The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in BioBlitz
Search and identify species in Dawson City and its surrounding in the traditional territory of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in
Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in
Bioblitz is back & going to Dawson City
bringing experts and aspiring citizen scientists to one location for a day of counting and identifying as many species as possible.
For our children tomorrow
Closeup of Velma Olson’s beadwork on Sidney Anderson’s 2015 graduation dress [one_half] To my mind, Honouring Our Future: Yukon First Nations Graduation Regalia is among the most important art exhibits to take place in the Yukon over the past 10 years. I invite you to consider the effects the art processes displayed have on the …
Dawson Invitational Volleyball Tournament begins another 40 years after celebrating the creator’s last winter
The next 40 years of the Dawson Invitational Volleyball Tournament (DIVT) kicks off on Oct. 25 in Dawson City. The DIVT celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2018 with a special mass assembly to honour the years of success and the two teachers who started the whole thing.
Food security in the North
Local food production and sourcing has become an important component of our food supply, like the potatoes harvested here at the Yukon Grain Farm in 2017 What was the last conversation you had with your best friend? If there is one topic that people like to talk about it, it is food. We talk about …
Nurturing a new generation of Yukon artists
Every year, the Klondike Institute of Art & Culture (KIAC) in Dawson City welcomes high school students from across the territory for a four day hands-on art-making intensive – the Youth Art Enrichment (YAE) program.
It’s beginning to look a lot like … (you know)
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 …
The Yukon’s exclusive arts and crafts
Only two weeks to go until the 2018 Cranberry Fair, when, again, over 40 artists will gather to present the Yukon’s exceptional artistic craftsmanship.
‘Bigs’ and ‘Littles’ – spending time together
Forty years ago this December, Big Brothers started in the Yukon as a volunteer-run organization to help boys, who were needing a male role model in their lives, to be matched with a caring, safe and responsible adult. The organization was funded by local service clubs and became a registered charity in 1985. In 1991, …
Moosehide – shining a light across the North
The 2018 Moosehide Gathering in Dawson City was, once again, a smashing success. The local Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in relocated to Moosehide, two miles north of Dawson City on the Yukon River, during the gold rush of 1898, to escape the insanity of thirty-thousand lousy, drunken gold-hungry stampeders. It is a refuge for Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, and the …
Pride in Dawson City!
Pride is back in Dawson City! Pride Week is happening from July 9–15 and, as part of the celebrations, a parade will be taking place on July 14 at 5 p.m.
Stream of Dreams
A team of facilitators from the Stream of Dreams program was in Dawson this week to promote environmental stewardship and facilitate a community art project.
The ODD Gallery showcases Tamika Knutson’s Skin
Tamika Knutson is a Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizen who began her art training at the Yukon School of Visual Arts, in Dawson City.
We are what we used to eat
February 19 to 22 will see the latest edition of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Heritage Department’s bi-annual Myth and Medium week.
Advent season is Bazaar season in Dawson
The approaching Advent Season means that it will soon be what I sometimes refer to as Bazaar Season in Dawson City.
A spooky pre-Halloween evening
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 …
A Family Tradition
Of all the portraits Daphne Lovett-Barber’s has drawn so far, her favourite is one she did of her grandmother. The 5-year-old Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in artist may have just started kindergarten this year, but she has been creating art since she was a toddler. “My mommy is an artist and my daddy is an artist,” Lovett-Barber tells …
Weaving Willow, Weaving Voices
On a hot day in Dawson City this August, I had the opportunity to speak with the four artists of Weaving Voices: Bo Yeung, Chris Clarke, Jackie Olson and Sue Parsons. We sat in the shade of their intricately woven willow structure located outside of the Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre, facing toward the Yukon River. …
Congratulations SOVA!
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 …
Gathering Memories of Clinton Creek Proves Difficult
The original purpose of the Clinton Creek Oral History Project was to gather information about how the area around the former asbestos mine and company town had been used by locals prior to the establishment of the mine in the mid-1960s. The mine was about a decade getting off the ground from the time that …
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Yukon Stories
Arctic Secrets Directed by Allan Code, a Whitehorse based filmmaker, Arctic Secrets is a symphony of immensely strong and surprisingly fragile elements that comprise the wilderness of the Yukon Territory. Stunning imagery abounds in this visual adventure through its waters, mountains, and forests. Focusing mainly on the more arctic regions of the territory, Code and …
(S)hiver Me Timbers
“The dark and the cold are conducive to creativity,” says Carly Woolner, one of the co-founders of Dawson’s (S)Hiver Arts Festival. Blair Douglas, the other half of the team, chimes in with a smile: “They are also conducive to everyone staying home.” Together these sum up the motivations behind the festival, which has a mandate …
The Klondike Continues to Prepare for World Heritage Status
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 …
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Starting Conversations through Art with A Dawson City Scrapbook
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 …
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Creativity Runs Strong
Artistic genius runs in the de Repentigny family. Halin de Repentigny agrees. Over the phone, he said his dad loved to draw – he was always drawing something. De Repentigny’s mom loved music. Today the genius continues with Halin de Repentigny, his brother, Serge, and Halin’s two daughters, Mado and Rosa. This Friday, the family …
Calling All Arty Teens
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 …
Comics are the People’s Medium
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 …
A Feast For All
Harvest time. At the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (TH) Teaching and Working Farm, there will be a feast to celebrate a summer’s worth of hard work.
A Celebration of Tradition and Culture
From July 28 to 31 the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation will welcome everyone to their traditional territory. The First Nation is hosting the 13th biennial Moosehide Gathering, taking place at Moosehide Village, which is located 3 km downriver from Dawson City by boat, or 4.5 km by forest trail. Entry and camping is free. During …
Saturday is Market Time in the Klondike
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 …
Putting the WOW in Tombstone Park
Looking for a memorable northern road trip? The 17th annual Tombstone Weekend on the Wing (WOW) offers three days of fabulous hiking, a birding festival and interpretive events for all ages. The weekend of free events takes place June 3 to 5 and will start from the Tombstone Territorial Park campground, at kilometre 71 of …
Myth and Medium Focuses on Stories and Performance
This week shaped up to be a culturally ambitious one in Dawson City. The centerpiece of the week has been the Myth and Medium conference organized by the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s Heritage Department and focusing on the performing arts. It’s not too late to take in some of the culture. The week’s performance workshops continue on …
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Brightening Up Even the Darkest Nights
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 …
When local voices made a difference
In 1976 I was a young teacher just starting out in Beaver Creek, fresh from Nova Scotia and learning about the North. Regular stories about the Berger Inquiry (or Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry) were part of my education, as was the report itself when it came out, as well as the Lysyk Inquiry (or Alaska …
Saturday at the Front Street Markets
Front Street is lined with vehicles and shoppers from late morning to midafternoon each Saturday during the summer, even on days when there’s a smoky haze or a bit of a drizzle. The biggest attraction is the traditional Farmers’ Market, which has been going on weekly for many years. The Klondike has a healthy crop …
The Fire Siren is Good News
On any Wednesday evening, at any time during the year, most residents in the core historic zone of Dawson City can hear the sound of a siren cutting the silence. If it’s about 7:30 p.m., people will know that there’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s the practice meeting of the Dawson City Volunteer Fire …
Dawson’s Community Dance
Tiss Clark, a local artist and music teacher, is the organizer of the Community Jigging Square Dance Project in Dawson City. She decided to start the project after hearing an elder in Fort MacPherson recount dance history in the North. “Dances used to be for meeting, talking, and socializing with the community,” says Clark. “There’s …
World Heritage Planning Gets a Big Boost
The Yukon Government (YG) finally decided to sign on in a substantive way to the push for UNESCO World Heritage Status for the site designated Tr’ondëk/ Klondike. The press release hasn’t been issued yet as I write these words, but I know, because I was one of the people who posed for the group photo …
One River, Many Maps
At the beginning of his noon hour public lecture David Neufeld said he was working on his book but didn’t want to finish it because then he would lose his excuse to spend so much time on the Yukon River. He said when you say you’re working on a book, you get away with things. …
Finding our Faces
Melissa Carlick learned about residential schools in a class, First Nations 100, during her first year at UNBC in Prince George. Afterward she asked her dad, and found out that he went to Lower Post when he was a child. “It made sense when I found out,” she says. “That’s why I don’t know my …
Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and Yukon College Join Forces
There is an exciting new project underway near Dawson City. On September 19, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (TH) and Yukon College to create a framework for the development of a teaching-and-working farm located in TH traditional territory. The project’s impetus is to secure a source of fresh produce in …
Cross-Cultural Advances in Klondike Education
On March 31, the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (TH) held a feast to remember the mixed-heritage children who came to Dawson City to live at St. Paul’s Hostel and attend Dawson Public School — the only public school in the territory they were allowed to attend between 1920 and 1952. While the stories from the hostel don’t …
What Does Klondike Mean to the World?
From the very beginning there’s been some confusion connected with the word “Klondike.” It started with new arrivals — the gold rush stampeders — who where unable to wrap their tongues around “Tr’ondëk,” the Hän word for the “area,” which translates as something like “hammerstone water.” While the English word has become synonymous with gold, …
Myth and Medium are Coming Again
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 …
What is the Tr’ondëk-Klondike Project?
In two previous columns I have given some background behind Dawson City’s interest in UNESCO’s World Heritage Status designation. The Klondike region was placed on the national short list for this status in 2004, and I have outlined some of the earlier attempts to realize this goal. The latest project is called Tr’ondënk-Klondike: Future World …
Exploring Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Culture
The striking Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre was controversial when it was first being built in Dawson City — it’s not exactly a gold rush themed building. But it was Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in themed, and it’s now thoroughly embedded in the Dawson waterfront scene. With its stadium seating theatre, Hammerstone Gallery, Gathering Room and gift shop, the …
Student art gets out from behind closed doors
Christmas is a time of open houses in Dawson City, but there is one open house that has a special quality, according to Eldo Enns, program director of the Yukon School of Visual Arts (SOVA). SOVA will be opening its doors on December 13, from 5 to 7p.m. The public is invited to tour the campus …
The Odd Places Some People Live
Dawson City has long been known for unique answers to its housing shortage, especially in the summer, when the place is flooded with summer people (or summerdoughs) looking for work and a cheap place to live. Some of them live in run down buildings that probably don’t meet any kind of safety standard. Some have …
Showcasing the ‘fur’ North
A few weeks before the 2011 Dawson Fur Show, coordinator Miranda Meade isn’t quite sure how many people she can expect to show up for the bi-annual event. That’s understandable. Trappers are a little hard to get hold of during trapping season and the organizing body, the Dawson District Renewable Resource Council (DDRRC), can never …
Hot Truths and Half-frozen Films
A film director is pivotal in creating the environment and tone for people to work in, and in Lulu Keating’s recent short films the setting has involved some challenges. Cameras and actors worked in sub-zero temperatures for Her Man Plan (2010), for example. Many of the scenes were filmed on the frozen Yukon River and …
100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Years
“I find women in the Yukon, and Dawson in particular, an incredibly strong group,” says Penny Soderlund, a member of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) Dawson Regional Women’s Committee. “There probably isn’t any other place where the majority of women own their own chainsaws.” Living in the Yukon surrounded by female cabin-builders, dog …
The Mystery of the Four Coffins Explained
“You’re in one of the slides in this presentation,” they told me. This came as a surprise, since it is generally my lot in life to be the picture taker rather than the picture takee. But there I was, standing outside the chain link fence on Fifth Avenue, in the fall of 2010, just about …
Remembering Tent City
As we get closer to the time when Dawson sees an influx of summer workers, I thought I would take this week to reflect on the glory that was Tent City. To begin with, there has been a summer housing crunch in Dawson from at least the 1970s on. The shortage of suitable accommodation has …
Dawson’s Got Culture
Things generally slow down at the Dänojà Zho (Hän for Long Ago House) Cultural Centre once the summer season is over and the tourists are gone, but this fall season has been something of an exception. The place is a hotbed of activity, even in December. The building is approaching its 15th year of operation …
Capturing Character in Clay
It is a well-known piece of Yukon history: when gold fever rolled through the Klondike area in the 1890s, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in leader Chief Isaac made a bold decision that would change the fate of his people. As gold-hungry adventurers swarmed into what became Dawson City, Chief Isaac moved his people three miles downriver to Moosehide …
Feeding Bodies, Hearts and Minds
Just had a call from the folks at the Community Gospel Hall to tell us that there were 90 people at this week’s edition of the transients/summer workers/summerdoughs’ Tuesday night dinner. That’s sharply up from the 55 to 60 that St. Paul’s Anglican played host to last week and still more than the group St. …
Myth and Medium Returns to Dawson
The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (TH) Heritage department is reviving its Myth and Medium program during the week of February 21 to 23. The program ran for two years, in 2003 and 2004. Then, as organizers Jackie Olsen, Jodi Beaumont and Sue Parsons recalled when we sat down to chat about it last week, it simply got …
Rural Tech Matters
Peter Menzies’ commitment to trades education at Robert Service School (RSS) in Dawson City is setting an example for the Yukon. According to Menzies, a teacher since 2004, there is a serious lack of technology-based education in rural Yukon schools. This may come as a surprise, considering the territory’s skilled worker shortage and the increasing …
A Vision Becomes a Reality at the Gathering Place
“We had a vision in the fall, last year, of building an outdoor classroom at Robert Service School,” Hän Language teacher Melissa Hawkins explained to the assembly of several hundred students, teachers, parents, and community members on a sunny Thursday, September 6. Everyone was gathered around the antler-crowned arbour-style entrance to ?enähjin Tr’ëdëk, or the …
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Saving a Language and a Culture
Doris Roberts hates to fly, but when it came time to go to Tanacross, Alaska, to retrieve the songs and stories that Chief Isaac had taken there for safe-keeping many decades earlier, she knew she had to do it. Roberts had lost much of her Hän language while at residential school from 1946 to 1949, …
All Dolled Up
Sewing Our Traditions: Dolls of Canada’s North will be on display at Dawson’s Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre until September 21, held over from the centre’s regular summer season so that it can be part of a school-related program. Students at the Robert Service School (RSS) have already had one shot at doll making and the …
The Storyteller’s Story
“I was born under a tree (on September 6, 1920), way up the MacMillan River, at Russell Creek,” J.J. Van Bibber told the Klondike Sun back in 2009. “Whenever a baby was ready to be born, mom (Eliza) just holed up for a week, and then put us on her back, and just keep going.” …
Michael Mason’s Single Line
It’s a slow Sunday afternoon and Michael Mason is a little discouraged at the low turnout for his one-man art show at the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Community Hall. It probably doesn’t help that there’s work being done on the roof of the building and the entrance looks a bit like a construction zone. Mason muses that …
Walking Away from Disaster
On May 8, Darren Bullen woke up on a small gravel island, upside-down in a single engine Cessna, with the weight of a man on his neck. The plane had fallen silent and gone down after complete engine failure. Near Coffee Creek, over 100 km south of Dawson City, trapped in the middle of the …
Taking it Outdoors
Like ants, elementary students of the Robert Service School (RSS) in Dawson City marched off of a school bus carrying large rocks from the dredge tailings, placing them in the corner of the school yard. The 350m2 space, previously poorly drained and underutilized, has become an outdoor classroom called Take it Outside. Take it Outside …
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like “You Know What”
Here in the Klondike we are currently forging through Advent and into the Christmas season. The month of the Christmas bazaars – otherwise known as November – is behind us. That shopping season is bookended by the two large events: the Daycare Bazaar in the Robert Service School gymnasium and the Last Minute Bazaar, a …
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A dog musher’s dream
Brian Wilmshurst has a dream – a big one. The Dawson City area dog musher is running the Yukon Quest, which is considered the toughest sled dog race in the world. The Quest starts this year in Fairbanks Alaska on February 4, 2012 and ends in Whitehorse, Yukon. Why would an easygoing dog man want …
Tr’ondek Hwich’in Celebrate at Moosehide
The 10th Moosehide Gathering will take place at Moosehide (where else?) from July 29 to Aug. 1. Moosehide is located five kilometres downstream from Dawson City, and was the home of the Hän people for some 50 years. The village was established at the beginning of the 20th century when the Hän people were displaced …
