typewriters

had a good chat with CBC's Russ Knutson yesterday afternoon about poetry, Dawson, and A Bad Year for Journalists...nice to meet one of the radio faces i've been listening to in Dawson.
later at the Capital bar, i was intrigued by one of the video lottery machines...apparently trying to lure errant writers, it has a keyboard image game. but, unfortunately proving that poets aren't always technologically-minded, i couldn't understand how the game worked, so i didn't play...

reading

reading tonight at the Whitehorse Public Library...looking forward to it. i spent yesterday at the "Burning Cold" exhibit at the Yukon Arts Centre and took this photo in the parking lot outside the gallery. i can't decide if the sign is a conceptual art piece or a rather clever bit of vandalism...

"the Horse"

Whitehorse...is so very different from Dawson! went out last night to the Capital, a hotel bar that seems, well, very normal. admittedly, the place does feature a mummified cat, in its own glass box on display at the bar (they found the cat during renovations, it's from the 1940s...no 1898 Gold Rush here). couldn't get a decent photo of the cat...

Dawson

flying to Whitehorse later today, and it's a gorgeous morning (went for a long walk down the river with dog). to celebrate my fabulous three months here, three souvenir photos of my stay at the Pierre Berton House...first, the kind of shop that just has to exist in Dawson (in fact, it's the most interesting shop in town next to the bookshop)...nearby, this weathered building (with some old tin ceilings nailed on for good measure)...and my worktable, teapot, & dog...

dog cabin

this belongs to a lovely husky down the road from here. it's a perfect miniature cabin (rather like pianos here, all cabins MUST have antlers over the door--i think you get a fine otherwise). the husky doesn't seem to use his cabin very much, as he prefers curling up in the middle of his yard, in the snow. he guards an elegant wooden house from 1901.

book of bread

one wonderful aspect of the winter here is that we have been inspired to make lots of bread. i found The Book of Bread (by Judith & Evan Jones) at the library back in January, and we've held onto it until today...i have to take it back, reluctantly. fortunately i can order my own copy. it's a wonderful bread book...first out in 1982, no photos but lots of line drawings (after all...it's bread, you can guess more or less what the result should look like!) very straight-forward, not obsessive, all the recipes but one have worked marvellously, including a recipe for English muffins where we had to use an empty water chestnut can as a mold.

0 degrees

people are starting to bet on when the ice in the river will break up...probably not until late April or early May (there's a raffle every year--buy a ticket & write down your chosen prediction to see if you win). but already they've started plowing the streets...which over here is a sign of spring. because once all this snow starts to melt, we're going to have slush up to our eyebrows. to save us from that fate, the two trucks in town are dragging away the snow...i had no idea there WAS that much snow on the street, but it's a good couple of feet, packed down from driving over it for months. they better hurry...yesterday was exactly 0 degrees.

raven angels

the ravens keep a sharp eye on all the goings-on in town--if anyone drops a bit of food or feeds their dogs outside, within a minute a raven will circle in at a distance, deciding if it's safe to land. occasionally, the food falls into deep snow, and when the raven swoops in, it leaves these wonderful marks. i've made a couple of snow angels myself since i got here, and it's difficult to get up afterwards...so i sympathize with the ravens.