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Published: September 18th 2009
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The lift I get to Dawson City breaks down about 50km from town, leaving us stranded in the middle of nowhere - me, the driver, and a 67 yr old fellow hitchhiker called Pete who lives in Dawson City. Pete gets another lift home, then drives his truck back to pick us up. Once the driver is dropped at the garage its pretty late and we're getting hungry, so Pete takes me back to his house - which he shares with a mad Slovenian (the first I hear of this is as we approach the front door, and he casually informs me that "he's ok, though sometimes he starts screaming that there's snakes in his belly eating him alive. And he talks with aliens. But don't worry about him, he's just mad as hell.") and cooks us up a supper of sausages and beans. Pete turns out to be an 'old skool' gentleman trapper, who has plenty of tales of close encounters with grizzlies while operating his trap runs. He also knows the poetry of
Robert Service ("The Bard of the Yukon") off by heart, and cheerfully gives me a recital of his favourites as he drives me into town. Since I
have no idea where to stay, he drops me at the place he thinks will have the cheapest rooms - the Westminster Hotel.
Known locally as The Pit, the Westminster Hotel has two bars, dubbed The Snake Pit and The Arm Pit respectively. Dawson City itself dates from the days of the Klondike Gold Rush and is like something out of a wild west movie, and The Pit is like a sort of lawless frontier saloon. It is owned by an English guy, who is roaring drunk when I arrive. In fact, most of the patrons are roaring drunk. The building itself appears to be roaring drunk too, since it was built over 100 years ago, and the melting and refreezing of the permafrost on which it was built has left it collapsed and listing badly in certain areas. Since it is a listed(!) building (or 'grandfathered' to use the local term), the current building regulations do not apply. I am told it is open all year round, since if it ever closed, it would have to have Health & Safety inspections (which it would fail spectacularly) before it could open again. The walls are covered with paintings by
a local artist, depicting various current regulars in scenes from the Gold Rush era. One particularly fetching work of art was a self-portrait showing the artist as a Mountie being fellated by a showgirl in a side alley (the 'showgirl' is another regular, though I am not sure she was so happy with the painting). The place has a certain charm.
I get a room there and have a few drinks before retiring around 1am. It is still light outside (it never actually gets properly dark at this time of year), there are no curtains on the windows of my room (one of which is brilliantly propped open with a Gideon's bible - sort of sums the place up), and the bars do not close until around 2am. At which point somebody decides to get on the piano, and the revelry continues until 5am. It is a Thursday night.
I do not get much sleep.
At 9.30 the next morning I go to check out, and find many of the same people (including the owner) sat at a table drinking, already (or still) shitfaced. I am later told that Dawson City has many 'functioning alcoholics'.
Dawson
Admiring the riverside views...
...mostly obscured by forest fire smoke haze City is fairly small, has no paved roads, and is surrounded by forested hills that can't be seen because of the smoke from various forest fires currently burning all over the Yukon and Alaska. It is a big party town, with some great live bands living locally or travelling all the way up here just to play The Pit (it's sort of legendary up here). It also has a thriving artistic community, and hosts music, arts and film festivals throughout the year. But the people here have a strong independent streak, and a straight-talking manner that does not allow for bullshit. I guess it takes that sort of person to cope with the ferocious winters up here (-50 degrees celsius is fairly common). Either that or you become a 'functioning alcoholic'. Regardless, they were all very friendly and I liked them a lot. By the time I leave I have been offered a job as a carpenter's mate starting next week, and the offer of a house-sit for the winter. It was very tempting, and I barely escaped.
Luckily most of my time here was spent working on the farm about 20km outside town, so I wasn't sucked into
Robert Service cabin
Robert Service woz ere c. 1910 the 'party every night until you have no money left and have to get a job', which seemed to be many people's story here. Easily done! Most people I spoke to had only intended to visit Dawson City for a few days, and were still there six years later.
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Stayloose
ben
My kind of Town
To be honest mate, Dawson's City sound fucking brilliant. My kind of town.