dawson city

I'm beginning to notice a trend.

The further we push north into the Yukon, the smaller the towns get. And the dustier. And the older-looking. And the younger?

Dawson city is the last town in the Yukon before you reach the border by the Klondike Loop, and the end of pavement. There isn't even a bridge across the Yukon; you have to drive your car off a gravel pile onto a flat ferry which then cuts a drunken arc across the River to drop you onto another gravel landing on the other side. Once across, the asphalt peters out and you're driving on the Top of the World.

But before all that, you HAVE TO experience Dawson. This town of 1300 in the winter more than doubles with the summer. Youth come from all over the world to fill this anachronistic town. The streets are dirt and there isn't a chain establishment in site. I think it may even be an ordinance to build with clapboard falsefront and paint in garish shades of avon-lady.
Dawson has been meticulously preserved from its gold rush heyday and I think the people who live there actually would be confused if it were any other way. The businesses have names like Klondike Kate's, Diamond Tooth Gerties, and the Triple J Hotel. If you squint (and ignore the cars), it wouldn't take much to see this place as it probably looked a hundred years ago.

But anyway, like I was saying... The deep Yukon cities are peopled with twenty-somethings. College students, travelers, and drop-outs from life find their way into this town and dance for, serve, or guide the gold chasers and RVers of the summer. It's kind of surreal to enter a town and see the crazy-old buildings filled with grungy looking kids ready to feed you schlock or sourdough bread.

And good bunch of them live just a ferry-ride across the river at the Dawson City River Hostel, a cabin rental/campground/giant pit toilet run by a German who spent fifteen years wandering the world on a bike. This place has several rental cabins and a ton of tentsites all over the hillside, along with all-outdoor kitchen facilities, outhouses, and even a wood-fired bathhouse (and was THAT something else, let me tell you). Our host told us that he had 70 campers who were part of the city's platoon of seasonal employees. And the season is just beginning.

And of course, when in Dawson, do as the tourists do. KT and I had read a weird article in an Australian paper about a special drink that you could only order in the Downtown Hotel. By imbibing, you are inducted into the Sourtoe Club, an exclusive organization who's members can claim they've touched their lips to an actual amputated human toe. An old legend spurred a ridiculous tradition that now claims tourist dollars like wildfire. I haven't time for the whole legend, but the long and the short of it is that KT and I each drank a shot of Yukon Jack (major yum, by the way) with a brown, shriveled, dead toe swimming on the bottom. Don't believe me? Here's a pic:
Be on the lookout for a video.

Afterward, the vaudeville at Diamond Tooth Gerties Casino just wasn't quite as impressive...