Those of us who live here know that Dawson has a good many moments that are worth noticing
Every day, CBC’s The National ends with a short story called The Moment that they describe this way on their website: “In the middle of a busy news day it made us smile, laugh or celebrate the kindness in the world.”
Recently, there was the moment when a young boy became friends with a bird named Russell Crow. During another moment we watched a bull moose shed its antlers. On another night, we watched a brawl between a Canada Goose and a bald eagle, in which the goose won. Three weeks ago we watched the moment that the legendary grizzly known as “the boss” came out of hibernation for the spring.
At the end of an hour often packed full of explosions, fires, natural disasters and conflicts, the show tries to end the day on a positive note.
In May, two of these moments came from Dawson City.
The ice bridge across the Yukon River to West Dawson closed officially on April 7. People were still capable of crossing by vehicle or on foot for a while after that but, unless they had voted in the advance polls, that was no longer possible by the date of the federal election on April 28.
The solution from Elections Canada was to set up a remote polling station on the west back of the river, near the ferry landing. As reported in the Klondike Sun “Elections Canada workers were flown in by helicopter and an outdoor polling station set up from noon to 2:00 p.m. at the West side ferry landing.”
Apparently about two dozen locals took advantage of the chance to vote.
And the next night this event was featured as the National’s Moment.
That was neat and unexpected, but it was even neater when they noticed us again, two days later.
Each year the IODE holds a Breakup Ice Pool contest in which people are asked to guess the day and time when the tripod, which has been placed on the river ice as a marker, heads off downstream as the ice in front of the town begins to break up. It’s a dramatic event and one that heralds the coming of our short spring before summer arrives.
Our flood dike has people walking up and down for days in advance, waiting for the tripod’s movement to pull the wire that will stop the clock attached to the Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre.
There are so many people on site that, even if the clock doesn’t stop as it’s supposed to, which it did not this year, there’s never any difficulty in pinpointing the exact time, which this year was 10:56 a.m. on April 30 th.
One of the two winners of the prize this year was the town’s recreation manager, Paul Robitaille, and Paul was featured as part of the Moment on the next evening on the National, along with cell phone coverage of the moving ice and the people watching.
The water has since opened right up and the George Black ferry went back into service on May 12, 2025.
It was quite exciting to have our town make The National news two nights in the same week, but then those of us who live here know that Dawson has a good many moments that are worth noticing.
