Thighbones and Graveyards

Had an amazing walk up the ridge of the hill behind our house. Had a momentary scare when our dog tried to plunge over the edge of the hill into a bit of trampled bush. We couldn't see the attraction until Lisa spotted a massive thigh bone sticking out of the snow. A caribou or deer must have been hit and then died down there. It was picked pretty clean (the Ravens were still circling overhead) but seemed to hold a lot (that is to say: a lot!!!) of fascination for the dog....


We made it up to an amazing view of the river and to Hillside cemetery, which has been in use since Dawson was a gold rush town. The graves go back to the end of the 1800's and there are a whole selection of lives and religions in little separated neighbourhoods: the Catholic cemetery, the Jewish (with five graves in it...the most notable being Solomon Packer - great name- who owned a hardware store during the gold rush), the Masonic cemetery, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Yukon Order of Pioneers, the Protestant cemetery, and the Arctic Brotherhood (who were restricted to men who had come over the Chilkoot Pass and who had the motto 'No Borders Here'...can't go wrong with a motto like that).





I like the story of the American Joe Vogler who led a movement called free Alaska that wanted to join Alaska up with the Yukon and part of BC and separate to be its own country: he swore that he wouldn't be buried in Alaska until it was 'free', so he's buried up here until that time comes. There are quite a selection of Americans that ended up here: there's even one Civil War veteran...




The RCMP/NWMP plot was striking with dates of 1899 and older on the headstones... the RCNWMP kept things in order during the gold rush and endured the most incredible hardships for a pretty modest police paycheque .. it must have been tough when the gold was flowing all around them..

On the way down the hill Barclay decided to cheer our rather somber moods by finding a huge drift of snow and plunging in like it was some kind of swimming pool. At one point she disappeared completely.