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dawson city
July 2008 
moose decor
Posted on Dec 29th, 2007
by 
geognosy
geognosy
It is mandatory for a log cabin to have at least one set of moose antlers as exterior decor. If there are many sets of antlers, they may be distributed whimsically, but if there is only the one moose available for mounting it must be set at the peak of the roof over the front entrance.
I've been taking more night-time shots because the window of opportunity is much larger. Daylight now is about five hours, but already, just one week past the solstice, the days seem noticeably longer.
Tonight I went for a walk and ended up shooting this moose, just across the street from here. This cabin is preserved as a tourist shrine because Robert Service lived in it for a couple of years, circa 1909 (another glimpse of it here in my blog). Robert Service's enormously successful poetry collection, Songs of a Sourdough, was written before he ever set foot in the Klondike. While he lived in this cabin he wrote a novel about the Gold Rush called The Trail of '98 which also sold well and was made into a movie, but is described today as practically unreadable. Robert Service published highly fictional autobiographies and freely indulged in personal myth-making throughout his long and varied life, so much so that biographers today still have difficulty separating truth from fiction.
Access: Public
So, is Robert's work unreadable, because it is difficult to tell fact from fiction? Interesting, I thought of using the Gold Rush as a global experience in one of the Intuitive Exercises I am starting up in a week or so in my pod called Altered States.
Kept asking myself, what would be the higher purpose in bringing a group of people through that particular experience. My higher-consciousness said that it was the perfect mellow-drama…lives lost, dreams achieved, land stolen, the new culture of criminality, desperation, fools-good phenomenon, “Go West Young Man,…”
I still have to decide, if there is too much emotion in that experience to use as an intuitive exercise. It actually sounds perfect though, to think of it.
A moose huh? Just so you know… there is a Moose-God up there:)!
Tonight I went for a walk and ended up shooting this moose, just across the street from here.
Now, I understood you were taking photographs, and yet somehow got stuck there and believed you went out for a walk and ended up shooting a moose. Across the street from that house.
Luckily I realized the error of my thinking…
I love the night photography, beautiful.
To be honest, I thought the same, but did not address it, which is why I joked about the Moose-god, obviously….
But my question again is….regarding Robert's book covering the Gold Rush… is it a difficult read, because he mixes facts with legend? I am looking for an interesting perspective on the global experience of the Gold Rush and was wondering what Robert's book had to offer. Should I look into Trail of '98 or avoid it altogether? What would you say?
Thanks! (shoot:)!
Sorry, should have been clearer – I shot the remains of a moose.
I have not read Robert Service's novel but quoted a recent biographer who described it as unreadable. Apparently as a novel it lacks a number of elements, such as structure and character development, that readers crave. His poetry, however, is still a delight and is especially conducive to being recited or read aloud. This is what made him so popular back in the day when people made their own entertainment.
The best book if one is looking for non-fiction is Pierre Berton's Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush , and I'm not just saying that because I am at this moment living in “Berton House” and many of his source accounts are in the book case. This book was a surprise best seller in the 1970's and really brought the idea of the north into the Canadian consciousness (Canadians tend to look south). The revised edition of 2001 is even better, and yes it is a startling story. Dawson City is still feeding off the energy of that Gold Rush, which only lasted a couple of years before the circus moved on to Nome, Alaska.
And yes, there is a Moose God. The Moose God slipped through my fingers last night, and so I took the shot above as a compromise. I'll go out hunting again tonight and keep you posted ; -)