Dawson City

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Lunch at the Riverwest

I went into town today to take out some money and check my mail, so I decided to pop into the Riverwest Bistro for a quick bite to eat.

The Riverwest is what passes for a fast food joint in Dawson. You order at a counter and are given a number to display prominently at your table. There are magazines and newspapers available to pass the time until someone brings you your order. You can also take your order to go, and there are always cold sandwiches and other items you can grab on the go. They serve breakfast and are also a popular place to grab a coffee. The only negative is that they close at 7, so forget grabbing a quick dinner on the way home if you finish work late!

The food is good, fresh, and quite cheap, as compared to an equivalent meal at McDonald’s or Wendy’s. Today, I tried their ‘peppercorn ranch chicken wrap’ which ended up being cold diced chicken with fresh tomatoes and lettuce drizzled with peppercorn ranch dressing wrapped up in a tomato tortilla, for $7. I like their ‘curly fries’ and added them to my order, for a total cost of just under $10. It was all very YUM.

My $10 wouldn’t have gone far at the general store, and the tomatoes and lettuce I would have gotten there would have been respectively mealy and limp while the bread would have been stale.

Proper sit down restaurants aren’t that much more expensive than the Riverwest, but they are quite a bit slower, so the Riverwest is the place I go to when I just want to do a quick in and out. Or catch up on my Macleans magazines. 😀

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Gabfest at the Sluicebox Lounge

I was invited out last night, but had too much on my plate. So, tonight, I called the person to see if the offer still stood. Yes!

We started off the night at Gerties, then we drove to the home of one of her new friends so she could introduce us. By the time we were passing Bonanza, it was only 9:30, so we decided to go back into town for another drink.

Since we were in chat mode, going back to Gerties didn’t make sense. Bombay Peggy’s, the cozy pub, would have been nice, but it was jam packed. The next nearest bar was the Sluicebox Lounge at the El Dorado hotel, a block away.

It was a charmless place, unless you consider 70s decor and formica tables ‘charming’, but it was clean, open, and reasonably quiet. A pint was a full seventy-five cents less than at Gerties!

The gal I was with is a French national who has been in Canada for several years. We met briefly last fall as she was moving in. Imagine what sort of courage it must take, even after spending a year in Whitehorse, to pack up for a remote location like Dawson in the winter!

She had both positive and negative things to say about winter in Dawson and seemed to have generally found the experience to be pleasant and worthwhile. A part of me wants to try it, just once, but another part of me knows that she doesn’t do well in a world of constant twilight and inclement weather.

Her winter gave her a chance to get to know the Dawson establishments that stay open late into the fall and even through the winter. I ribbed her about how casually she led me to the Sluicebox Lounge when I know that the gal I met last fall wouldn’t have imagined herself in such an establishment. It just goes to show how a place can slowly mould you into the kind of person it needs you to be to survive there. She hasn’t changed, she still doesn’t drink, but she’s comfortable in locales she never was comfortable in before. I experienced a similar transformation during my month in Scotland.

It turned out to be a fun night and I’m glad I found a more quiet place than Gerties to go to when I’m in a chatty mood!

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Out and About

It’s amazing what you can do in a couple of hours on a HOT Dawson afternoon!

I needed to pick up a package in town (more on that in my next post), so I decided to treat myself to lunch, opting for Sourdough Joe’s. The food, while excellent last year, was much improved, especially in the French fry department! I enjoyed a chicken burger made with a real chicken breast as well as sweet dark brown Quebec-style fries. Lunch with tip came to a reasonable $14.

Next, I went to pick up my much anticipated package and then off I went to meet up with my friends G & F, whom I met the day I arrived in Dawson and took to the dump.  We crossed the river on the ferry so they could show me their digs at the hostel. They weren’t happy with their accommodations so I suggested we drive back to Bonanza to speak with the manager to see if she could give them a good deal for their last three weeks here. Of course! That settled, I promised to go pick them up Saturday morning to move them back here and then went back into town to drop them off at the library.

Now, I have a half hour left to play with my new toy. Care to guess what it is? Andy Baird is not allowed to guess, if he’s reading this. 😉

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Making Further Progress at Becoming a Yukoner

The cats were getting on my nerves this afternoon, so I decided to pop into town for an ice cream. On a whim, I went to see if the library was open. I tried to get a card several times last year, but the library was never open when it was supposed to be.

Lo and behold, the library was open and I had everything I needed to get my borrower’s card!

The library is quite a good size and has a lot of recent tomes, a decent French selection, and an excellent DVD collection. I didn’t have much time, so I grabbed a French novel, the latest Kathy Reichs, and two books about the Gold Rush. Borrowing terms are generous; you can take out 28 items at a time for almost four weeks, and it’s possible to renew online from home.

Slightly related to my afternoon, I was asked last night by a Texan ‘how much snow there is in Dawson right now.’ I’ll just say that it’s hot (17) and sunny today, and even the days when it hasn’t been I’ve been wearing the same thing: a tee-shirt, a light cardigan, and sandals. Snow is a distant memory. 😀

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Settling In Day

Today, I was able to move to my ‘permanent’ spot for this summer, just two spots over from where I’ve been parked all week. It doesn’t matter if you have to move three feet or three miles, the same amount of work is involved!

Deciding on this spot wasn’t easy since the other spot I had my eye on had a lot of advantages, too. What settled it for me is that this part of the park is the last to shut down, so once I was moved, I wouldn’t have to go anywhere again until September.