Rolf Hougen stands with Harreson Tanner beside the bust of Sam Steele that he commissioned Chuck Buchanan to sculpt as part of the centennial RCMP celebration in 1992 What do Jack London, Martha Black, Pierre Berton and Ted Harrison have in common? They’ve all been commissioned by Rolf Hougen to be sculpted by Harreson Tanner …
Dawson City would not be nearly as well-known as it is without the writings of three men who lived here for parts of their lives. This year we will once again be celebrating all of their lives and works with a stroll along the Writers’ Block, that portion of Eighth Avenue where they once lived. …
Things started off great when we immediately got off trail (we wouldn’t know this till days later). We attempted to follow some GPS tracks I plucked from the internet. This involved scaling a wet, lushly vegetated and slippery mountainside. This became increasingly tiresome and ludicrous, with steep precipice falls a constant reminder of our mortality. …
Bear Mountain: A loving tribute to a living nightmare – Part 2 Read More »
Each summer the Klondike Visitors Association (KVA), honours the memory of four writers who have meant a great deal to Dawson City and the Klondike: Jack London, Robert W. Service, Pierre Berton and Dick North.
When we look back on Canada’s sesquicentennial year (and yes, I did look it up to make sure I spelled it correctly), what will we think of it?
In the summer of 1972 Pierre Berton decided to recreate a trip he had taken with his mother, father and sister back in the 1930s and take his family rafting from Bennett Lake to Dawson City.
“Ship’s logs, myths, stories of quiet exaltation and wrenching lamentations can all become poetry when the experience resonates deeply with the rhythm of the human heart…”— Anita Hadley in the introduction to Spindrift: A Canadian Book of the Sea. The sea, in Anita Hadley’s view, may not be a tangible part of your everyday, but …
Despite the romantic image of the grizzled miner panning by the creek side in search of gold, that phase of the Klondike’s mineral saga was relatively short. Entrepreneurial minds knew of more efficient and less-labour intensive ways of getting gold from the ground, and it wasn’t long before the arrival of the dredges in the …
During the week that leads to the Discovery Days weekend, the Klondike Visitors Association, Parks Canada and the Writers’ Trust of Canada celebrate the writers who have made Dawson City world famous. Part of this event, called Authors on Eighth, is a writing contest that began in June and ended in July, in time for …
The nomination package has been prepared under the watchful eye of a local advisory committee, including representation from Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, the City of Dawson, the Yukon Government, the Klondike Placer Miners Association and citizen reps from both Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the Dawson community. There is also a project management team, and much of the actual …
The Klondike Continues to Prepare for World Heritage Status Read More »
Each year the Klondike Visitors Association works with the Writers’ Trust of Canada, Parks Canada, and the Dawson Community Library to put on the Authors on Eighth Walking Tour during the week before Discovery Days. Connected to that event is the annual Authors on Eighth Writing Contest, which challenges would-be authors to emulate the work …
116th Brier, an event that started in the Klondike Gold Rush and is considered the Yukon’s oldest continuously running event.
Celebrate Northern literature on August 13 during Authors on 8th, a literary walking tour through the lives of Klondike authors Jack London, Robert Service and the Bertons, Laura and Pierre. “There’s a huge mythology about the North that both Jack London and Robert Service created,” says Rachel Wiegers, the marketing and special events co-ordinator for …
Forty years ago, an undiscovered English painter, new to the Yukon, had his first Canadian art show at the Whitehorse Public Library. Now, that painter, Ted Harrison, is the subject of the biography Painting Paradise by Katherine Gibson. On August 26, at 5 p.m., Yukoners can join both artist and author at the Yukon Arts …
There are strange things found on the Internet when you’re surfing just for fun. There’s misinformation galore and yet, there’s no way to get it undone. I won’t even apologize to Robert Service because I’m here to defend his honour. Case in point: www.planetware.com. If its reporting on other topics is as sloppy as that …
There are many gravesites marked on the downhill side of Mary McLeod Road, but the only one with a beaten path to it belongs to Jan Welzl, a man for whom Thomas Wolf’s famous phase, “You can’t go home again,” might have been written. Welzl was born in Zábreh, Moravia, in 1868, at a time …
A Teller of Tall Tales Ended his Journey in Dawson City Read More »
When I left off with this history of the Berton House, Pierre Berton had bought back his childhood home for $50,000 in 1989 and donated it to the Yukon Arts Council. The council collaborated with the Klondike Visitors Association (KVA) to set up the Berton House writer-in-residence committee to make decisions about how to handle …
Being in Dawson City for a residence at the Berton House is a dream come true for Winnipeg writer Joan Thomas. This is not the first time that Thomas has been to this area. In 1996, she spent a month camping in the Yukon with her family. At the time, Pierre Berton’s childhood home was …
