So here you are looking at all of these Dawson posts. What to do? Scroll down and start at the last entry in the line: Dawson City, Yukon, August 2010 and then work your way up if you want a chronological adventure. Or do your own thing and view randomly. I know there are a LOT of blogs and a lot of photos, so take your time and make your way at your own pace. If you get to the bottom of the line and don't know what to do, go to "older posts" and click on it to get to the next set of posts. Now relax and enjoy.
If you decide you'd like more information about Dawson City or the Yukon, here are two sites to visit. Just click on them:
www.DawsonCity.ca
www.yukoninfo.com
Monday, August 30, 2010
Dawson City, Yukon: leaving
I cried, of course.
Photos: Me & a view. Self-portrait. The last photoed view along the road to Whitehorse.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Dawson City, Yukon: last day
Our last day we spent taking Mackenzie to the playground, walking with John and dining (of course!). There is a wonderful Greek restaurant in Dawson, the Drunken Goat. We went there for Francine's last night and liked it so much we went back for our last night. If you visit Dawson, it is well worth your dining $$. After supper Mackenzie & I played hide and seek, then we all went for ice-cream cones on the main drag. Now in Dawson, dogs rule. They run the streets. They shift home base regularly (we had one lovely dog stop over at John's for a day or two) and every pick-up truck that goes by has a dog or two in it. Huge dog bones make their way from one household to another and you notice this as you walk the same streets day after day, a bone you saw in one driveway ends up a block away, or near the schoolyard. And dogs are loved, by and large. When we went for ice-cream after our Drunken Goat meal, Andy & I marveled that Ci-Ci, Tanja's sweet-natured canine companion, received a mini dog-cone. And a fellow sitting in a chair at the ice-cream parlour, had a loaf of bread that he fed to visiting dogs, slice by slice.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Dawson City, Yukon: golf day
Top of the World Golf Course, 9 holes, 24 hours a day, five miles from downtown and so pretty as to make even the most anti-golfers think they can hit the ball and get it in the hole! Note "Other" Grandma and Mackenzie scarves.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Dawson City, Yukon: the Watt & Zettell stairs
Question: How many Zettell-Watts does it take to build a set of stairs? Answer: One lawyer chief strategist measure again and again worrier, one payroll administrator DJ visualization technician no-dad-try-this-trust-me-er, one writer rock wall engineer aide photographer cheerleader and *?&#$%? editor (as per suggestion), a new hand saw and a borrowed work mate.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Dawson City, Yukon: graveyards
There are a plethora of fascinating graveyards in Dawson -- some very old, some new and some a mix -- that dot Mary McLeod Road up to (or down from) the Dome. The grave sites are touching, original and whimsical with dates that suggest life in the north is still pretty brutal. The older graves have provided enough compost for lovely big trees to grow from them, some of the largest trees you see in the area in fact.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Dawson City, Yukon: Dome day
The day after the party, Andy & I were in charge of child care, so we headed to the Riverside Cafe where kids can have warm hot chocolate and bagels and cream cheese and adults can have wonderful cappuccinos and breakfast wraps with eggs and hot salsa and bran muffins with a decidedly grain-gritty European texture that works wonders. After breakfast we headed up Mary McLeod Road to Midnight Dome (elevation 2911 feet) -- everyone just calls it The Dome. Even on a grey day, it's a fabulous place to view all of the approaches to Dawson, each with a spectacular and broad vista, and to watch northern lights and view a vast nighttime sky.
Click on the pictures to enlarge.
Dawson City, Yukon: Tanja's birthday
Tanja tuned 31 while we were visiting and Mackenzie & I were in charge of making a couscous salad for the party, so we headed off to Saturday market to buy vegetables. The party started slowly with a few friends and family and a barbecue and built in momentum and numbers ending at 4 AM well after Andy & I had taken Mackenzie back to John's where we happily spent the night with our granddaughter while the younger crowd partied.
I wasn't sure if Mackenzie would be interested in salad making (she was) or how much she'd want to do, so I gave her a knife and set her to chopping vegetables beside me. She never wavered and once she decided on the right size for the green pepper pieces, cut each one perfectly until they were all done. She also helped me chop fresh mint, mince garlic, mix the salad dressing and stir the whole thing up. Did I say yet that she's amazing?
Click on pictures to enlarge them.
Dawson City, Yukon: at work and play
John works for Parks Canada in administration in Dawson and is also a volunteer DJ at Dawson's community radio station CFYT (click here for a link: www.cfyt.ca) where he hosts a radio show that can be accessed online on Fridays at 6:30 CB time -- 2:30 Yukon time, 3:30 Ontario time -- and starts with Kids' Story Time and moves into two hours of country/bluegrass/blues/soul influenced recordings that John calls, An Hour On the John and Another Side of the John.
Tanja runs a daycare business called Creative Roots Learning Centre in Dawson and has converted the bottom of her house into a fabulous child learning space, and she has renovated her back yard to make a playground that will eventually have grass but for now contains a huge sandbox and play area and tons of toys. Tanja's amazing at what she does and works very hard. We marveled at her patience and her way with the children in her care.
Mackenzie is three and takes growing up joyfully seriously. She's curious, articulate, has some of her father's stubbornness and her mother's determined drive, Tanja's sense of style, John's love of books, both of her parents' brilliance and sense of humour and kind, generous, loving ways. She is good company and always up for an adventure.
Dawson City, Yukon: August 2010
Andy and I have just returned from a visit to Dawson City, Yukon, where our son John, his partner, Tanja Westland and our granddaughter, newly three-year-old Mackenzie Lynn Westland Watt live. Dawson is a long way from North Shore, Cape Breton, three days of travel each way and a four-hour time zone shift. We went from full summer at home to cloud-sun just-warm days in the Yukon, with nights that were cold, zero on one of them. When we left Whitehorse our plane had frost on the wings and had to be de-iced.
Some highlights (other than visiting, eating, talking, playing Wizard, golfing, partying and working with family, which were our greatest joys):
Visiting the Whitehorse fish ladder where we saw as many as twenty huge salmon in very good shape, on their spawning travels waiting in a holding area to make their way through the various levels of the ladder. We visited with our friends Jerome Stueart (at Baked, a fabulous cafe & bakery in Whitehorse, on our way to Dawson) and Karen Weinberg (in Whitehorse at the Westmark Hotel bar that was filled with so many aged Holland America cruise & bus travelers that we felt young, on our way home from Dawson). I got to shake hands with Michael Ignatieff upon arrival at the Whitehorse airport where he was leaving after his northern adventure that he said was remarkable and how he HAD to return to spend more time in this amazing place, and we got to see Stephen Harper's plane readying to leave Whitehorse airport after his northern adventures, which we later learned included some pretty interesting dance moves, skipping stones on northern waters, and a wild gallivant across a tarmac on an ATV. We saw berry-filled bear shit (in the woods and on the road) but no bears. We watched trumpeter swans on several lakes on our drive back to Whitehorse, and saw a northern owl perched in a tree. We went to Dawson farmer's market where the variety and quality and quantity of vegetables was a surprise and a delight.
I'm going to place photos in groups with wee descriptions, starting here with our trip up and our first couple of days. While we were visiting, Tanja's mother, Francine, was finishing up her visit with a surge of work -- Francine is a tireless and able carpenter. She couldn't complete a set of stairs Tanja needed from her new parking spot to the playground, so the Watt & Zettell group took on that project. Francine was called Mama Grandma, and I was called Other Grandma. (I kind of like that designation.) Tanja celebrated her 31st birthday while we were there, and because we had missed Mackenzie's third birthday, we brought presents from us and from Daniel and Noelle. Douglas the little yellow Lab will feature in some of these pictures, as will a bright blue t-shirt with Mm on it, presents from Uncle Daniel and Auntie Noelle. Mackenzie received a bear skin from us, books of course, and a yellow scarf with sparkly brown butterflies that Mackenzie decided must be worn like Grandma's on our golf adventure, and also features in some pictures.
You can click on all pictures to enlarge.
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