With a new foundation, the Melanie Morice House gets new life
The basement was terrifying, all four walls were fully slanted, and one was completely caving in at the bottom.
Karen Murray
On the east slope of Dawson City, overlooking the Moosehide Slide, is a cluster of centenarians–homes that were constructed in the early 1900s and have stood the test of time. One of those homes, with a distinctive roof line, decorative trim and a large bay window, is known as the Melanie Morice House.
After admiring the house for years, Dawson City resident Karen Murray purchased it in 2021
“I thought it was pretty cool because it’s named after a woman, and it’s pretty uncommon for women to have anything named after them from that time,” she says. “I bought the house on my own, so it felt like a nice connection.”
Once she moved in, Murray realized the house needed a lot of love.
“Essentially, the house was falling down,” she says. “I guess I knew it when I bought the house, but I thought, ‘It can’t be as bad as it looks’. It was.”
Because the house was built directly on ground that had frozen and thawed many times over the past 122 years, its foundation was failing, and its basement walls were falling in. The slope of the property and nearby street caused drainage issues that put pressure on the basement walls, making the building unstable
“The basement was terrifying,” says Murray. “All four walls were fully slanted, and one was completely caving in at the bottom. Even the beams that were supposed to straighten the house were on a slant.”
After consulting professionals, Murray knew that to save the house, she would have to fill in the basement. This meant moving the house off its foundation, filling the basement with gravel and creating a new foundation, and then moving the house back and placing it on raised cribbing.
With support from the Yukon Historic Properties Assistance (HPA) program, Murray was able to complete the necessary work in the summer of 2022. The HPA program, administered through the Government of Yukon’s Historic Sites Unit, provides funding to preserve, restore, develop or interpret privately owned historically significant properties in the Yukon.
Built in 1902, the house is considered historically significant because of its age and because it is “a contributing element to the historic residential character of the east slope area in Dawson City,” according to a Yukon Historic Sites’ record.
“I think it’s really great that these funds exist,” says Murray. “Fixing up these old buildings is a huge undertaking and that’s why so many of them go into disrepair and ruin. I’m very grateful that I have the support of my family and the support of these funds, because it’s definitely a larger undertaking than I thought I signed up for.”
Murray says the house still needs a lot of work, including upgrading the insulation in the walls and attic, new flooring, refurbishing the kitchen, and renovating the bathroom. Despite the challenges, she remains committed to fixing up the historic home.
“I think the infrastructure here is what makes Dawson special,” says Murray. “When people come to visit, they’re really stepping back into a period of time that has been preserved. You come to Dawson City and it’s not this made-up town that’s trying to look old. A lot of these buildings are original from the Gold Rush, which is really, really neat.”
In 2022, Murray was awarded the Yukon Heritage Conservation Project of the Year Award for her work on the house.
“The community’s very, very grateful,” she says. “I get so many comments all the time, like ‘Thank you so much for putting the work in and not either letting the house go into ruin or attempting to tear it down, which would probably be cheaper in the long run.’
“It’s just nice to be able to leave a bit of a legacy in this town and something that people can remember. It feels really great.”
To find out more about the HPA program, visit historic-properties-assistance-program
Author’s Note: Morico or Morice?
When I started researching this story, I was told the house was named for Melanie Morico (with an “o”) instead of Melanie Morice. I looked, but I could not find a record of anyone with the last name Morico living in Dawson City in the early 1900s.
I did find references to a French woman named Melanie Morice, and land title records confirm she was the actual owner of Lot 1 in Block H of the Menzies Addition, the property the historical home sits on.
In the original title document her name was handwritten in cursive and the final “e” in Morice has a long tail on the end of the letter that loops upward, making it look a lot like an “o”. This could explain the error in her name.
Melanie Morice was married to Charles Frias, so she sometimes also shows up in records as Mrs. Charles Frias or Mrs. Melanie Frias. For example, the Polks Gazetter 1903 directory lists a Mrs. Melanie Frias living in Dawson City. Her occupation was listed as housekeeper.
On September 16, 1908, a Mrs. Melanie Marie Frias passed away, according to the Yukon River Basin, Deaths and Burials, 1887-2007 database. Unfortunately, there is no further information on where she was buried.
In October 1908, the Weekly News Advertiser in Vancouver published her obituary. It read:
“Madam Charles Frias, one of the pioneer women of the Klondike, is dead.” It confirmed that she worked as “… a housekeeper of the private mess for a number of the highest government officials and by her good graces and careful and skillful service won from them and their many guests the highest of esteem and commendation.”
The obituary also mentioned that Morice loved to garden, and she prided herself on having “… the first and finest sweet peas and other flowers in Dawson City.”
According to Morice’s estate files, held at the Yukon Archives, at the time of her death, she owned two pieces of property in Dawson City—the west 65 feet of Lot 1 in Block H of the Menzies Addition and the south half of Lot 6 in Block C of Smith’s Addition.
The buildings on the first lot were assessed at $900 and the buildings on the second lot were $150. It appears that both properties were sold by the Public Administrator and Morice’s estate was split between her siblings in France.
