Wk 8: Farewells

A day of organisation and finishing off. Attempted to get up to Eldorado Creek with David McBurney on his skidoo. We got ten minutes down Bonanza Road and the skidoo cut out. He fixed it and we tried again and it cut out again after ten minutes so he thought it would be good to turn round and try the other skidoo he had at home. Half way back it cuts out again and we eventually have to walk back 30 minutes to his house. It wasn't that cold though and we saw a heap of ptarmigan on the way back so it wasn't all bad. When we got back it was starting to get dark so I may have missed my chance now with the weather and circumstance but at least we tried.

Click on picture of broken skidoo to see some of the exciting journey.

Last session at school today with everybody finishing off their work and printing it out. Joann, the art teacher at the school gave me a present to say thanks which was really sweet, some chocolate liquers and a Klondike Angel, a blown glass pendant with Klondike gold in it. 'You never know it might be worth something with the price of gold going up'. The price of gold has risen since I arrived to $530 per ounce. This is the highest it has been since the 80s when it reached a record $800 per ounce.

Chris from Yukon News came to do an interview and take some pix. Again I won't be around to see the article.

Afternoon spent scanning photographs from the Dawson City Museum archives. When I came back home I removed all the material I had put on the walls right at the beginning of the residency before I became to distracted with everything else that goes on here in Dawson.

There may be a distinct lack of visual material this week as I am packing away and trying to make sure I have everything logged and put away safely rather than making pix.

Finally got up to Eldoardo Creek on skidoo. We set off about 1pm, got kitted out and managed to get up there for 2 ish where the light had already started to fade. As we approached claims 14/15 or what would have been John Wilkinson's and his partners claims any signs of roads disappeared to become single skidoo tracks. There were no signs of life out here except moose tracks and there certainly wasn't anybody out here mining at this time of year and all the snow had covered all the workings.

It's hard to think that at this same time of year in 1896 men were driving shafts down in the ground whilst living up here with very little food in their bellies. It is even harder to imagine that with the distinct lack of people around that the area would have been swarming with people. As a consequence all the trees that are here now have only been planted recently. During the gold rush all the trees were used for log cabins and shafts. Photographs from that time show a very different landscape.

Claim post for 15 which is a knackered old post with lots of numbers tacked onto it. Click on picture to see the journey and site which I eventually got to see.

Thursday 15th December 05 -15°C

Last full day in Dawson where Lulu films me as a stunned tourist meeting Cave Man Bill at his river side home. It was kind of interesting being filmed and then trying to do bits of filming of my own inbetween bits of Lulus filming. We had coffee and chatted and he showed us an otter pelt that he had been preparing. It had been squished on the road. I went to say good bye to his chickens (my Dad used to keep chickens when I was younger so it reminded me of being a kid again) and rooster in the cave next door and filmed some of the shiny minerals which were glistening in the half light. Bill gave us some eggs to take back. On the way back dropping the video camera back off petted this beautiful dog at the back of KIAC that David was looking after.

Beautiful dog hanging out at KIAC

Mike, Lulu and Matt's version of some of the art work at the Pit. They had drunk quite a lot by this stage. Can you spot Queen Elizabeth II looking a bit saucy.

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Friday 16th December 05 -12°C

Baggage Claim at Dawson City Airport. When I arrived I wondered where on earth the conveyor belt would be where I would get my bags and then they got shoved through this hole.

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Cadged a lift to the airport with John Overell who was off to Whitehorse as well. The flight was delayed an hour so we hung about waiting complaining about all the things we could have got done in that last hour we were hanging about - bummer. The man that checked us onto our flight looked like Santa, he had a big moustache and red cheeks and was playing christmas choons. Flight was seriously packed out but got a lift from Whitehorse airport with a friend of John's to Meshell's (textile artist) as she had promised to put me up for the night. It was a great evening as I went with Meshell to a friends house where we painted some squares for an art quilt that was going to be a gift for a friend who was leaving Whitehorse. It was the perfect way to spend my last night in the Yukon. It was verey hard to believe that I was actually going to be leaving.

Saturday 17th December 05 5°C
Flight from Whitehorse to Vancouver 8 amwas the first time I had seen dawn before 10 am for about a month. This photo was taken going over Alaskan coast that to the west of theYukon. Mountain range that sits on the west coast of British Columbia from top to bottom.It felt like we could just reach out and touch the sugar coated tops from the plane. On the flight to Vancouver sat next to a geologist that works for the government in Whitehorse and we had a good old chat about rocks and landscape. He was called Geoff and we know another guy called Geoff who is also a geologist, so I reckon when mother's name their children GEOff they must know that their name defines their career choices. It would be good to do a study on this.
Once in Vancouver I had an hour wait and then I caught my flight to Toronto. I arrived at my hotel at 8.30pm which felt pretty gruelling considering I had set off from Dawson City at 1 pm Friday and had arrived in Toronto on Saturday evening. I was in the biggest hotel in town and after having a warm and welcoming time in Dawson coming here couldn't have been more impersonal. I was on the 25th floor, in a room that was at the end of the longest corridor ever, in a huge room that had a kitchen and 85 million TV channels which I couldn't make sense of, in a bed that felt like it was going to swallow me it was that big. I had been sleeping in a single bed for two months so this did freak me out quite a lot. I am the black blob on the left of the bed feeling tired and a bit strange. Good job I had my puff jacket and snow boots though as there was a lot of snow and it was -11°C with a wind chill factor of -16°C here. It was warmer in Whitehorse! Who said I wasn't going to need to wear this stuff ever again? I still wanted to be back in Dawson though no matter how cold it was ... comment ....

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Week 8

Wednesday 14th December 05 -20°C
Finally got up to Eldoardo Creek on skidoo. We set off about 1pm, got kitted out and managed to get up there for 2 ish where the light had already started to fade. As we approached claims 14/15 or what would have been John Wilkinson's and his partners claims any signs of roads disappeared to become single skidoo tracks. There were no signs of life out here except moose tracks and there certainly wasn't anybody out here mining at this time of year and all the snow had covered all the workings. It's hard to think that at this same time of year in 1896 men were driving shafts down in the ground whilst living up here with very little food in their bellies. It is even harder to imagine that with the distinct lack of people around that the area would have been swarming with people. As a consequence all the trees that are here now have only been planted recently. During the gold rush all the trees were used for log cabins and shafts. Photographs from that time show a very different landscape.	Claim post for 15 which is a knackered old post with lots of numbers tacked onto it. Click on picture to see the journey and site which I eventually got to see.
comment ....	Went to say cheerios to the Morgan family and took this picture whilst I was there. A whole heap of family photogrpahs with the Queen Mum, Princess Di and Old Queen Lizzy herself on plates, just part of the family collection.