’t stay up there too long; there was a brisk wind and it was only about 10 degrees.
The road branched off near the base of the dome toward the town via the cemetery road we had seen yesterday. We stopped again to see more of the gravestones in the Catholic cemetery. Many of them were of people who had lived into their seventies and eighties, and they came from every country you could imagine! Argentina. Italy. Czechoslovakia. Germany. A tiny town way up in Canada’s north had attracted people from thousands of miles away, and they had lived out their days here and never returned.
Down in the town once again, we set out to look for a nice pair of moccasins for Val that didn’t have fur lining or trim — and we succeeded, at a good price to boot! They are a handsome caramel brown and are made in Canada of elk hide. We also found a wood carving of a bald eagle with outspread wings that would be a nice addition to our collection of bird figures in our family room — but when we asked the price, it was quite expensive. The sales lady apologized, saying it had been damaged by some rambunctious kids earlier in the week, but she could let us have it for half price! Sold! We couldn’t even see the damage until she pointed it out! And it will be easy to cover up when we get home.
After lunch, we went to the Palace Grand Theatre to see a free film about the "good time girls" of the Gold Rush. Some of them were proper young ladies who ended up in bawdy houses after struggling up the Chilkoot Pass in hopes of finding gold and realizing everything was already staked out — and there they were with no money even to get back home, let alone survive in the Yukon. Even earning money as a dance partner in the saloons was a humiliation to these well-raised ladies, but that didn’t bring in enough to cover room and board, and there were only so many jobs as laundresses in the town. Desperation drove them to the section of town known as Paradise Alley, Lousetown, or other suggestive names. Their fortunes changed dramatically after that, along with their virtue.
We went on to the Dawson City Museum, which we had only glimpsed quickly when we were here in early July. There are displays of town life, NWMP activities, gold mining techniques, the Athapascan residents who pre-dated the European presence, and — even earlier than that, the wooly mammoths who roamed into these parts from the earth bridge of Beringia that joined this continent to Asia in pre-historic times.
Upstairs we snooped through the storage room, where artifacts are collected and labeled but haven’t been put into displays. There were old typewriters, hat pins, primitive chain saws, silverware, and other domestic items on rows and rows of shelves. At the opposite end was a large court room that is still used today, and along its walls are old photographs of historic characters and their dogs, including one of a toddler in fat diapers patting a husky dog that’s considerably taller than him — it’s Pierre Berton in a photo from the early 1920s, who grew up here.
We headed back to the trailer for our last evening in Dawson, where we warded off our sense of regret by enjoying a tasty dinner and getting caught up on laundry before we move on once again.