It’s Monday afternoon and Evelyn Pollock answers the telephone at the office of the Dawson City Chamber of Commerce. This catches me off stride as I had been expecting to be asked to leave a voice mail message. I know that Evelyn only works mornings at the Chamber office.
Not this week, she tells me, not this close to the 24th Annual Dawson City Gold Show. It’s full days at the office above the Dawson Visitors Information Centre (at 993-5274) until the setup for the show begins on May 20.
It might be called the Dawson City Gold, Antiques, Craft, Trade and Plant Show. That moniker, though clumsy, would give a better picture of what goes on there. There are 45 exhibitors listed, and that will have to be amended because three more signed on just that morning.
There are lumber mills, construction companies, mining companies, various branches of the federal and territorial governments, local clubs, makers of jewelry and fine arts and purveyors of fine plants (everything from flowers to trees). They will be on display inside the Art and Margaret Fry Recreation Centre as well as in the parking lot outside and a blocked-off portion of 4th Avenue.
That’s the consumer trade show side of things.
In addition, there will be the annual spring meeting of the Klondike Placer Miners’ Association at the Yukon Order of Pioneers Hall, a meet and greet BBQ at the Palace Grand Theatre, children’s games in the rec centre and live local music there as well.
The street and the arena will be quite mad for a couple of days and then it will all vanish on Sunday, leaving behind a sense that the summer season has really begun, a feeling assisted by the sudden appearance of fresh flowers and hanging baskets all over the town.
