DEAR DAWSON

Love affairs. They can be sweet and intense, rich and complex. Sometimes we share our love with people. Other times, we fall in love with a place.

Ronnie Young adjusts her glasses. Her deep black hair reaches down her back in a neatly combed ponytail. She walks the forest trails behind Yukon College in Whitehorse where she currently lives, camera in hand.

Two major events coincided in the Dawson City area from July 20 to 29. First, Dawson City’s 40th music festival, which was then followed by the Moosehide Gathering, a celebration of Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in (Hän) culture that occurs every two years. With both events having music and performances at their centre, Dawson City was filled with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous performers of all musical styles.

When Karrie Wurmann visited Carcross, Yukon, for the first time in more than two decades earlier this summer, it was a moment that she says filled her with “nervous anticipation.”

Inside Delmar Washington’s office, a map of the Yukon spans an entire wall. A blanket of papers covers a wooden desk. The main office chair sits empty.

Of course, a helicopter pilot’s office isn’t really where he works. Washington stops by his office to do paperwork between flights, but he’s usually in the pilot seat of one of his helicopters.

Barreling down a southern Yukon highway in her bright blue Ford F-150, Donna Wolfe spots a large cluster of yellow and pink fluttering in the wind. Hitting the brakes, she throws her truck into reverse, keeping her gaze on the cluster of colour without taking a moment to look into the rear-view mirror.

“Sixty-six, 66!” Dorothy Sam stopped in her tracks as she thought she heard that number blaring over her walkie-talkie on the picnic table in her small makeshift outdoor kitchen.

She grabbed the radio and scrambled to prepare her fish cleaning station for the 66 chinook salmon her nephew Charles Waugh claimed to have in his net.

At the Long Ago Peoples Place in Champagne, Harold Johnson guides visitors through his recreation of a Southern Tutchone village. He shows an example of a snare once used by First Nations people to catch gophers.

In early 2014, Nelson Lepine was at a loss. As the former director of infrastructure for Carcross/Tagish First Nation, he was at a standstill with an angry member of his community. The man paid a visit to Lepine’s workplace, frustrated by the state of his life in Carcross and looking for someone to blame.

From the top of the Midnight Dome, visitors look west towards Dawson City, a small cluster of buildings hugging the Klondike River. From high up, the pastel-coloured businesses in town look like miniatures. The hand-painted signs, their frontier-style lettering spelling out “gold” — the lore of the land — can’t be seen, but still exert a powerful force over the community of more than 1,300 people.

Sharon Shorty’s childhood was full of laughter. Her Gramma Carrie told traditional Tlingit stories to anyone who would listen and she had a knack for making anything funny. Shorty recalls that her grandmother’s presence alone seemed to make those around her laugh hysterically.

On a mountainside clearing near the babbling Chooutla Creek - a name meaning “laughing water” in the local Tagish dialect - David Wally is sprinkling tobacco into a small fire. The area was once home to the Chooutla Indian Residential School, and the tobacco is an offering of thanks.

Visitors to Whitehorse’s Adäka Festival attend a knife making workshop with custom knife maker George Roberts. Roberts and his group of eager students got together to craft traditional “ulu” women’s knives.

From the visual art to the ceremonial songs and dances, Whitehorse’s eight annual Adäka Festival was a culturally rich environment, demonstrating Indigenous art from all over the world.

Eugene Alfred, a carver and sculptor of Northern Tutchone and Tlingit ancestry, showcases his craft at the Adäka Cultural Festival on July 2. His current project is a carving which honours Beaver Man, an important figure in Alfred’s Indigenous history who had the body of a man, but the tail and teeth of a beaver.