The pre-Christmas season will soon be underway here in the Klondike, actually beginning a few days before this piece can see print. It’s a season of bazaars and open houses that lead up to the actual holidays. It begins with the oldest and largest of the bazaars, the Little Blue Daycare Christmas Bazaar. This will …
Fate has a habit of steering flute and saxophone player Jane Bunnett in unexpected directions. If tendinitis hadn’t forced a break from her intense piano practice regime, for instance, she might not have gone to San Francisco and met Charles Mingus’s pianist, Don Pullen, who would become her mentor, friend and musical collaborator. If she …
When the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC) in Dawson City put out a call for a members’ exhibit with the theme of “The Age of Selfies,” local filmmaker Lulu Keating decided to submit a work about her recent hip replacement. “Anger was part of my recovery from hip replacement,” said the former Nova …
Hip hip hooray! for local filmmaker Lulu Keating … Read More »
From Friday, August 24 until Sunday, August 26, musicians and filmmakers are invited and encouraged to take part in the creation of a music video that will be completed in only two days.
When “Arizona” Charlie Meadows built his Palace Grand Theatre, in 1899, it probably never occurred to him that some version of the place would still exist in 2018.
For the past year or so, I have been collaborating with the makers of vessels to co-create unique raven-adorned cups and bowls.
The Mayo Arts Festival and Canada Day celebrations are highlights. Everybody is looking forward to the celebrations. 2018
Tamika Knutson is a Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizen who began her art training at the Yukon School of Visual Arts, in Dawson City.
The post-apocalyptic, not-so-distant-future world of The Unplugging, an award-winning play by Canadian playwright Yvette Nolan, is the latest production on offer from the Yukon-based Gwaandak Theatre.
Screenings for the Dawson City International Short Film Festival began in October, with five or six people meeting twice a week to view what would eventually add up to between 400 and 500 submissions for the Easter weekend festival.
The Yukon stand-up comedy scene can be fickle. Some years comics will perform to packed houses that turn people away at the door. Other years, not so much. Whether it’s a lack of comics, audience, or both, northern life can bring a number of challenges that make live comedy difficult to maintain. Richard Eden, George …
The annual Youth Art Enrichment program, now entering its 17th year, is an annual four-day intensive art program for Yukon youth, hosted by the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture in Dawson City. It has changed its dates this year and will be held from March 19 to 22 instead of its traditional November schedule. KIAC’s …
Thaw-di-Gras, Dawson’s spring-or-late-winter carnival, is adding a day this year, with events beginning on Friday, March 16 and running through Sunday, March 18.
There is a new exhibition showing at The ODD Gallery in Dawson City, a gallery that showcases contemporary art year round. Pathie is a new, video-based installation by Montreal artist Andrée-Anne Roussel. The exhibit opened Wednesday, January 17th, with an artist’s talk at the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC) ballroom, followed by …
The Dawson City Music Festival (DCMF) will be holding its annual general meeting on Thursday, January 18, at Yukon College. The meeting was to have been before Christmas, but analysis of the topics raised at a well-attended membership meeting in mid-October caused the board to decide to refine its thoughts a bit more before presenting …
Dawson City Music Festival aims for sustainability Read More »
Get your cameras rolling and warm up your gear because the annual Yukon 48-Hour Filmmaking Challenge starts on Friday, January 12. It’s a yearly team-up between the Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture in Dawson City and the Yukon Film Society in Whitehorse. The event gives participants two days to complete a short film with …
The approaching Advent Season means that it will soon be what I sometimes refer to as Bazaar Season in Dawson City.
Dawson City’s Old Court House on Front Street will be the site for this year’s Haunted House event, a yearly offering to the community sponsored by Parks Canada. For many years the RCMP took the lead in providing this Halloween celebration, but four years ago they needed to step down. Janice Cliff, with Klondike National …
When talking about the location of the Yukon School of Visual Arts (Yukon SOVA) in Dawson City, two issues are often raised: What does the location do for students? What does it do for the town? Kyla McArthur, who works at SOVA as the administrative officer and is also a town councillor, spoke of the …
Any discussion of the Yukon School of Visual Arts begins with a couple of questions: What is it? Why is it in Dawson? The first question is easily answered: the Yukon SOVA is a post-secondary art school with excellent facilities and dedicated staff, offering a foundation year (first year) of a Bachelor of Fine Arts …
The Yukon’s Discovery Day Holiday is kind of hard to pin down. Likely the Monday closest to the day gold was discovered on Bonanza Creek.
The Yukon Riverside Arts Festival takes place in the most idyllic of settings – right alongside the Yukon River in Dawson City.
Anna Taylor spent this winter stitching the stories of Dawson City women. In March, the Halifax-based textile artist completed a month-long residency at the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture. There, her embroidery practice focused on Dawson’s relationship with prostitution during the gold rush, and on the lives of the individual women who traveled north …
The cupboard behind Dan Sokolowski’s head is still covered with the multi-coloured Post-it notes he’s been using to assign the 86 short films in this year’s Dawson City International Short Film Festival to various categories for Friday, Saturday and Sunday screenings that will fill up this Easter Weekend. The films were selected by a group …
Al Cushing may be leaving, but he’s not going anywhere. When he steps into retirement at the end of this month, one aspect of the Yukon Arts Centre’s evolution during his nine years at the helm pleases Cushing the most. “I think the highlight is that the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) has gotten closer to …
At 10 a.m. on Thursday, March 23, the spirit of Percy DeWolfe, Dawson’s Iron Man Mail Carrier, will head off from the starting line between the Old Post Office and the Palace Grand Theatre. Two minutes later the first of the corporeal contestants in the Memorial Mail Race named after him will let the dogs, …
Regardless of what else may be happening, on 1st Saturday of the month during a school year, these open mic events are a regular occurrence.
From Jan. 26 to Feb. 25, the ODD Gallery in Dawson City will be featuring an exhibition called The Golden Age of Selfies. The exhibition will showcase work submitted by members of the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC). The idea of taking a selfie might feel modern, but the selfie itself has been …
If you’ve always wanted the challenge of making a film in a short amount of time, here’s your chance. The Yukon 48 Hour Film Challenge, hosted by the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC) and the Yukon Film Society, will once again be offering filmmakers of all ages a chance to test their mettle …
Yukon 48 hour Film Challenge Back Again this Year Read More »
I only had one night in Dawson City and I was hoping for a clear, cold night. I’d been dreaming for years of what it must feel like to bask in the glow of a sky filled with northern lights. This was my chance. I’d been in Whitehorse for a couple days and the cold …
If you go by way of Laos and the U.S. East Coast, the journey from France to Yukon is anything but a straight line. But a brief reunion of two lifelong friends in Paris two summers ago proves you can get from there to here. “We had a great time together, and I told him …
When you think of comics, you may think of superheroes or lovable scruffy dogs. But Rebecca Roher says comics are not only pulpy and light. Roher is a cartoonist, illustrator and educator. Comics, she says, can be used to start conversations about serious topics. “People are maybe more open to a comic, while other forms …
Starting Conversations through Art with A Dawson City Scrapbook Read More »
Basia Bulat is returning to the Yukon. Bulat is a multi-instrumentalist – she plays guitar, autoharp, banjo, ukulele, charango, hammered dulcimer, saxophone and flute – and has a powerful voice. She comes by her musical interests naturally, having a mother who was a music teacher who taught both piano and guitar. She has said the …
From November 2 to 5, youth from all over the Yukon will be converging on Dawson City to hone their art skills in the 16th annual Youth Art Enrichment Program. Hosted by the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC), the four-day program is for Yukon students in Grades 9 to 12 who are …
Ever since she was a little girl, Teva Harrison drew. She studied art after high school. But, as it often goes, “needing to make a living, I digressed.” After the explanation, Harrison laughs. A joyful, full, belly laugh. To make a living, she worked as the director of marketing for the Nature Conservancy of Canada. …
On Thursday, Sept. 29, at 7:30 p.m., the ODD Gallery in Dawson City will be holding a reception for the opening of Perpetual Curiosities: A 30-Year Retrospective. The exhibition is by long-time Dawsonite Shelley Hakonson, whose last show at the gallery was a shared exhibition. This time she’s going solo. “It’s nerve wracking, but also …
Perpetual Curiosities: A 30-Year Retrospective Art Exhibit Read More »
Anyone can make comics, and they are mass produced and traded for cheap. That’s the message Jonathan Rotsztain brought to Dawson City during his art residency with KIAC. Rotsztain describes himself as a “graphic designer who makes comics. “I’m a writer before a drawer, but I never found writing on its own that compelling as …
Gabriola Islander Bob Bossin brings his one-man musical Davy the Punk to The Old Fire Hall next Thursday, Sept. 22 and to Dawson City the following week. The show is based on Bossin’s 2014 book of the same title. They tell the story of his father’s life in Canada’s gambling underworld of the 1930s. Both …
Saturday in Dawson’s Waterfront Park means it’s time for a couple of markets to open for business. The Farmers’ Market has been running for many years. While it began with growers selling produce, vegetables, garden plants and bushes, it has expanded in offerings to the point where the name might be better rendered as a …
Friends of the Palace Grand Theatre presenting A Klondike Cabin Companion, a live radio performance, bring community theatre to Dawson City.
On Easter weekend the ballroom of the Oddfellows Hall will be filled with hundreds of short film fans celebrating the 17th edition of the Dawson City International Short Film Festival (DCISFF) and cramming in as much as they can of the 500 hours of screen time that will fill up the days. This is the …
Year 17 sees an abundance of Yukon Films at the Festival Read More »
Not just gold glitters in the Klondike. For Dawson City single-mother & entrepreneur, the pasties she makes sparkle too.
I’m happy to record that, except for the arrival of the Sears Wish Book at North 60 Petro Express, everything else related to Christmas here in Dawson City seems to have been content to wait until after Remembrance Day to get started. ‘Tis the season for community gatherings, and the first one to occur was …
Students in rural schools can miss out on a number of things in terms of course offerings and opportunities. There are specialty programs in the city that attract a number of rural students to spend time in Whitehorse. Our daughter, for instance, spent half of her Grade 11 year attending the Music Arts and Drama …
A few years back, Craig Cardiff noticed he was only going through the motions at his shows. The folk musician from Waterloo, Ontario says he was on autopilot. He thought to himself, ‘This isn’t how it should be going.’ He says no one should be on autopilot, and a musician performing live, especially, should be …
The 4th Dawson Daily News Print & Publishing Symposium, part of the annual Yukon Riverside Arts Festival, is taking a walk on the wild side.
Cover Me Badd VII is back this summer for another evening of rocking good fun in Dawson City. On June 5, from 7 to 11 p.m., Dawson City Music Festival (DCMF) and the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC) will co-host this evening of music and entertainment. Emily Farrell, Executive Director of DCMF, emphasizes …
A brand new event will be taking place in Dawson City on Saturday, January 24. The (s)hiver festival promises a night of art, light, and creativity in response to the dark cold of a northern winter. Originally from Vancouver, festival organizers Blair Douglas and Carly Woolner arrived in Dawson last summer. Both are artists; Douglas …
The Nutcracker is coming to Dawson City just in time for the holidays. The Northern Lights School of Dance in Whitehorse is staging the traditional ballet on Saturday, December 6, at Diamond Tooth Gerties. Of the five years that the production has been coming to Dawson, the last three have brought a twist to the …
Andrea Kastner has been fascinated by garbage for years. The Montreal native, who now makes her home in Hamilton, Ontario became interested in waste while thinking about how we, as a society, relate to our possessions. “ We take things with us, ignore that we own them, then throw them out,” she says. “ It’s …
The way Greg Hakonson tells it, the Dawson City Arts Society (DCAS) had its beginnings in a chance encounter with his across-the-street neighbor, artist John Steins. “We started chatting, and decided we should build an arts society,” Hakonson says. “He was coming at it from the arts side, and I was coming at it from …
Greg Hakonson – One Man’s Dream Of The Arts As An Economic Engine For Dawson City Read More »
Dawson City International Short Film Festival (DCISFF) started in 2000, Dan Sokolowski has been organizing the festival for eight years.
The Animal Project, a new feature film by prolific Canadian indie filmmaker Ingrid Veninger, began as a leap of faith. To begin creating the film, Toronto-based Veninger met 100 actors, one at a time, with no script in hand, no concept for the plot, and no characters. “The project was born out of a desire …
The bi-annual Myth and Medium symposium runs from February 24 to 28 this year, the week after the territorial Heritage Day holiday. Heritage Day originally inspired the idea of Myth and Medium about a decade ago. The first symposium tied in nicely with both a display of the Cameron Collection, brought here by Ken Lister …
Since September there have been some good additions to the Yukon Liquor Corp. (YLC) shelves. October and November seem to be emerging as the wine tasting season in the Yukon. In the span of five weeks, I participated in, or organized, three events: the October Rotary festival in Whitehorse, the second annual tasting held by …
Barnacle Bob Hilliard is ubiquitous on the Dawson City music scene. Since arriving in the early 1990s he’s been a fixture in the bars around town, starting at the Westminster, and also playing in the bars of the Eldorado and Downtown Hotels. Dawson has two annual parades, Canada Day and Discovery Days, and Bob can …
It’s a film festival in a town that doesn’t have a theatre. It’s an international film festival in a town that doesn’t have an international airport. But the 6th Dawson City International Short Film Festival is still a hot ticket. Its producer, Lulu Keating, says she was impressed when she first attended as a guest. …
The Dawson pre-Christmas season launched on Nov. 10 as the gym in the Robert Service School filled up for the Dawson Daycare’s Bazaar. This was the lead event in a series that will take place until first weekend in December. At least two others have now been announced, and sometimes another one creeps into the …
Having your portrait painted is a way of immortalizing yourself – popes, kings and queens have all done it. But what about pets? Ange Bonnici, programs coordinator at the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC) in Dawson City, has decided it’s high time to include pets in the everlasting world of portraits. In 2011, …
Arts shows, installations and openings around Whitehorse. Including Emma Barr, Joyce Majiski, Jeanine & Paul Baker and more
After fifteen years of modelling, I finally decided to ask a couple of artist friends how they handle drawing the naked body of someone they know.
From May to September you can find Riley Brennan all around Dawson, digging in the dirt as she skillfully helps to make the town a place that the Cities in Bloom tour usually compliments. Her gardening business keeps her creative side happy all summer long. Come winter she settles down in her home on the …
Running from August 15 to September 20, The Natural & The Manufactured explores the relationship between nature and culture, society and the natural world. Started in 2005, The Natural & The Manufactured is a unique thematic art project jointly organized by the ODD Gallery and the artist-in-residence program at the Klondike Institute of Art and …
The festival season isn’t over yet in Dawson City. From August 15-18, the 13th Annual Yukon Riverside Arts Festival will take place at various venues around town. The Festival features workshops, live music, guest lectures, artist talks, exhibitions, special events, public art projects and a gallery hop throughout the downtown core. Writers will also have …
There is a buzz of excitement among the arts community in Dawson City. Starting last weekend, and continuing every Saturday throughout the summer, Dawson will have a regular artists’ market. The market is a joint initiative between Tr’ondek Hwech’in and the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC). “There’s so much talent in this town …
The closer you get to the Arctic Circle, the more you deserve a good blow out as the end of winter approaches. Instead of shaking a fist of good riddance to the snow and cold, the good people of Dawson City party with it. The annual Thaw Di Gras Spring Carnival kicks off Thursday, March …
What started off in 2010 as a one-off event showcasing Dawson City musical talent has now become a yearly ritual that rings in the summer season with a bang. Cover Me Badd is a partnership between Dawson City Music Festival (DCMF) and the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC). The original intention was to …
What is behind this curious display? What thoughts or intentions are these objects meant to communicate? What part of the larger whole do they play? Jessica Vellenga is interning as a community curator and programming at the Yukon Arts Centre. As an artist, herself, she is eager to illumine the meaning of Residue, the KIAC …
Upwards of 1,500 film lovers will be flowing into Dawson City during the Easter long weekend to soak up a non-stop extravaganza of short films. The Dawson City International Short Film Festival (DCISFF) features a series of films as short as one minute, each one being a window into the minds of filmmakers from around …
When Alt Altman, a.k.a. Digits, had the chance to participate in the Dawson City’s Songwriter in Residence program in February, he jumped at the opportunity. “I knew someone who had already done it and they said to absolutely do it,” says Altman. “I heard lots of good things about Dawson. It seemed like a once …
Take a string quartet: two violins, a viola and a cello. Imagine it whipping up a challenging entrée of Bach. As side dishes, how about some 1930s-era Glazounov romanticism and a bit of contemporary Canadiana? A little Zappa for dessert, perhaps. But first, replace the strings with saxophones. That’s the menu Whitehorse Concerts has in …
Throughout history, rivers have been associated with life. It seems appropriate, then, that those who create would celebrate alongside the Yukon River. The Yukon Riverside Arts Festival, in Dawson City, is going into its ninth year and Jenifer Rudski shares festival highlights over the phone from KIAC, in Dawson City. She is coordinating this year’s …
What would bring people into a local, northern art gallery in the middle of January? This was the question facing the Dawson City Arts Society (DCAS), a volunteer based, non-profit organization, when they opened up the ODD Gallery in Dawson City in 1999. The answer was a DCAS members’ exhibition, featuring local professional and non-professional …
On January 18, Yukoners have the opportunity to make a film in 48 hours. Sound impossible? Not according to Dan Sokolowski, co-organizer of the Yukon 48 Hour Filmmaking Festival. “It can be daunting to think about making a film,” says Sokolowski. “This challenge is a kick-start for people to realize they actually can make films, …
“What’s that thing on the dike?” “It’s art!” “I thought it was an accident …” … comments from the public overheard about Brandon Vickerd’s Northern Satellite installed in the lawn in front of the dike in Dawson City. The Natural and the Manufactured is a series of artist talks, lectures and art installations, in its …
Artrepreneur: What’s Made and What’s Not, in Art Read More »
Christmas and New Year’s are fast approaching us here in the Yukon, and this weekend reminded me what a beautiful and magical place we live in. If Whitehorse was not beautiful enough, I just came home from driving 500 km through low-angle sun and fresh fallen snow to Dawson City. The Klondike Institute of Art …
The community that sings together … My personal songbook is getting bigger every month. That’s thanks to the energy of a departed Dawsonite educator, named Nijen Holland (or just, Nijen, as everybody called him), who thought up the idea of having monthly coffee houses at various locations around town and encouraging local musicians to contribute …
I shall, from time to time, give to the readers of What’s Up Yukon information about the state of this arts and recreation paper. This lead paragraph was ripped off from Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution because I feel such an examination of the stories we bring to readers is just as noble …
There is no surer sign of the holiday season than the annual staging of The Nutcracker. The Northern Lights School of Dance is presenting the traditional ballet on December 2, in Dawson City and on December 7 and 8, in Whitehorse. This is the fourth year that this holiday favourite will be performed in Dawson, …
Beloved Nutcracker Ballet draws audience into the seats … and onto the stage Read More »
Caili Steel is full of good news when we meet at Klondike Kate’s for coffee and a chat during that restaurant’s opening afternoon. “I just found out today that I got funding from the ArtsFund.” Steel has been busily organizing this year’s version of Dawson’s spring drama festival and has been working pretty much without …
Has anyone heard of archerfish?” Joe Cooke describes how this fish can see both above and below water, and he encourages the musicians ringed around him to split their vision too – by looking at him and at their sheet music. Laughter ripples around the group as the image sinks in. Cooke, a guitarist, banker …
I’m sitting in my trailer in Whitehorse as I type these words, but I can almost hear Buckwheat Donahue hoowwlliingg with delight all the way from Skagway, where I spent the last several days, attending the very first North Words Writers Symposium. Buckwheat likes to begin and end every event he’s involved in with a …
Gold Show weekend in Dawson City. The town teems with things to do, businesses starting up for the busy tourist season and fresh young faces just come north to staff that season. Runners compete in the Henry Gulch 5 K run and win gold nuggets. Bombay Peggy’s hums after the Odd Fellows Ballroom empties of …
Artrepreneur: Partially Buried in Spring-Sprouting Dawson Read More »
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas— with a twist, that is. The Klondike Institute of Art and Culture (KIAC) in Dawson City is getting ready for its annual arts and crafts fair, but don’t expect the regular baked goods and trinkets. “The original idea was to have a craft fair that was different …
On December 15, the Yukon School of Visual Art Dawson City campus will open its doors to the public for its annual Christmas open house and mid-year student Exhibition. In September, 16 students from across Canada, and one international student from Beijing, China, charged into the foundational one-year study at the college. The open house …
What would you say if someone handed you a video camera and asked you to produce, cast, direct, shoot and edit a film in two days? Can’t be done? Think again. The Klondike Institute of Art and Culture’s (KIAC) 48 Hour Film Competition offers just such a challenge this coming weekend. Here’s how it goes. …
On August 29 the Klondike School House, called Tr’odek Hatr’unohtan Zho in the Han language, finally got a home. I’m talking about the Dawson campus of Yukon College, which has been bounced all over town since it started up in the early 1980s. My early awareness of Yukon College was when I lived in Faro. …
My first conversation with Andreas Horvath was right after I’d seen Views of Retired Night Porter at the Dawson City International Short Film Festival. The movie is his intimate 38-minute portrait of a security guard who’d come across as a monster in From a Night Porter’s Point of View, a 1977 film by director Krzysztof Kie?lowski …
When beloved members of a community pass away, thoughts about how to commemorate their lives begin to be tossed around. Sometimes a bench is adorned with a plaque or a seedling is planted. In the case of Gord Polichek and Wendy Perry (Trapp), the community of Dawson City wanted to do something a little different. …
The Yukon School of Visual Arts (SOVA) in Dawson City is going on the road. Students and faculty will arrive in Whitehorse next week to bring a collaborative installation exhibit to Arts Underground. For the first time since the school’s establishment in 2007, Arts Underground is hosting the annual student gallery show. The students arranged …
The Dawson Daily News building shut down as an operating business in 1954, a casualty of Dawson losing its Yukon capital status to Whitehorse. The newspaper was one of the earliest of many in the town, and the only one to survive the early boomtown days. It moved into its offices in 1910. These days …
Celebrating Print and Publishing at the Daily News Read More »
“developing the hypothesis that we are all artists with a deep love of nature” the project results in recorded song and a lot to think about.
Welcome to another peek at my corner of the Klondike. Apparently this little column is getting a bit of notice, since my absence last issue has already had a couple of people asking me if I’d stopped writing it. I guess that’s the benefit of writing for a free paper that sits out there for …
This week, Dawson City welcomes back Raven Spirit Dance, which has enjoyed a well-established presence in town for several years. Choreographer Michelle Olson is somewhat of a part-time Dawsonite herself and member of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation. She has previously created two pieces that were performed at the Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre. This summer …
In my last article, I told you about the wine tasting I was planning at Bombay Peggy’s in Dawson City over the May long weekend. We had about 20 people attend, a few less than I would have hoped for, but a good first effort. Three of the bar staff participated and helped do the …
Last night I attended the delightful Dawson City showing of the David Mamet play, Boston Marriage. Two days earlier the KIAC Christmas Art and Craft Extravaganza filled a room with handicrafts and artwork. On the same date there was a Karaoke Night with visiting artist-in-residence Curtis Grahauer. Two nights before that Grahauer offered a showing …
A close look at goths who ride Winnipeg buses, an animation about Yukon sledding, and films about climate change will appear among more than 100 short films that will screen in Dawson City from April 21 to 24. This year marks the 12th edition of this annual event that has increasingly become a highlight of …
