Fur Fashion Show

I ended up going to the Fur Show twice…first in the afternoon, where the hall was set up with great rows of tables covered in newly-cured furs. Wolf, lynx, wolverine, fox (including a black fox), marten, and some other variety of weasel. People are bringing in furs for the judging contest later in the day; I get a little blue ticket at the door which reads “Feed Me! (this voucher is good for one serving of stew & bannock). But they’re not serving food yet, so I decide I’ll come back for the Fur Fashion Show, which starts at 7:30. My neighbour Sz. drops by at 7:15 (wearing a lynx-fur headband…I decide to leave my fake fur hat at home); we walk briskly downtown, Sz telling me which buildings are actually historic and which are well-done fakes--a fairly recent heritage law keeps new buildings within a Klondike/Wild West schematic. Mostly, this works pretty well, so an ordinary visitor like me can't tell the difference unless I think about the size or design more carefully.
When we get there, the fashion show is already underway. The hall is packed, there’s a television camera, local models showing off amazingly-beaded gloves and moccasins, kids modelling huge fur mittens, bearded guys in Davy-Crockett hats, and an MC wearing most of a fox on her head. She looks pretty good. For the thousandth time this week, I wish I had my camera. After the fashion show, Sz. introduces me to a slew of neighbours and drags me into the kitchen to get some stew and bannock. I’ve missed the moose stew--should have gotten here earlier--but the bannock is easily the best I’ve ever had, fluffy and chewy at the same time.

Bannock & skidoos

the house woke me up a couple of times last night – not with ghosts or mice, but with noises from the furnace. I’m currently by myself in the house, but the furnace keeps up a nearly-constant conversation, ticking and rattling and sending weird morse messages through all the pipes before subsiding for fifteen minutes, as if waiting for a reply. I don’t know what it wants to tell me, but at midnight, the creaking was particularly impressive. The permafrost here means that house constantly shifts as things change temperature: doors swing closed when they’ve stayed open the day before, cupboards refuse to close, and the house crackles like the Northern Lights. After chatting with the furnace for a while, I went out for a walk to the river in what passes for early morning here (10am); seems unusually quiet, until I remember that it’s Saturday, a day off. But soon, on the path along the river, there are bright individual lights, and four skidoos pass me, going politely slowly on the shared path. The drivers are wearing black terrorist balaclavas (useful accessories up here, though generally not used in bank robbery), and their skidoos each drag a sleigh of provisions…mostly red plastic tanks of gasoline, since there aren’t many gas stations out in the bush. Until today I’ve always disliked skidoos, figured they were noisy machismo, but I realized this morning that if I lived here, I might get myself one. The four sped out along the path and didn’t disturb me or take up much room, and they were gone in an instant, out into the white landscape that’s all around.

Later today I’m going to the Fur Show. All I know is that they’ll be serving bannock (for those of you who don’t know what that is, try making the stuff, preferably in the wilderness in minus 20 weather: take 1 cup white flour, some salt, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tablespoon butter, 1/3 cup or more cold water... Add enough water to make a thick dough. Form into 1-inch thick cakes and place in the bottom of a greased cast iron frying pan. Cook on low heat until done on both sides, or prop the pan in the coals of the fire. For a variety add dry fruits, raisins, blueberries, etc. Serve with butter & honey or molasses when done).

Arctic Red

Walking back from the liquor store, I passed the occasional fellow-walker—usually a guy in brown coveralls, with a mustache and beard as impressive as anything on the Arctic Red beer label. That’s the beer I went to the store to buy. There’s a small brewery in the Yukon, in Whitehorse, and a few years ago I had the good luck to meet the man behind the beer, Bob Baxter, who cheerfully tours people through Yukon Brewing Company (you just have to call & ask). I had wanted to meet Bob because of the labels on the excellent beer the company produces: both Yukon Gold (the lager) and Arctic Red (my favourite) feature grizzled gold-panners, glaring out at the world. Turns out they’re local guys, Kevin on the Gold and Leo on the Red, not movie-extras. Fittingly, Bob says he paid them for the photoshoot with beer. So now I'm home with Leo on a box staring at me from the top of kitchen cabinet. I can’t think of a better way to kick myself in gear on getting down to work out here.

Eighth Avenue

I’m out walking at 10 am, it’s the very bright slightly blue early morning. It's a bizarre contrast to the way I spent December: walking the dog around Kensington Market & then rushing to rehearsal. Here at Berton House on Eighth Avenue, it's much more contemplative; there are only eight avenues in Dawson City, and that's big enough for the moment. It's snowing slightly. I consider shoveling the front steps, but why do it twice? I’ll wait until it stops snowing, maybe at mid-day; my eyelashes are starting to freeze, so back inside. Early afternoon I head out again (still haven’t shoveled the steps); the sun is just starting its very slow reddish slide back behind the hills. I walk down Eighth Avenue to the river and follow the path alongside the water. Invisible dogs are barking gleefully and eventually a 5-dog sled appears out on the ice, coming away from the trees of an island. Three of the dogs are black and huge, bigger than the other two white huskies, making the sled very much an apparition. Whisps snow spark up from the paws as the dogs fly across the river.

Getting to Dawson City

The worn Hawker prop plane flies Whitehorse to Dawson, with me, a couple of white Samoyed dogs, two teachers, and a slew of people heading to Inuvik. It’s cold on board so I wrap my absurd sheepskin coat around my legs. I choose a seat on the wing, it’s that wonderful old silver-coloured propeller wing where you can clearly see every bolt holding the different rectangles of panel together. For some reason this reassures me (after all, these prop engines were built by Rolls Royce, that should mean something). The sky is blue; everything in fact is blue, it’s that twilight moment before dawn, but as we are flying north, the whole hour and forty-five minutes of flying time stay in that pre-dawn moment. Blue sky, blue clouds, blue ridges of hills, cliffs, mountains, blue frozen rivers, blue trees. The silver of the wing is blue. Then a streak of orange for the sun’s arrival appears and all the blues mute suddenly to grey. The pilot comes on the PA and says, “Dawson is not a night airport, so we have to wait until ten to, for landing, though as you can see it’s plenty light out. We can see for miles and miles, so we’re just going to fly down the valley for a little bit…”

Waiting for the Dawson City airport to open, we follow the river down and back until it’s ten minutes before nine, and officially “morning”, and the Hawker is given permission to land. [The photo of Dawson at this time of year was taken by Kevin Hastings...because I left my camera in Toronto. It should catch up with me sometime next week.]

Bad Year in Rehearsal

A BAD YEAR FOR JOURNALISTS as a play is really happening! Rehearsals are underway, with two fabulous actors Emily Pearlman & Tyler Seguin, direction by Bremner Duthie, and video & sound design by Craig Desson and my brother, Kit Pasold. Come see what we've been up to on Dec 20th & 21st at the Alchemy Theatre (133 Tecumseth, just west of Queen & Bathurst in Toronto; show starts at 8pm)

Here is some more info, taken from the press release:
With the assistance of the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council, Pasold's text hits the stage in a new multimedia creation. Developed by Toronto's newest little theatre companies: Skinny Legs Collective and Big Empty Barn--dedicated to invention, innovation and stealing the media's technology for our own audience. "There are two satisfactions: of looking without flinching, or else the satisfaction of flinching." How do we struggle with issues of place and truth in lands where both have been long since erased? Radio clips, ad jingles, newspaper reports, distorted snippets of pop songs and uploaded video from the web assist in a front-line confrontation with the "Disaster of the Day. Through a dynamic combination of sound and visuals A Bad Year for Journalists explores the catastrophe of going abroad with the best of intentions and a camera.
For more details, contact "big empty barn" (all one word) "at" gmail

Spread the net - fight malaria

whatever you may think of Belinda Stronach as a politician (and whenever I get back to Canada, she always seems to be in the news, one way or another), she is making a difference for a serious cause: UNICEF's fight against malaria. In case you've never worried much about malaria, think about mosquitoes...the unofficial & much-despised national insect of Canada. Most of us Canucks grow up with a deep-seated loathing for the little bastards...so it should be easy for us to put ten dollars into preventing them from biting somebody else. Because in the thirty second it's taken to write this part of my blog, another child has died of malaria. Click on the link; write a cheque. thanks.

at the Alchemy Theatre

This afternoon I met novelist Lauren Davis for tea, on the 43rd floor of the Sheraton, looking over Toronto's sci-fi City Hall...and we talked about zombies, writers, and other creatures of the dark. I'm in town for several weeks to work on creating a theatre piece based on my book of poetry, A Bad Year for Journalists. If you're in town on December 20th or 21st, drop by the Alchemy theatre (133 Tecumseth, one block SW of Bathurst & Queen) at 8pm to see what we've been working on--the workshop production will be practically free, and we're looking forward to getting your feedback.