I keep seeing new things in places as I walk around.  This is a bone tied to a stick with a ribbon.  Other than that, I don't know what it is.  The hillside above Dawson is marked by the passage of many people.  The town now ends at 8th Avenue, but during the gold rush there used to be 9th and 10th Avenues.  You can still see little platforms dug into the hillside, and bits of rusted this and that.  It is astonishing to imagine living through a  Yukon winter in a tent.  In the old pictures there was not a tree left anywhere near here, so all the firewood had to be carted in from somewhere else.

A couple of days ago out at the dredge ponds a friend was talking about the fox that lived near her house and I said, I want to see the fox.  We walked around but, except for footprints, there was no sign of it.  Later that evening, back at my place in town, I happened to look out the window just as a silver fox trotted down the street.  A shiver ran through me.  Thank you, I said.  Thank you for letting me see you.

Today was gray jay day.  At a rest stop overlooking the scenic but foggy  Tintina Trench,  the gray jays were very bold.  Used to charming the tourists, no doubt.

The Tintina Trench is an avian flyway and rich in wildlife.  A linear valley, it marks the line between two tectonic plates.  And the meeting of those tectonic plates explains the gold found in the Klondike.  Everything on earth is constantly recycled.  The gold in the crust is brought to the surface, and eventually, through the forces of nature, will be subsumed back into the earth.

This time of year, the river is at its lowest. This flat section where I'm walking would all be under several feet of water during spring and summer.

The river is not yet frozen over.  The rougher strip of white from the left is chucks of ice flowing in the stream.  This stream of ice makes a hissing noise.  Because of climate change, freeze-up is happening later and later each year.  The ferry across the river was pulled out a couple of weeks ago, but it has to get colder before the ice bridge can happen.  In the meantime, West Dawson is cut off from Dawson City.

I love the sky in this photo.  Oh, and the frost on the trees, but I promised myself I wouldn't post any more frost pictures, no matter how spectacular.

Taking shots of the sunset today at first I was trying to avoid the communication towers so they wouldn't "ruin" the view.  Then I decided to embrace the towers.  Without these towers and satellite dishes I wouldn't have an internet connection and wouldn't be able to access the outside world.  These towers make it possible to take a picture and post it on my blog.

A local magazine (Yukon, North of Ordinary) has a cover story describing how the internet and telecommuting has transformed the north over the last few years.  Not since the U.S. military built the Alaska Highway during World War 2 has there been such a major development  in terms of connecting these remote locations to the rest of the world.

Thank you, communication towers.  Ugly is in the eye of the beholder.

The view is looking up the Yukon River valley.  The glowing strip of water is the Yukon River and you can see the chunks of ice.  Even up on this mountain, you could hear the hissing noise of that stream of ice.  The Klondike River also comes in from the left here, just visible through the base of the tower. The Klondike flows into the Yukon just off the the right, where Dawson City is located.

Finally made it all the way up to the Midnight Dome.  On the summer solistice, people in Dawson hike up here to celebrate the longest day of the year, when the sun sets at 11:30 p.m.  The view is spectacular in all directions.  This is the view looking down the Yukon River, towards Alaska.  The last photo posted, the sunset, was taken from part-way up the Dome and looking up river.

There is a subway station in Dawson City, part of what was to be a global network designed by the conceptual artist Martin Kippenberger (see Subway to Nowhere Part of Kippenberger's Legacy).  This picture is a recent installation by Claudia Borgna called Rush Hour in Dawson. Claudia has been an artist in residence in Dawson City for the past few weeks, through the residency program at KIAC.  For a small town, Dawson has an amazingly vibrant arts community, including a school of visual arts.

Checking out blogs and pods and seeing that a number of active people have left.  That's too bad.  The seediness will sort itself out.  There have been references to 1984 and Brave New World, but really the most appropriate literary reference is Animal Farm.  Remember, the animals run the place, and all animals are equal but as events unfold, some animals are more equal that others.  This is what the reputation system reminds me of, when some of us have more weight and more say.  I'm still confused how that system will unfold, or why we even need it.

The buttons to flag content (I like it, or Flag for review) seems reasonable.  The reputation system, well, enough has been said, and enough buttons have already been pushed.

Well, back to the real world of grave markers, and appearances, here is a shot from a couple months ago of a tin tombstone in the cemetery overlooking Dawson.  Looks normal from a distance, but up close reveals itself as a facade, evocative of the western fronts adorning the heritage buildings in town.  The worst part of this tin tombstone is that it is riddled with bullet holes, with the bullets exiting towards the town.  Ouch.

Prophecies concerning the year 2012 as the "end of time" seem to be gaining momentum.  I knew the Mayan (or pre-Mayan) calendar ends on December 21, 2012, which I prefer to interpret as implying the end a cycle (their long count) rather than the end of time.

Modern astromony also indicates there is a major eclipse on that date.  Will the magnetic poles flip?  Is it the end of the world?  One thing to keep in mind in terms of natural disasters, is that earthquakes, volcanos, etc have always been happening on this planet and no significance can be read into that.  These things happen, literally, every day, to one degree or another.

However, the "web bot project" is a new and modern wrinkle in the fabric of prophecy.

This image is part of Michaelangelo's fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, depicting the sibyl at Delphi.  The Oracle of Delphi was known for enigmatic, ambiguous prophecies;  these types of predictions are best if later you want to say, see, I told you so.

For many reasons I tend to view cemeteries as destinations.  They are parks for strolling, or when travelling, are tourist attractions.  This is a view of the Yukon River from the cemetery overlooking Dawson.  This cemetery has a number of features, including crib-like picket fences and old illegible wooden grave markers.  This is actually the third gravesite; the first, by the Yukon, was prone to flooding and erosion, and the second, on 8th Avenue, filled rapidly in the gold rush.

In another part of this cemetery there are a number of graves covered with masses of decorations reflecting their inhabitants.  One, for example, has a collection of frogs (stuffed toy frogs, ceramic frogs, frog kitsch galore), which on a grave with a french family name indicates a good sense of humour.

Several graves seemed to be for dead young hockey players.  Tattered hockey jerseys on tombstones, hockey sticks and pads.  Unopened cans of beer.  Many of these people were no more than 20 when they died, and I know nothing about them, but suspect the often lethal combination of youth, alcohol and motor vehicles.

And this is just of glimpse of the cemetery theme park overlooking Dawson.

Recently ran across the acronym CFB which, if you are Canadian, you might think means Canadian Forces Base, but was used to mean Content Free Blogging.  This refers to blog entries which are about nothing.  My least favourite blogs are random unexplained pictures combined with a quote or someone else's poem.  Thus, someone can go through the motions of blogging without having anything to say.

Content free is not the same as free content.

This photo is in the cemetery in Dawson, an airplane propellor used as a grave marker.  Plastic flowers on graves are popular here, as are tupperware containers whose contents must remain mysterious.

Have been keen to see the northern lights while here in the Yukon, so have been checking the auroroa forecast sites on the internet, and looking at the night sky.

So last night I saw the landscape was illuminated and went outside to check it out.  The light turned out to be the full moon, but was so bright you could see the mountains across the river as clearly as in daytime.

Have only seen the northern lights once, as a child, in Nova Scotia.  I did not understand at the time why my father was so excited by the faint glow in the sky.  But as the years passed without a repeat of the display I realized how rare it was to see them so far south. 

The northern lights are supposed to be at their best when it is clear and cold, and so far this year cold has not happened (it's all relative).

There was fresh snow yesterday and the moonlight last night was incredible.  This is an  "available light" shot of the entrance way here  looking out  at the fluffy snow on an evergreen.  Sometimes, I have to admit, I love winter.

Here's a convergence.  I'm currently in Pierre Berton's childhood home and just discovered a 1971 interview with Bruce Lee  on the Pierre Berton Show.  The interview is described as "unedited" but really I believe that was just the standard of the time for this type of Canadian television program.

My favourite part is Bruce Lee explaining the relationship between unnatural naturalness and natural unnaturalness.  There is talk of a television series in the U.S. but this never happened.  The executives felt America was not ready for an Asian male, and so as it turned out the lead role in "Kung Fu" was given to David Carradine.   Bruce Lee today is still a compelling and fascinating personality, and as mentioned in this interview, attracted a lot of attention when he did appear on television.

The dump here in Dawson is famous for its free store.  People bring all their stuff in but do not want to take it away again.  It is easier just to sell it or throw it away.  This practice started during the gold rush; when people went back "outside" they left most of their belongings behind because everything was cheaper to replace than to ship out again.  When people moved away, houses were sold with all the contents.

Here is a car which was recycled in situ to become part of a retaining wall along the alley at the back of a property (this is not at the dump, but right in town).  Actually there are at least three vehicles built into this wall, but this photo shows only one of them.  The detail that caught my eye was the sapling growing out of the rear window.  That to me is evocative of how nature would rebound if we were not so assiduously stamping it out.  However, despite a wave of environmental awareness every decade or so,  our civilization's war on nature is proceeding full speed ahead.

Three years ago today Pierre Berton, a Canadian icon, died at the age of 84.  Being a Canadian icon means not being very well known outside of Canada.  Pierre Berton resisted the status of icon, claiming that there were others more deserving.  He also stated that "Canadians aren't arrogant enough."

Pierre Berton's childhood home in Dawson City is now the Berton House Writers' Retreat, where I am typing this blog.  So far this winter has been unseasonably warm.  The photo is taken from the porch off the kitchen, and shows an icecycle which has broken off the edge of the roof yet remains suspended in the branches.  If it was really cold, icecycles would not be forming.

In the upper right corner you can glimpse the cabin across the road where the poet Robert Service lived for a couple of years.  Described as "Canada's most famous poet" Robert Service was born in Scotland and only lived a few years in Canada before spending the rest  of his life in Europe.  Despite the desperate lack of arrogance in this country, we are keen to assert our claim on anyone who ever sets foot here.  By this standard, Ernest Hemingway is, yes, one of Canada's better-known writers.