Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Dan & Betty very kindly drove us around the gold fields today in their moose-struck SUV. This is definitely 4W-drive territory. We visited the gigantic dredge #4, the discovery claim (where the gold rush started), and Gold Bottom.

At Gold Bottom, we got to pan for gold. Rob didn't get any flakes in his pan. I got 3! We were being shown how to pan by Andrea, a very lovely 14 year old. She's a real pro at panning for gold — she's won awards.

Tonight Rob read at the Dawson Public Library. He was great! The 13 people who came out had a good time. Lots of lively discussion afterward, too. But it looks like a bunch of us poets are going to get together once Rob & I are back from China. Should be fun!

Dan and Betty and Suzanne and Dawne were there tonight, plus two SF fans from Fairbanks, Alaska. We're going to have lunch with them tomorrow at the Triple J.

Tomorrow I'll be cleaning for the open house on Thursday. Finished the laundry today. Yipee!

- Carolyn

August 12, 2007

Suzanne arranged complimentary tickets for us on the Yukon Queen II round trip from Dawson to Eagle, Alaska.

We had to get up early to get to the dock for the 8:30am boarding. We are not morning people. We were a little late.

The boat was really nice. A catamaran hull, but similar to the ill-fated fast ferry from Rochester, NY to Toronto. [Both boats were built in Australia] They fed us lunch on the way up, and dinner on the way back. The food was excellent. The coffee & tea were free!

Eagle itself is a town of 129 people and an assortment of historic Gold-Rush era buildings. We had to go through customs both ways because we crossed the border. In each case, the customs agent came on board the boat and we showed our IDs and answered some basic questions to get off the boat.

There was not much to buy in Eagle as "The Eagle Mall" is closed on Sundays. "The Eagle Mall" is a tent with 4 vendors selling homemade crafts & jewelry. I'd have liked to have seen it. But, because the tickets were free, the boat people said we had to go on Sunday as that's their slow day.

The courthouse museum shop had stuff for sale from the same 4 vendors. I bought a necklace with an interesting metallic eagle hanging off it.

They did a cute mock-trial at the courthouse with people from the tour bus as judge, defendant, and jury. The defendant was excellent, given he had no preparation ahead of time. And the judge was chosen for his uncanny resemblance to the actual judge of the time — whose portrait hung behind the bench.

Eagle was named Eagle for the bluff beside the town where bald eagles nest. Their claim to fame seems to be that Roald Amundsen telegraphed the news from Eagle to Norway, that he had found the illusive northwest passage. He also asked them to send money.

On the way up in the boat we saw two moose and an eagle. On the way back we saw a much closer moose and a bear trying to swim across the Yukon River. He changed his mind when he saw us coming. And more eagles.

The weather was great! The next day it poured rain all day. We were lucky.

I'm starting to think that Holland-America owns the Yukon: the boat is H-A, the tour buses were H-A, the Westmark Hotel is H-A.

- Carolyn

Saturday, August 4th.

I entered the 25th Annual Dawson Women's Poker Tournament. It was Texas Holdem, but not no-limit. About 40 women paid $65 each to enter, which got you $200 worth of chips and a free t-shirt.

I was at table #5 with 6 other women and a professional dealer supplied by Diamond Tooth Gerties. Whoever finally won the tournament got something like 60% of the entry fees, and the percentages went down to 10th place getting 2%. I didn't pay attention as I arrived at 2pm and they were just starting.

I won 3 pots early on with excellent cards. And then I just bled chips until they ran out. You could re-buy: for $25 you could buy another $100 in chips. There were women at my table re-buying several times. You had to be down to $100 in chips or less before you could buy more.

Okay, my best hand was that I was dealt an AK, and the flop was KAK. Sweet. A full house without any sweat.

I'd been there 2 hours at the point my chips ran out, so I left. Ah, well. I got a t-shirt anyways. And I know where my weaknesses are in Holdem, so, I need some more practice — cheaper practice ;)

This was the same day as the 2nd Avenue sidewalk sale. Woohoo! Not as exciting as it sounds. But I did buy some stuff. Bought a very compact umbrella to take to China. Turns out it was made in China. Probably costs $1 there. Here it was on sale for $11.75. Also bought a box of Russell Stover no sugar added chocolates on sale for $6.49 — which is like Walmart's regular price, but, there's no Walmart within 600km of here.

Anyways, the poker was actually very pleasant. The women were nice, companionable, not mean spirited, so, even though I lost, I held no grudge against any of them. Oh, the poker was organized by Linda at the Westmark Hotel but held at Diamond Tooth Gerties. My thanks to Linda!

- Carolyn

I'm getting a little behind & out of sequence — sorry!

On Tuesday, July 30, I went to see the DÄNOJÀ ZHO (long time ago house) Cultural Centre. This is the one obviously new building on Front Street in Dawson. It is a place to learn the traditions and present day life of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation. They were the original inhabitants of the Dawson area and were displaced by the gold rush. Their land claims were finally settled in 1998 and they are self-governing.

It's a beautiful building right on the river. They had a display on residential schools across Canada. It was very moving, even though it was very simple — mainly consisting of old b&w photos and short written passages. They had small packs of tissues attached to a card with contact names and phone numbers for counseling, if difficult memories surfaced in the First Nations people viewing the display.

Also, beautiful hand-crafted items were available in the gift shop.

They have a special contemporary dance performance that I still want to see.

Today, Friday, August 3rd, I went to see the presentation called "Crime and Punishment: Mounties in the Klondike" at the Commissioner's residence. It's a little outside drama that takes place on the lawn, and leads to the old Mountie Barracks in the back of the residence. Interesting thing was the Mountie was a woman, which was historically accurate for about 1900. In the drama she arrests a local con-man for possession of a firearm.
When she asks the crowd what punishment the man should receive, I voted for the "blue ticket" (the "get out of town now" option), some voted for the "woodpile" (the "chop wood for six months" option), while one American observer said he should be hanged. The Mountie felt this was "a little extreme."

When I got back to the Berton House, Rob suggested we go see the Robert Service presentation, as he had not yet seen it, and it was a gorgeous day. So, we went. There was quite the crowd — two different tours, one from Ontario and one from California.

Rob introduced himself to Johnny Caribou, who was the "Ghost of Robert Service" today. Johnny had just started reading Rob's book "Hominids." So, Rob got referred to several times during the show. It was a great show. Rob loved Johnny's pun about how Robert Service was learning the business of being a cowboy by shoveling after the cows. Johnny said "[Service] was becoming quite the entre-manure."

So, even though it was my second time seeing the show, it was still fun.

Lastly, we walked into town to catch part of the 8:30pm show at Diamond Tooth Gerties. Mostly for the exercise... and the pizza. They charge $2 for a diet Coke, but refills are free!

Pretty quiet around here.

I emailed in my submission of 4 tankas to Gusts. And I'm still hard at work on my sonnet for the POEtry project. I kept the first quatrain and the closing couplet as written, and have revamped the rest.

It's been raining here a lot over the past few days. And the temperature dropped to only 6C last night. Still going up to the mid-20s during the day, but I can't help but see fall coming.

Saw a very small, bright yellow bird yesterday out a window. I almost thought it was a humming bird at first, it was so fast.

Next big thing here is Discovery Days in mid-August. (This is the celebration of the discovery of Gold in the Klondike, and precedes the International Gold Panning Championships)

Part of the celebration includes an event called Writers on Eighth. There is a writing contest with the theme of the aforementioned International Gold Panning Championships. I'm to judge the poetry and Rob the fiction.

On August 16, all interested parties are to gather at the Jack London cabin (on Eighth Avenue) for a presentation there, then walk over to the Robert Service cabin (on Eighth Avenue) for a presentation there, then walk over to the Berton House (on Eighth Avenue) where we will be hosting an open house & announcing the winners of the writing contest.

There will be a frenzy of cleaning & putting stuff away on the 15th ;) More on this later.

- Carolyn

Tuesday evening, July 24, I went to see the presentation at the Robert Service cabin across the street. Johnny had 'em laughing from before I got there.

There were about 20 or so people for the presentation. They were from Scotland, England, Alaska, NY, BC, and Ontario.

Johnny had memorized The Shooting of Dan McGrew, and gave an impassioned performance. He had arranged with a woman in the audience ahead of time to be the shill. When he comes to the part where "a woman screamed," the shill is supposed to scream. Needless to say, she didn't. She started to laugh. So, Johnny backed up and repeated the line. She still couldn't scream. Another woman in the audience screamed for her. But, Johnny wouldn't let it go until the original woman finally screamed -- to much applause.

After reading Dan McGrew, Johnny asked how many people thought that Service had written it "as is, fully formed," or how many thought he was a tinkerer -- a rewriter. Most seemed to think he wrote the poem first draft in it's finished form. I voted for tinkerer -- mainly because I'd be really bummed if he could write that well in first draft. I know I can't.

Then Johnny got one of the audience members to recite from memory the first stanza of The Cremation of Sam McGee, then he read the first draft of it from a book he had. It seemed laughably bad compared to the finished version.

He also read, in Scottish dialect, a poem called Bessie's Boil. Which is really a shaggy-dog story about a woman named Bessie who has a boil on her behind. When she goes to have a doctor look at it, much mayhem ensues.

As for the cabin, there are raspberries growing on the sod roof. I was too short to reach them. The insides were pretty dark, but my camera's flash lit them up. There was a picture of Robert Service leaning on a table -- and the table was right there. Johnny said that the stove was much fancier than the one that Service had. And that the typewriter was presented by a grand niece of Robert Service to be displayed in the cabin.

Robert Service cabin

- Carolyn

I've been at Berton House for 23 days now and have only written 3 tankas and part of a sonnet. I'd hoped to write a poem a day. HA!

The three tanka are to submit to Gusts, a Canadian tanka magazine.

The sonnet is for a project called POEtry, where a bunch of poets have to take a well-known poem and turn it into a genre poem (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.). I chose Donne's Holy Sonnet X. Which I'm turning into a hopefully-humorous SF poem. Although technically what I'm writing is more like this:

Science Fiction Writer be not proud...

The submissions deadline for both is on August 15th.

Wish me luck!

Last Thursday, July 19, 2007, I was shopping for groceries at the General Store on Front Street. There were 3 children out front playing their fiddles. When I left the store, a fourth child gave me a flier for their show. The last show in their run at the Palace Grand Theatre was that very night.

I decided to go, and spent $15 on a ticket. This was my first opportunity to see the insides of the Palace Grand. It was beautiful, polished wood on the inside. The seats were just loose, straight chairs. There were box seats upstairs, but I was too late to get one of those. Because I was stag and am short, I got an end seat on the front row.

The show was GREAT! The kids appeared to range from about 6 to 16 years old. And they all fiddled well. The show was called "Fiddleheads present FIDDLE RUSH."

The show itself was a bit macabre. These three people go into a cemetery and play their instruments (two fiddles & one guitar) and manage to raise the dead children of Dawson from the Gold Rush era. And surprisingly, all the dead children of Dawson play the fiddle. Much music ensues.

Then afterwards, all the children, in their period costumes and ghostly makeup, went out front of the Theatre and played some more while the audience took pictures of them.

Today, Sunday, July 22, is the last day of the Dawson City Music Festival. www.dcmf.com

I've been volunteering at the festival t-shirt & CD booth. It's at the Main Stage (tent), which is one of the 5 venues in the city for the festival. I now know how to use the credit/debit machine. A valuable skill I'm sure. My Friday shift was hopping. I don't think I stopped moving for 5 hours. All the locals know that the festival t-shirts sell out fast. And they do. They were almost all gone by 9pm on Friday when I finished my shift.

I came back on Saturday at 4pm for my next shift and the clothing was almost all gone. The only items that were not selling well were the hoodies. Given it's been 29C all weekend, there wasn't much impetus to buy one.

I did want to mention one group that were the hit of the festival. They are a "throat singing" group called Chirgilchin from Tuva, Russia (although they dress and appear to be of Asian ancestry). The program book says: "Their music, characteristic of low resonating sounds, and haunting flute-like melodies, will capture and captivate this year's Music Festival audience." And they did. They sold of their CDs by Sunday afternoon. They seemed surprised to have done so well.

The festival has a fascinating event on late Sunday afternoon which I went to (and worked the booth a couple extra hours) called Pot Luck, where all the performers play together and jam. Which is really interesting when you've got the "throat singers" singing with the Celtic singers backed by the hard rock band.

The weekend ends at midnight tonight. The final line-up at the Main Stage is: Beolach, Jim Byrnes, Ladyhawk, Ndidi Onukwulu, and Jon-Rae and the River.

There are so many people in town for this event, it's crazy downtown. People were lined up onto the sidewalks to get into Kate's for brunch. The Shell station was jammed with vehicles buying gas (and they have 6 pumps).

I bought a t-shirt on Friday, and a nice hoodie on Saturday. I'm here until September and I know it'll get cold enough to wear it all too soon.

After listening to Jim Byrnes, I bought his Juno-Award-winning album (Blues album of the Year 2007). He was excellent! I have to say that both Ladyhawk and Ndidi Onukwulu were not to my taste -- too hard. I did not stay for Jon-Rae and the River, but I have no doubt I'll be able to hear them through my window. We are only about two short blocks away. (He actually sounded a lot like Meatloaf.)

Kudos to Wanda for running the sale's booth. I had a great time!

I also bought a cider at the beer tent. The mayor of Dawson, John Steins, served me. He seems a nice guy. Looks kinda like Stephen King but shorter.

Now it's 12:15am and at the festival they are very loudly singing "Winter Wonderland."

Sunrise tomorrow is at 4:55am
Sunset tomorrow is at 11:48pm
Tomorrow's day length will be 88 minutes shorter than it was on day 1 in Dawson. We'll have lost 1.5 hours of daylight in a mere 21 days. Sigh.

- Carolyn

A gorgeous day! We walked into town and had lunch at the Jack London Grill. Sat on their patio which had an awning and was shaded.

There is now a bit of a routine established:

Wednesday is garbage pick up.
Saturday is when garden produce is sold on the dike.
Sunday is when the new sale's week for the grocery store starts.
Tuesday night is film night at KIAC.
Recycling is every day except Thursday & Friday.
Thrift Store is open Tuesday-Saturday.

This coming weekend is the big Music Festival. I have signed up as a volunteer selling T-shirts and CDs on Friday and Sunday evenings. Suzanne has kindly arranged passes for both of us to the music festival. Thanks!

As we walked into town, we saw them putting up the big tents for the music festival. It's so close we're going to hear every note inside our house!

We have met Johnny Caribou who is the long-standing interpreter at the Robert Service cabin. He gets mega-laughs & applause twice a day. We will have to check out the show soon ourselves.

We have also met Dawne Mitchell who is one of the interpreters at the Jack London cabin. She brought over a bicycle for us. I took it to Tim at Circle Cycle for a tune-up. He'll let me know if it needs work. I think it needs new tires at least.

So far we have also had lunch at the JJJ hotel and at Klondike Kates'. We're partial to the patio at Kates' -- very nice! Also picked up a pizza from the Back Alley last night for dinner. Wow! What a great pie! More cheese than I've ever had on a pizza without having to order extra-cheese.

Environment Canada says that sunset is at 12:15am and sunrise at 4:30am. But it's still not completely dark between those times.

I found a perfect bundle-buggy (grocery cart with 4 wheels) at the Thrift Store for $5. I've written "Berton House" on it in black marker.

I find I need to get out each day. I usually go to the post office to check the box. They have free copies of the Yukon News -- where the big news is the volunteer amulance drivers/attendants have quit.

I am working on poetry. Mostly notes. I've done one Tanka that I'll send to Gusts for their August 15 deadline. I hope to have more for them soon.

That's all from the Yukon!

- Carolyn

Funny Things:

7 days ago, when we flew from Vancouver up to Whitehorse on Air Canada, the pilot said there was "traffic" at the airport so we were going to have to circle for a bit. What traffic could there be? There's only one runway. You have to land, takeoff and taxi on the one strip.

6 days ago, we flew Air North from Whitehorse to Dawson. At the terminal in Whitehorse, we checked in and were each given a coloured, laminated square on paper with a number on it. This was our bording pass. They have festival seating on the plane. We were advised to sit near the back, rather than up by the engines. This was a Hawker Sidley prop plane. It sat about 40 passengers, maybe. But got good service.

As we approached Dawson, it was fogged in. The pilot said they'd fly over the area and see if they would attempt the landing. So, we got to see the town, the mines, and lots of trees from the air. They decided to land. The fog was up off the ground so we got to see the runway at the last minute. They have a trailer as their terminal. The luggage gets pushed through a hole in the wall of the trailer where you pick it up.

Now we are settled into Berton House, a writers retreat in Pierre Berton's childhood home in Dawson. The constant sunlight is strange. It's after midnight and it's a bit twilighty because the sun is behind the mountain -- it hasn't set, it's just blocked. This was the first day without any rain!