Dawson City grew up in 1895 as a gold rush boomtown, a place where hopeful miners and prospectors would stop off on their way to becoming rich and stop back by on their way out to lose whatever fortune they could gather. In just a matter of 6 short years the boom was over and Dawson's big time city days were over. Still it is a place with the feel of possibility and celebration and heartbreak. We pulled ashore there about 3 in the afternoon to have a look around and resupply. We quickly met Josh from Fairbanks, a drummer and environmental scientist who was on a 100 mile bicycle ride on his way to play with his band "Dead Calm" in a music festival in Chicken, Alaska. We also talked to Claire from Toronto via Brooklyn who is a visual artist in residence at the Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture and had just arrived in town and was walking down the beach. After a Jeff took a few trips to the gas station about 5 blocks away I took my turn walking the wooden sidewalks and dirt streets of town.
Dawson is a small town now with only about 1200 residents. It also has 9 bars in town. I stopped in at Bombay Peggys Pub and ordered a cold beer and took a seat at the bar between a couple younger locals and some "Holland Americans" on tour from God knows where. Before too long we had tied up the boat at a real dock behind the replica paddle wheeler that takes tourists for the trip of a lifetime down a couple miles of the Yukon River and were heading up to the locally recommended dive bar "The Pit" The bar was a classic with an old birch bark canoe hanging from the ceiling (not for sale), pictures of Dawson back in the day, and brass eagle topped supports holding up an unfinished wooden bar. There was also a large bell attached to a rope dangling overhead. In Alaska to "ring the bell" in a bar is to buy the house a round of drinks and feeling good about our fortune up to that point I pulled the rope and instantly made about a dozen new friends. After a while I stepped outside to sit on the sidewalk and had a talk with Vince and Cera only to look back inside the bar to see that Jeff was dancing with a woman who called herself "Dance Hall Sue". Soon the good times overcame us and we said our goodbyes to Dawson City and untied the boat to find a camping spot across the river. If Dawson City could ever feel refined and formal all you need to do is take a short ferry ride across the river to West Dawson, that is where the good times roll these days.
We pulled up and tied up at a place called Shipwrecks or the Paddlewheelers Graveyard where half a dozen old wooden steamships sit along the beach and in the woods sinking back into history. There was a group of ten of Canada's finest youth enjoying a campfire there and as I tried to walk among the slippery rocks of the shore to tie up the boat I slipped and fell into the river in my sportcoat, tie, and top hat. Quite the entrance. As I came into the tent to change out of my soaking clothes Jeff invited the whole group aboard for a little West Dawson fun. I never did change out of my wet Carharts as we all sat shoulder to shoulder in this little tent telling stories and laughing until the sun came up. We had a Neo Gold Rush Poetry Slam as someone got up and recited the entirety of Robert Service's "The cremation of Sam Mcgee". They were drinking wine and Jameson's Irish whiskey mixed with homemade cranberry tonic water. We heard stories from Kiki, a member of the League of Lady Wrestlers and who apparently while wrestling under the name Bob Loblaw sits on her opponent eating ice cream until they submit. At one point I stepped out on the back deck and noticed that both the pontoons were completely underwater, got a chill and had no other recourse than to change out of my wet clothes there beside our new best friends. It was a great and memorable night and I have Jeff to thank for finally tucking me in and putting up my bug net as I curled up in my down sleeping bag while the sun streamed in the tent.
In the morning Josh stopped by for coffee and a chat before hopping back on his bike for Chicken and I explored the steamships on shore. My phone sat in a bag of rice (I hope it dries out), my still soaking clothes hung from a hook in the back of the tent, I untied the boat and pushed off the rocky shore, and we floated away. The low buildings of Dawson City rounded the next bend and I was thankful that at least I had not lost all of my fortune in that wild frontier town.
