Happy Canada Day!
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| Our cover to watch the parade in the drizzle |
Rained all night and
is still drizzling this morning. After breakfast, we drove downtown
and parked back in the visitor center lot so we could watch the
Dawson City Canada Day Parade....did I mention Dawson City has population on a good day of 1,400?
We found a place to watch the parade
under cover and enjoyed watching the smart, Royal Canadian Mounties
starting off the parade, followed by every local kid on a bike, a few
local groups marching/riding representing their organizations
followed by lots of fire trucks and personnel. Firemen are important
here with the local city volunteers protecting all the historical log
structures, district firemen working a large area and the forest fire
fighters who have been super busy in reason weeks. I joked to Jack
that this would be a 15 minute parade, but I was wrong...it was
twelve minutes. Great small-town fun, even in the rain.
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| Setting up the barricades for the parade |
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| The beginning |
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| No Girl or Boy Guides (Scouts) or other kids groups other than the bicycle brigade |
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| Museum folks celebrating the Maple Leaf Flag Anniversary |
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| The Music |
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| First Nations |
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| The Can-Can girls from Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall |
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| Not a clue who they are |
Afterwards, we visited the S. S. Keno, a
steam powered paddle wheeler retired and brought home to Dawson Cit
in 1960 under its own power. These are similar to the Mississippi River boats, but narrower and with the paddlewheel in back to get
through narrow passages – and no Mark Twain. I posted a few days
ago about hiking to the Five Finger Rapids and here they had a photo
of the boat going through the area...
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| Fairly simple piston engine using wood-fired steam |
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| Five Finger Rapids Panel that I had hiked through a couple days ago |
After the paddlewheeler, we went to the
local museum where they had a picnic lunch available. As we waited
in line, we could tell all the kids that had been in the earlier
parade because their backs were covered in mud.
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| The little sidewheeler they use for tourist cruising. The ferry for folks and cars in the background. |
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| Front Street |
We drove to our new campground that is
right downtown and while Jack napped, I walked three blocks to the
First Nations cultural center where they were cooking bannocks – turns
out to be fried dough, just like Italian Zeppoles, except they
garnish with jelly instead of powdered sugar.
Then I went to the
Palace Theater to watch the Grestest Klondiker contest. The emcee introduced
three historical Dawson City figures – the Mountie who established
law and order in the Yukon, a female journalist, and the richest man
in Dawson. There was an audience provided 3-person judging group and
it was eventually thrown open to the audience in an applause meter
contest to see who was the best Klondiker. Performance was fun and
being able to sit in an opera-style box overlooking the old-fashioned
theater was great.
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| The Greatest Klondiker contestants playing trivia for points |
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| Dawson City Streets after the rain.... |
After dinner we walked down to
Diamondtooth Gerties Saloon and Gambling Hall in time for the first
musical revue and cancan show. The host had a fabulous voice and the
dancers were good. After the show, we each took our $5 to the penny
slot machines where Jack lost his quickly and I lost mine slowly.
Jack was bored waiting for me, so he tried another $5 and came away
with $50! We started to watch the second show, but Jack was tired
and now quite wealthy, so we left to the first sunshine (10:15 at
night) we had seen all day.
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| This is the downtown campground that I call a parking-lot style. Just here to be right in town. See the mud on our poor L'il Guy? |
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