Dan Davidson reviews John Firth’s book: The Caribou Hotel
In spite of the main title and the fact that the chapters keep circling back to the hotel, the book is about a lot more than just that building.
The subtitle of Firth’s 2019 history of the Carcross area describes the highlights covered in its 33 chapters. There are several ghost stories that wend their way through its pages, including one at the beginning and another at the end. There are stories of the later years of two of the men who helped to discover the gold in the Klondike.
The look of the book is deliberately old and engaging. The pages are a sort of an off-white colour that looks as if you are leafing through the book and seeing their edges as you go. The print is a little bit lighter than the usual black, making it appear that you are looking at an older document.
The sans-serif font takes a little getting used to, but contributes to the overall effect. Firth tells me that this was the intent of the design choices, and it seems to work well.
In spite of the main title and the fact that the chapters keep circling back to the hotel, the book is about a lot more than just that building. Firth traces the histories of several hotels, including the Anderson Hotel in Bennett, which was eventually moved up the lake to Carcross and remodelled into the Caribou, so named because the animals were once vital to the lives of the local First Nation people.
Indeed, Caribou Crossing was the original name of the town, changed in 1904 because the Canadian Postal Service found it conflicted with similar names in British Columbia. Before postal codes, mail addressed to Dawson City sometimes ended up in Dawson Creek, so this makes sense.
Aside from the gold rush, a number of other projects impacted the area, including the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway (establishment and subsequent shutdown), the building of the Alaska Highway, the Canol Road oil project, the tourism link to Atlin, and the development of the road to Skagway.
One project that was discussed for years, but fortunately never came to pass, was a proposal to flood the entire area in order to generate electricity.
This is also a book about people: Dawson Charlie, Skookum Jim, Archie Lang, Colonel Conrad, Patsy Henderson, Jack Stewart, Bessie Gideon, Johnnie Johns, Dorothy Hopcott, as well as Jamie Toole and Anne Morgan, the current owners.
And, of course, who can forget Polly the parrot – a male bird, in spite of his name. He came to live there in 1918 and remained until his death in 1972, at the age of 126, which must have made him the longest resident ever.
This is a delightful book. I found its short chapters were easy reading when I only had a few minutes to spare, but I often found myself reading more than one.
John Firth, currently Yukon’s Story Laureate, describes himself and his work on his website. He grew up in Dawson City and told the audience about some of his boyhood there in an address at the 2024 Commissioner’s Ball at the Palace Grand Theatre.
“The Klondike Gold Rush was my backyard,” he writes, “and I was surrounded by writers, both living and long gone. Pierre Berton’s childhood home was just down the street. Dick North lived on the next block over, right beside Jack London’s cabin. Robert Service’s cabin was a 10-minute walk from my front door.
“Today I live in Whitehorse, Yukon. From here I can hike on ancient First Nation trading trails across the coastal mountains, follow the route of the riverboats down the Yukon River or discover long lost places hidden in the interior trenches.”
Firth’s other books include One Mush: Jamaica’s Dogsled Team; Yukon Sport : An Illustrated Encyclopedia; River Time: Racing the Ghosts of the Klondike Rush; Better Than A Cure: One man’s journey to free the world of Polio (with Ramesh Ferris); Yukon Quest: The 1000-mile sled dog race between Fairbanks and Whitehorse; and his latest, North Star: The Legacy of Jean-Marie Mouchet (2024).
The Caribou Hotel:
Hauntings, hospitality, a hunter, and the parrot
By John Firth
John Firth/Caribou Hotel
244 pages
$19.95
