Dawson City, Yukon Territory

It’s 9AM on a Saturday and Baked on Main Street is buzzing. Things get going early here in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon. With more than 10 varieties of home baked scones and over a dozen kinds of coffee, Baked is the town’s indie alternative to Starbuck’s up the street. Kind of like what Central Perk on Friends would be if it was real. I step outside and look around and am reminded a little bit of northern California but it’s colder and more imbued with nature, surrounded as it is by tall spruce trees.

We’re on our way from here to Dawson City, home to the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898 and some 300 miles north along the Klondike Highway. Once home to 50,000 residents at the height of the rush including Jack London, Thomas Edison, and the Guggenheims, the historic event literally put the town on the map, making some folks rich and others poor. Today, gold miners and dance hall girls still roam the dusty, un-paved streets and wooden boardwalks. Our plan is to run in a race but it’s not exactly what you might think, no 10K, not at all; it’s the annual International Outhouse Race.  Yeah, I wondered myself when I heard about it and when I watched the YouTube videos I wondered more. Outhouses are a Canadian phenomenon and no more than in the Yukon with miles of scenic wilderness begging to be explored. Like any race it would be competitive (much more than I thought) but unlike other races it would be one rooted in farce, a team of 5 pulling a rolling outhouse affixed to a kind of chariot, 4 men on foot and the fifth member sitting IN the outhouse on the potty. You get the idea?  Think of it as an Olympic potty party.  Each team has a theme and is in costume, so it makes for some craziness. But first, we have to get there and that’s a whole lot easier today than it was 100 years ago.

We pile into a GMC Yukon (what else) and tear down the road. It’s an incredibly scenic drive, a straight 6 hours through flat wooded terrain. We make a pit stop at Braeburn Lodge, its porch alive with hanging petunia baskets bigger than beach balls. I marvel at the gardening expertise in a place where freezing temps come before Halloween. Inside a counter is stocked with the biggest cinnamon buns I’ve ever seen, the handiwork of a baker with a Willy Wonka sensibility. We chat up Steve, the wily patron who gives me the story behind the mysterious check in a display case on one of the shelves that’s signed by Steve McQueen. Hint:  it has to do with a motorcycle.

When I tell him about my feeble attempts to grow a few window boxes every summer he asks me if I deadhead and water them every day. Honestly, I think it must have something to do with the unusual energy here in this northwestern Canadian territory for when we arrive in Dawson City and drive down Front Street, the town’s only paved road, I notice flowers blooming everywhere and it’s practically freezing. The town looks like something preserved on a studio backlot, its 100+ year-old wooden structures resembling what most people imagine a Wild West town would look like. That is, if one existed outside of Disney.  Dawson, with just 1800 residents today, is indeed the real thing, locked in time and loving it. Tourists climbing the steps of the Visitors Center, an impressive reproduction of an early 20^th century town hall, are met by staff costumed in 1890’s garb. And these people are happy to help you figure out a plan of action as far as sights and activities go. Surprise … there’s lots to see and do here!

We decide to get the lay of the land with an evening walking tour called, “Strange Things Done in the Midnight Sun,” given by (who else) but a costumed guide named “Suitcase Sue”. We perk up when we meet our gravelly voiced Tallulah Bankhead whose non-stop chatter about the town’s history and strange goings on are riveting. As we stroll down Front Street Sue discusses the new street surface and the riff among the townsfolk when the idea to pave it was put on the docket. All of Dawson’s streets are a kind of clay dirt so when it rains it gets pretty muddy but its residents appreciate that. After a protracted debate Sue said urban renewal won out, however, and the result was a concrete paving made to order – the cement was colored to match the dirt on the other streets. She admits to liking it!

She segues then to the bizarre tale of Caveman Bill, a modern-day caveman living in a real cave on the other side of the Yukon River. Everyone peers across at the tiny opening wondering how it can be possible, then we shuffle along to the SS Keno, a stately sternwheel paddle steamer from 1922 moored on the river.  This is a remnant of the rush and one of the last steamers to navigate the waterway. Just then we hear a motorboat crossing and a couple minutes later we’re face to face with a bespectacled Caveman Bill himself, his long hair pulled back in a ponytail under a natty hat. Wearing knee-high black rubber boots, he smiles and waves timidly and we all wonder what sort of mischief he’s up to tonight. After a peek inside some of Dawson’s buildings, the interiors untouched, we hear the sordid tale of the longest gold rush in history and the infamous Sourtoe Cocktail, served at the notorious Downtown Hotel, now a Dawson City tradition.  An actual human toe that’s been dehydrated is preserved in salt and served in the drink and the jig is your your lips have got to touch the toe. We opted to wait for martinis later. I’m not much for garnishes. But again, I ruminated about that quirky Yukon spirit that was coming out little by little.

Later that night at Diamond Tooth Gerties’, we’re finding our Dawson City groove. Gertie’s is a faithful recreation of a Klondike-era saloon with a dancehall show rivaling Vegas. It’s the nightly epicenter, and gets going late. A motley cast of characters paces the creaky planked floors and prods the vintage slot machines hoping to strike gold, not unlike the men of yesteryear. Everyone seems fun-starved (no surprise, this is the far reaches of Canada after all) and happy to be out of the cold night air. When the curtain goes up on the can-can floorshow the action ramps up. The girls beguile the men, like the wanton women who made their way to Dawson City over a hundred years ago, their hopes pinned on the lonely miners trying to strike it rich. Hours later when we walk back to our hotel, we pray for a Northern Lights sighting in the clear night sky, but alas, no luck.

It’s Sunday morning and the Eldorado Hotel’s Bonanza Dining Room’s got a full house for breakfast, the animated patrons gabbing away.  Technically, Dawson is still a mining town and it attracts a cast of characters; one thing’s for sure, it’s a late night place and at 10 am it’s just getting going.  Outside it looks as if there’s been some rain this morning and a moody glaring sky dulls the Disney colors of the historic structures.  We’re headed to Dredge #4, North America’s largest wooden hulled dredge, a giant gold digging machine that’s now a historic sight. Having noticed a beautiful model of it in the Visitor’s Center, my curiosity was piqued. This is after all the apex of the Gold Rush which lasted into the 1950’s and even today is continuing albeit on a much smaller scale. A tiny group of us are led around by Martin, an offbeat guide with dreads tucked into a cap, bedraggled clothes and sneakers duct taped for extra insulation. He gives us the inside view of what it was like to pan for gold the smart way over a 100 years ago. Not easy unless you had the means.

The Race

We leave just in time to get back to town and ready for our all-star appearance in the Outhouse Race.  We huddle in the Visitor’s Center getting warm while we slip on our costumes – black tights, sweaters and caps with plumes attached. Menacing black beaks are strapped around our heads. We practice chanting our team’s anthem … “Bird, bird, bird, bird … bird is the word” – we are the “Turds of a Feather” and we’re threatening.  We head for the town square dragging our outhouse, frozen to the core in the glinting midday light.  Four teams show up to challenge us, chief among them the youthful, in-shape performers from Gertie’s. I guess we should have figured they were good for something more than singing and dancing. Their costumes are outrageous; they are the “Potty Mommas”, woebegone, lascivious females (although 2 of them are clearly men).  They’re ready to win this one, no doubt about it.  My spirits sink when I get a look at the rest of the competition including the Throne Thinkers and the Safety Turds, the fit and hard bodied crew from the Discovery Channel show, Klondike Gold Rush, that’s been filming in the area for weeks. They are the menacing ones now.

The race is organized as a sprint around a half mile of intersecting streets pulling and pushing the rolling outhouse along with a special skills course at the final stretch. It also includes a Q & A segment at the outset that determines your challenger as only 2 teams (and chariots) can fit on the streets at one time.  We do reasonably well on the quiz but wind up with the Safety Turds as our challenger … it won’t be easy.  Once the galloping gets going against the lightning fast lads, we lag behind after only the second turn. Casting eggs at them from behind (our potty member’s secret weapon) we falter further on the special skills course missing a roll of toilet paper toss on a plunger handle. We’re solidly lagging behind as we huff and puff our way to the finish line, perhaps a good thing as we would have had to do the whole thing all over again to win. No surprise … Gertie’s is the victor in the second round by a hair and is triumphant against the Safety Turds.

With crushed egos and aching limbs and feet we try to accept that we’re second rate athletes and head to the Eldorado Hotel Bar for comfort and camaraderie.  It’s just the beginning of a long week in the Yukon where there’ll be plenty more strange things done in the midnight sun. For the moment we’ve more than proved our mettle.  Now if we could just figure out how to get the mud off our sneakers and what Steve did with that motorcycle.

www.dawsoncity.ca

www.travelyukon.com

www.discovery.com/tv-shows/klondike/

The international dialing code for the Yukon is 867.