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dawson city
July 2008 
like a house on fire
Posted on Jan 3rd, 2008
by 
geognosy
geognosy
Last October, during "Fire Prevention Week" in Dawson, I dropped in to visit a friend. She said that she had just come from the fire. What fire, I asked? The house fire, she said.
Perhaps I am afflicted by a morbid curiosity because I rushed off to home in on the column of smoke. Perhaps this kind of morbid curiosity is genetic, since my father has a police/fire scanner so he can follow local events of this nature. Although maybe Dad just wants to know where my brother, a volunteer fireman, rushed off to when his beeper went off. (I talked to my faraway father and brother this evening; my Dad, bless his dear soul, just turned 89).
Dawson City also has a volunteer fire department and they are all over this house fire, just not in this view. There was some difficulty putting the fire out -- at least one layer of the roof was tin and had to be pried up with long pikes before the stubborn fire was finally out. The backhoe was standing by, and by the end of the day, this cute little house, one of the older remaining buildings, was a heap of rubble. Chimney fire.
The combination of wood stoves, wooden buildings, ramshackle construction and crowded streets means that Dawson has a long history of fire and burned to the ground a couple of times in the early years.
I would like to mention that I do not support the idea of house fires, I did not start this fire, and no one was hurt. There was obviously tragic loss of property and, sadly, people were displaced. I merely took a picture, although as I admitted I did rush across town to do so.
During some of the recent attention paid to my otherwise obscure little blog, the issue of human body parts was raised. Wanna see pictures? There is a bar in Dawson which is famous (or notorious) for offering the Sourtoe Cocktail, a preserved human toe offered in the drink of your choice. The toe is supposed to touch your lips, and then you get a certificate suitable for framing. This is one of those famous weird things and I had heard about it and was morbidy tempted before I arrived. However, once I did more research into the toes (there have been more than one -- they are accidentally swallowed or deliberately swiped), I found that getting to know the toe was just too much detail for me. I know -- a human toe in your drink sounds like such a good idea. What is wrong with me?
Perhaps I am afflicted by a morbid curiosity because I rushed off to home in on the column of smoke. Perhaps this kind of morbid curiosity is genetic, since my father has a police/fire scanner so he can follow local events of this nature. Although maybe Dad just wants to know where my brother, a volunteer fireman, rushed off to when his beeper went off. (I talked to my faraway father and brother this evening; my Dad, bless his dear soul, just turned 89).
Dawson City also has a volunteer fire department and they are all over this house fire, just not in this view. There was some difficulty putting the fire out -- at least one layer of the roof was tin and had to be pried up with long pikes before the stubborn fire was finally out. The backhoe was standing by, and by the end of the day, this cute little house, one of the older remaining buildings, was a heap of rubble. Chimney fire.
The combination of wood stoves, wooden buildings, ramshackle construction and crowded streets means that Dawson has a long history of fire and burned to the ground a couple of times in the early years.
I would like to mention that I do not support the idea of house fires, I did not start this fire, and no one was hurt. There was obviously tragic loss of property and, sadly, people were displaced. I merely took a picture, although as I admitted I did rush across town to do so.
During some of the recent attention paid to my otherwise obscure little blog, the issue of human body parts was raised. Wanna see pictures? There is a bar in Dawson which is famous (or notorious) for offering the Sourtoe Cocktail, a preserved human toe offered in the drink of your choice. The toe is supposed to touch your lips, and then you get a certificate suitable for framing. This is one of those famous weird things and I had heard about it and was morbidy tempted before I arrived. However, once I did more research into the toes (there have been more than one -- they are accidentally swallowed or deliberately swiped), I found that getting to know the toe was just too much detail for me. I know -- a human toe in your drink sounds like such a good idea. What is wrong with me?
Access: Public
Ah yes…
what is the anatomy of morbid curiosity? (Mrs. Lawrence's inoperable corn… wish I could have seen that one! Probably rubbing it on my lips would not be my first thought… chuckle:-)
I would have driven to see the fire too. I think we need to “know” and “see” those edgy things, because fear is to be learned from, and for the deepest fears, safe but creepy is the best we can do as far as “facing” it.
“Mrs. Lawrence, we have bad news and good news. The bad news is your corn is inoperable and your toe has to come off. The good news is we can save the toe and use it to decorate beverages in a northern Canadian town!”
And here I thought I lived in a country that was massively over-regulated. You can't go barefoot into a bar, because of “health” regulations, but look, there's a toe in my drink!Don't want to rain on the parade, but the lawnmower guy – he was barefoot when he lost the toe. So you can't be barefoot, but the toe in your drink can come from a bare foot.
However, the “sourfoot cocktail”, the five toe special, sure sounds tempting…. (the certificate is what I really want)
Add a CommentDid you say Certificate! (oh, temptation temptation!)
Who's toe is on the menu at present?… is it just me, but doesn't “barefoot” (and foolish) in the grass sound slightly more appealing than a toe with a corn so bad that having it off is actually “the solution”!!
It is fascinating to consider that there are degrees of appeal/disgust when it comes to a preserved human toe in your drink. They really should offer a range of toes to appeal to all tastes – corpse toes, corn toes, accident toes, etc.
Don't know the current toe, but lawnmower guy is the last on the list. (I got the details wrong there, he wasn't barefoot, but wearing open-toed sandals. I must have been projecting from my own foolish and bucolic youth when I preferred mowing barefoot . Another detail from the dark ages of my youth is that males did not wear sandals – shocking but true.)