112-767: Dawson City , officially the City of Dawson , is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon . It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–1899). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census , making it the second-largest municipality in Yukon. Prior to the late modern period the area was used for hunting and gathering by the Hän-speaking people of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and their forebears. The heart of their homeland
224-459: A Red Cross Man are an advance on his previous volumes. He has come into touch with the grimmest of realities; and while his radical faults have not been cured, his rude lines drive home the truth that he has seen." Reviewing Service's Rhymes of a Rebel in 1952, Frye remarked that the book "interests me chiefly because ... I have noticed so much verse in exactly the same idiom , and I wonder how far Mr. Service's books may have influenced it. There
336-457: A Sourdough alone" (equal to about $ 3.3 million today after inflation). "When copies of the book reached Whitehorse, Robert's own minister took him aside to let him know how wicked were his stories. Service hung his head in shame... But, that summer, tourists from the south arrived in Whitehorse looking for the famous poet; and he autographed many of his books." "In 1908, after working for
448-770: A base to the navy of an adversary), as well as to support amphibious operations throughout the region (such as the Chesapeake campaign during the American War of 1812 ). Bermuda was consequently the most important British naval and military base in the Americas. Canadian confederation resulted in the Canadian Militia becoming responsible for the defence of the Maritimes, the abolition of the British Army's commander-in-chief there, and
560-416: A burglar), and by the next morning "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" was complete. "A month or so later he heard a gold rush yarn from a Dawson mining man about a fellow who cremated his pal." He spent the night walking in the woods composing "The Cremation of Sam McGee", and wrote it down from memory the next day. Other verses quickly followed. "In the early spring he stood above the heights of Miles Canyon...
672-470: A full-time author." He immediately "went to work on his novel.... He went for walks that lasted all night, slept till mid-afternoon, and sometimes didn't come out of the cabin for days. In five months the novel, entitled The Trail of '98 , was complete and he took it to a publisher in New York." Service's first novel also "immediately became a best-seller." Newly wealthy, Service was able to travel to Paris ,
784-665: A great deal of power relative to the federal government, with jurisdiction over many public goods such as health care, education, welfare, and intra-provincial transportation. They receive " transfer payments " from the federal government to pay for these, as well as exacting their own taxes. In practice, however, the federal government can use these transfer payments to influence these provincial areas. For instance, in order to receive healthcare funding under Medicare , provinces must agree to meet certain federal mandates, such as universal access to required medical treatment. Provincial and territorial legislatures have no second chamber like
896-515: A lieutenant-general termed a general officer commanding and the Bermuda garrison becoming a command in its own right. Bermuda was consequently left out of the confederation of Canada, though it retained naval links with Halifax and the state church (or established church ), the Church of England , continued to place Bermuda under the bishop of Newfoundland until 1919 (Bermuda also remained linked to
1008-568: A mandatory 36-hour layover in Dawson City while getting their rest and preparing for the second half of the world's toughest sled dog race. Dawson City also hosts a softball tournament which brings teams from Inuvik in late summer. Furthermore, a volleyball tournament is held annually at the end of October and is attended by various high schools across Yukon. The city was home to the Dawson City Nuggets hockey team, which in 1905 challenged
1120-686: A memorial to his family in the town cemetery. He also visited the USSR in the 1930s and later wrote a satirical "Ballad of Lenin's Tomb ". For this reason his poetry was never translated into Russian in the USSR, and he was never mentioned in Soviet encyclopedias. Service's second trip to the Soviet Union "was interrupted by news of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . Service fled across Poland, Latvia, Estonia and
1232-421: A poem for it? Give us something about our own bit of earth. We sure would appreciate it. There’s a rich paystreak waiting for someone to work. Why don’t you go in and stake it?" Returning from a walk one Saturday night, Service heard the sounds of revelry from a saloon, and the phrase "A bunch of the boys were whooping it up" popped into his head. Inspired, he ran to the bank to write it down (almost being shot as
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#17328768357001344-419: A population of 1,577 living in 770 of its 836 total private dwellings, a change of 14.7% from its 2016 population of 1,375 . With a land area of 30.91 km (11.93 sq mi), it had a population density of 51.0/km (132.1/sq mi) in 2021. According to the 2021 Census, the town is predominately European Canadian with 60.8% of the population with Indigenous Canadians accounting for 31.4% of
1456-631: A prolonged economic crisis , and the legislature turned over political control to the Newfoundland Commission of Government in 1933. Following Canada's participation in the Second World War , in a 1948 referendum , a narrow majority of Newfoundland citizens voted to join the Confederation, and on March 31, 1949, Newfoundland became Canada's tenth province. The province was officially renamed Newfoundland and Labrador in 2001. Bermuda ,
1568-420: A raise, and sent him to Kamloops in the middle of British Columbia. In Victoria, he lived over the bank with a hired piano, and dressed for dinner. In Kamloops, horse country, he played polo. In the fall of 1904, the bank sent him to their Whitehorse branch in Yukon. With the expense money, he bought himself a raccoon coat ." Throughout this period, Service continued writing and saving his verses: "more than
1680-573: A series of jobs: "Starving in Mexico, residing in a California bordello , farming on Vancouver Island and pursuing unrequited love in Vancouver ." This sometimes required him to leech off his parents' Scottish neighbours and friends who had previously emigrated to Canada. In 1899, when Service was a store clerk in Cowichan Bay, British Columbia , he mentioned to a customer that he wrote verses. The customer
1792-662: A summer home at Lancieux , Côtes-d'Armor , in the Brittany region of France. They had twin girls, born in January 1917, but one died of scarlet fever in February 1918. Thirteen years younger than her husband, Germaine Service survived him by 31 years, dying aged 102 on 26 December 1989 in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Service was 40 when World War I broke out; he attempted to enlist, but was turned down "due to varicose veins ." He briefly covered
1904-653: A surveyor and railroad engineer based in Prince Rupert ." Service left Dawson City for good in 1912. From 1912 to 1913 he was a correspondent for the Toronto Star during the Balkan Wars . In 1913, Service moved to Paris, remaining there for the next 15 years. He settled in the Latin Quarter , posing as a painter. In June 1913, he married Parisienne Germaine Bourgoin, daughter of a distillery owner, and they purchased
2016-652: A third of the poems in his first volume had been written before he moved north in 1904." Whitehorse was a frontier town, less than ten years old. Located on the Yukon River at the White Horse Rapids , it had begun in 1897 as a campground for prospectors on their way to Dawson City to join the Klondike Gold Rush . The railway that Service rode in on, the White Pass and Yukon Route , had reached Whitehorse only in 1900. Settling in, "Service dreamed and listened to
2128-506: A university level accredited art program, is based in Dawson City. Robert Service School, Dawson City's only grade school, is named in honour of British-Canadian poet and writer Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958). The Robert Service School offers Kindergarten – Grade 12 and is one of only 28 schools in the Yukon Territory. Television Radio Print The following people and military units have received
2240-490: A writer was already established. After having collected enough poems for a book, Service "sent the poems to his father, who had emigrated to Toronto , and asked him to find a printing house so they could make it into a booklet. He enclosed a cheque to cover the costs and intended to give these booklets away to his friends in Whitehorse" for Christmas. His father took the manuscript to William Briggs in Toronto, whose employees loved
2352-515: Is also located in Dawson. In 2024, councillors refused to swear allegiance to King Charles III , in solidarity with councillor-elect Darwyn Lynn, who refused in protest against the historic relations between the monarchy and the First Nations. Dawson was incorporated as a city in 1902 when it met the criteria for "city" status under the municipal act of that time. It retained the incorporation even as
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#17328768357002464-578: Is buried in the local cemetery. A book he had written in 1956 was published posthumously. In the spring of 1958, not long before Service died, Canadian broadcaster Pierre Berton recorded many hours of autobiographical television interviews for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation , in Service's Monte Carlo flat. During these interviews, Service recited "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and " The Cremation of Sam McGee ". Robert Service wrote
2576-697: Is called the National Assembly . Ontario has a legislative assembly but its members are called members of the Provincial Parliament or MPPs. The legislative assemblies use a procedure similar to that of the House of Commons of Canada . The head of government of each province, called the premier , is generally the head of the party with the most seats. This is also the case in Yukon, but the Northwest Territories and Nunavut have no political parties at
2688-561: Is concentrated in areas close to the Canada–US border . Its four largest provinces by area ( Quebec , Ontario , British Columbia and Alberta ) are also (with Quebec and Ontario switched in order) its most populous; together they account for 86% of the country's population. The territories (the Northwest Territories , Nunavut and Yukon ) account for over a third of Canada's area but are only home to 0.3% of its population, which skews
2800-517: Is the wettest month. However, April, one of the six warmer months is sufficiently drier than October and November. Hence the letter 's' is used instead of 'f' (as in Dfc ). The average temperature in July is 15.7 °C (60.3 °F) and in January is −26.0 °C (−14.8 °F). The highest temperature ever recorded is 35.0 °C (95 °F) on 9 July 1899 and 18 June 1950. The lowest temperature ever recorded
2912-419: Is −58.3 °C (−73 °F) on 3 February 1947. It experiences a wide range of temperatures surpassing 30 °C (86 °F) in most summers and dropping below −40 °C (−40 °F) in winter. In the very cold month of December 1917, the temperature did not rise above −37.2 °C (−35 °F) and it averaged −46.3 °C (−51 °F). The community is at an elevation of 320 m (1,050 ft) and
3024-714: The Constitution Act, 1867 (formerly called the British North America Act, 1867 ), whereas territories are federal territories whose governments are creatures of statute with powers delegated to them by the Parliament of Canada . The powers flowing from the Constitution Act are divided between the Government of Canada (the federal government) and the provincial governments to exercise exclusively. A change to
3136-470: The Alaska Highway bypassed it 518 kilometres (322 mi) to the south. The economic damage to Dawson City was such that Whitehorse , the highway's hub, replaced it as territorial capital in 1953. Dawson City's population languished around the 600–900 mark through the 1960s and 1970s, but has risen and held stable since then. The high price of gold has made modern placer mining operations profitable, and
3248-602: The Alberta Party and Saskatchewan Party . The provincial political climate of Quebec is different: the main split is between sovereignty , represented by the Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire , and federalism , represented primarily by the Quebec Liberal Party . The Coalition Avenir Québec , meanwhile, takes an abstentionist position on the question and does not support or oppose sovereignty. Currently,
3360-698: The Baltic to Stockholm . He wintered in Nice with his family, then fled France for Canada." Not long after, the Nazis invaded France, and "arrived at his home in Lancieux ... looking specifically for the poet who had mocked Hitler in newspaper verse." During World War II , Service lived in California , "and Hollywood had him join with other celebrities in helping the morale of troops – visiting U.S. Army camps to recite his poems. He
3472-560: The Canadian Senate . Originally, most provinces had such bodies, known as legislative councils , with members titled councillors. These upper houses were abolished one by one, Quebec's being the last in 1968. In most provinces, the single house of the legislature is known as the Legislative Assembly; the exceptions are Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, where the chamber is called the House of Assembly , and Quebec where it
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3584-548: The Colony of British Columbia . NWT included the northern two-thirds of Ontario and Quebec. After the province of Manitoba was established in 1870, in a small area in the south of today's province, almost all of present-day Manitoba was still contained in the NWT. (Manitoba expanded to its present size in 1912.) The British claims to the Arctic islands were transferred to Canada in 1880, adding to
3696-607: The Commercial Bank of Scotland which would later become the Royal Bank of Scotland . He was writing at this time and reportedly already "selling his verses". He was also reading poetry: Browning , Keats , Tennyson , and Thackeray . When he was 21, Service travelled to Vancouver Island, British Columbia , with his Buffalo Bill outfit and dreams of becoming a cowboy . He drifted around western North America, "wandering from California to British Columbia," taking and quitting
3808-631: The Freedom of the City of Dawson City. Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution . In the 1867 Canadian Confederation , three provinces of British North America — New Brunswick , Nova Scotia , and the Province of Canada (which upon Confederation
3920-487: The French Riviera , Hollywood , and beyond. He returned to Dawson City in 1912 to write his third book of poetry, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (1912). During that time he became a freemason , being initiated into Yukon Lodge No. 45 in Dawson. It is unclear what happened between Service and Constance MacLean as no known letters between them exist after Service's departure for Dawson City. In 1912 she "married Leroy Grant,
4032-627: The Hudson's Bay Company . In 1870, the company relinquished its claims for £300,000 (CND$ 1.5 million), assigning the vast territory to the government of Canada. Subsequently, the area was re-organized into the province of Manitoba and the North-West Territories. The North-West Territories encompassed all of current northern and western Canada, except for the British holdings in the Arctic islands and
4144-731: The Ottawa Silver Seven for the Stanley Cup . Travelling to Ottawa by dog sled , ship, and train, the team lost the most lopsided series in Stanley Cup history, losing two games by the combined score of 32 to 4. In 2004, the Yukon government removed the mayor and the town council, as a result of the town going bankrupt. The territorial government accepted a large portion of the responsibility for this situation in March 2006, writing off $ 3.43 million of
4256-562: The River St. Lawrence and Coast of America and North America and West Indies Station , the North America and Newfoundland Station , the North America and West Indies Station , and finally the America and West Indies Station ) main bases, dockyards, and Admiralty Houses. The squadron of the station was based at Royal Naval Dockyard, Halifax , during the summers and Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda , in
4368-605: The Tintina Fault . This fault has created the Tintina Trench and continues eastward for several hundred kilometres. Erosional remnants of lava flows form outcrops immediately north and west of Dawson City. Dawson City has a subarctic climate ( Köppen climate classification : Dsc ), with significantly higher continentality (greater temperature swings) than the territory capital of Whitehorse . Despite this classification, most precipitation actually occurs during summer and July
4480-566: The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation . In addition to the fishing camp remains, the site includes traditional plant harvesting areas and lookout points. Diamond Tooth Gertie's Gambling Hall puts on nightly vaudeville shows during tourist season, from May to September. Every February, Dawson City acts as the halfway mark for the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. Mushers entered in the event have
4592-595: The 60° parallel, Ontario's to Hudson Bay and Quebec's to encompass the District of Ungava . In 1869, the people of Newfoundland voted to remain a British colony over fears that taxes would increase with Confederation, and that the economic policy of the Canadian government would favour mainland industries. In 1907, Newfoundland acquired dominion status. In the middle of the Great Depression in Canada , Newfoundland underwent
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4704-511: The Arctic , particularly as global warming could make that region more open to exploitation leading to more complex international waters disputes . Robert W. Service Robert William Service (16 January 1874 – 11 September 1958) was a Scottish-Canadian poet and writer, often called “The Poet of the Yukon" and "The Canadian Kipling". Born in Lancashire of Scottish descent, he was a bank clerk by trade, but spent long periods travelling in
4816-448: The Bush " on 18 September 1901, and " The Little Old Log Cabin " on 16 March 1902. In her 2006 biography, Under the Spell of the Yukon , Enid Mallory revealed that Service had fallen in love during this period. He was working as a "farm labourer and store clerk when he first met Constance MacLean at a dance in Duncan B.C. , where she was visiting her uncle." MacLean lived in Vancouver, on the mainland, so he courted her by mail. Though he
4928-562: The French government donated the land used for the Vimy Memorial "freely, and for all time, to the Government of Canada the free use of the land exempt from all taxes". The site of the Somme battlefield near Beaumont-Hamel site was purchased in 1921 by the people of the Dominion of Newfoundland . These sites do not, however, enjoy extraterritorial status and are thus subject to French law. Since Confederation in 1867, there have been several proposals for new Canadian provinces and territories. The Constitution of Canada requires an amendment for
5040-475: The Gold Rush, now ten years in the past: "they loved to reminisce, and Robert listened carefully and remembered." He used their tales to write a second book of verse, Ballads of a Cheechako , in 1908. "It too was an overwhelming success." In 1909, when the bank wanted Service to return to Whitehorse as manager, he decided to resign. "After quitting his job, he rented a small two-room cabin on Eighth Avenue in Dawson City from Mrs. Edna Clarke and began his career as
5152-451: The Maritimes under the Methodist and Roman Catholic churches). In 1903, resolution of the Alaska Panhandle Dispute fixed British Columbia's northwestern boundary. This was one of only two provinces in Canadian history to have its size reduced. The second reduction, in 1927, occurred when a boundary dispute between Canada and the Dominion of Newfoundland saw Labrador enlarged at Quebec's expense; this land returned to Canada, as part of
5264-450: The North, for organizational and economic purposes. For much of the Northwest Territories' early history it was divided into several districts for ease of administration. The District of Keewatin was created as a separate territory from 1876 to 1905, after which, as the Keewatin Region, it became an administrative district of the Northwest Territories. In 1999, it was dissolved when it became part of Nunavut. Theoretically, provinces have
5376-452: The Yukon and Other Verses in the United States, was "an immediate success." It went through seven printings even before its official release date. Ultimately, Briggs "sold fifteen impressions in 1907. That same year there was an edition in New York, Philadelphia, and London. The London publisher, T. Fisher Unwin , struck a twenty-third printing in 1910, and thirteen more by 1917." "Service eventually earned in excess of $ 100,000 for Songs of
5488-484: The Yukon in 1946 "and visited Whitehorse and Dawson City, which by then was becoming a ghost town. Service could not bring himself to go back. He preferred to remember the town as it had been." Service lived in Monaco from 1947 to 1958. He wrote prolifically during his last years, writing two volumes of autobiography , Ploughman of the Moon (1945) and Harper of Heaven (1948), as well as six books of verse, which were published from 1949 to 1955. He died in Lancieux and
5600-536: The adventurous themes of Robert Service." Service did not call his work poetry. "Verse, not poetry, is what I was after ... something the man in the street would take notice of and the sweet old lady would paste in her album; something the schoolboy would spout and the fellow in the pub would quote. Yet I never wrote to please anyone but myself; it just happened. I belonged to the simple folks whom I liked to please." In his autobiography, Service described his method of writing at his Dawson City cabin. "I used to write on
5712-474: The average rainfall in July is 49.0 mm (1.93 in) and the average snowfall in January is 27.6 cm (10.87 in). Dawson has an average total annual snowfall of 166.5 cm (65.55 in) and averages 70 frost free days per year. The town is built on a layer of frozen earth, which may pose a threat to the town's infrastructure in the future if the permafrost melts. In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada , Dawson had
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#17328768357005824-415: The bank for three years in Whitehorse, he was sent outside on mandatory paid leave for three months, a standard practice for bank employees serving in the Yukon." According to Enid Mallory, he went to Vancouver and looked up Constance MacLean. Now that he was a successful author, she agreed to become engaged to him. Following his leave, in 1908 the bank transferred Service to Dawson, where he met veterans of
5936-441: The book. "The foreman and printers recited the ballads while they worked. A salesman read the proofs out loud as they came off the typesetting machines." An "enterprising salesman sold 1700 copies in advance orders from galley proofs." The publisher "sent Robert's cheque back to him and offered a ten percent royalty contract for the book." Service's book, Songs of a Sourdough , given the more Jack London -ish title, The Spell of
6048-476: The coarse rolls of paper used by paper-hangers, pinning them on the wall and printing my verses in big charcoal letters. Then I would pace back and forth before them, repeating them, trying to make them perfect. I wanted to make them appeal to the eye as well as to the ear. I tried to avoid any literal quality." One remarkable thing about both of Service's best-known ballads is how easily he wrote them. When writing about composing "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", 'easy'
6160-445: The commonest collective emotion," and "the charge of writing jingles ." All those charges, and more, could be levelled against Service's best known and best loved works. Certainly Service's verse was derivative of Kipling's. In "The Cremation of Sam McGee", for instance, he uses the form of Kipling's " The Ballad of East and West ". In his E. J. Pratt lecture "Silence In the Sea," critic Northrop Frye argued that Service's verse
6272-400: The company of his doorman, a retired policeman, to visit the lowest dives of the city". During his time in Paris he was reputedly the wealthiest author living in the city, yet was known to dress as a working man and walk the streets, blending in and observing everything around him. Those experiences would be used in his next book of poetry, Ballads of a Bohemian (1921): "The poems are given in
6384-411: The creation of a new province but the creation of a new territory requires only an act of Parliament , a legislatively simpler process. In late 2004, Prime Minister Paul Martin surprised some observers by expressing his personal support for all three territories gaining provincial status "eventually". He cited their importance to the country as a whole and the ongoing need to assert sovereignty in
6496-431: The critics, who tended to say the same of Rudyard Kipling , with whom Service was often compared. This did not worry Service, who was happy to classify his work as "verse, not poetry". Robert William Service was born in Preston, Lancashire , England, the third of ten children. His father, also Robert Service, was a banker from Kilwinning , Scotland, who had been transferred to England. Service's second name, "William",
6608-483: The debt and leaving the town with $ 1.5 million still to pay off. Elections were set for June 15, 2006. John Steins, a local artist and one of the leaders of the movement to restore democracy to Dawson, was acclaimed as mayor, while 13 residents ran for the four council seats. Steins was succeeded in office by former mayor Peter Jenkins , who in turn was succeeded by Wayne Potoroka. In 2021, four candidates ran for mayor, and former city councillor William (Bill) Kendrick won
6720-402: The division of powers between the federal government and the provinces requires a constitutional amendment , whereas a similar change affecting the territories can be performed unilaterally by the Parliament of Canada or government. In modern Canadian constitutional theory , the provinces are considered to be co-sovereign within certain areas based on the divisions of responsibility between
6832-462: The early 20th century that were buried in (and preserved by) the permafrost . These silent-era film reels, dating from "between 1903 and 1929, were uncovered in the rubble beneath [an] old hockey rink". (See Dawson Film Find .) Owing to its dangerous chemical volatility, the historical find was moved by military transport to Library and Archives Canada and the U.S. Library of Congress for both transfer to safety film and storage. A documentary about
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#17328768357006944-429: The election and is the current mayor of Dawson City. Other past mayors of Dawson City have included Art Webster , Colin Mayes , Yolanda Burkhard , Mike Comadina and Vi Campbell. In the Legislative Assembly of Yukon , Dawson City is in the electoral district of Klondike , currently represented by Sandy Silver of the Yukon Liberal Party . The government of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in , now a self-governing First Nation ,
7056-419: The exploration of properties across the Central Yukon. There are eight National Historic Sites of Canada located in Dawson, including the "Dawson Historical Complex", a National Historic Site encompassing the historic core of the town. The Downtown Hotel at Second Avenue and Queen Street has garnered media attention for its unusual Sourtoe Cocktail , which features a real mummified human toe. The hotel and
7168-403: The federal party. The Liberal Party of Canada shares such an organizational integration with Atlantic Canada provincial Liberals in New Brunswick , Newfoundland and Labrador , Nova Scotia , and Prince Edward Island . Other provincial Liberal parties are unaffiliated with their federal counterpart. Some provinces have provincial political parties with no clear federal equivalent, such as
7280-444: The find, Dawson City: Frozen Time , was released in 2016. The City of Dawson and the nearby ghost town of Forty Mile are featured prominently in the novels and short stories of American author Jack London , including The Call of the Wild . London lived in the Dawson area from October 1897 to June 1898. Other writers who lived in and wrote of Dawson City include Pierre Berton and the poet Robert Service . The childhood home of
7392-477: The former is now used as a residency and retreat for professional writers administered by the Writers' Trust of Canada . In 2023, the Dawson City townsite became part of the Tr’ondëk-Klondike UNESCO World Heritage Site , because of its archaeological record highlighting the transformation of the site from predominanty Indigenous to predominantly European use, and the adaptations that the Indigenous people made in response to European colonialism. Dawson City lies on
7504-472: The growth of the tourism industry has encouraged development of facilities. In the early 1950s, Dawson was linked by road to Alaska, and in fall 1955, with Whitehorse along a road that now forms part of the Klondike Highway . In 1978, another kind of buried treasure was discovered with the Dawson Film Find when a construction excavation inadvertently uncovered a forgotten collection of more than 500 discarded films on highly flammable nitrate film stock from
7616-415: The indicia of sovereignty from the United Kingdom. Prior to this, Ontario and Quebec were united as the Province of Canada. Over the following years, Manitoba (1870), British Columbia (1871), and Prince Edward Island (1873) were added as provinces. The British Crown had claimed two large areas north-west of the Canadian colony, known as Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory , and assigned them to
7728-424: The last British North American colony, which had been somewhat subordinated to Nova Scotia, was one of two Imperial fortress colonies in British North America – the other being Nova Scotia, and more particularly the city of Halifax. Halifax and Bermuda were the sites of the Royal Navy's North America Station (or, depending on the time period and the extent of the Western Hemisphere it included,
7840-415: The line 'I have gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on' came into his mind and again he hammered out a complete poem, " The Call of the Wild ". Conversations with locals led Service to write about things he had not seen (some of which had not even happened) as well. He did not set foot in Dawson City until 1908, arriving in the Klondike ten years after the Gold Rush when his renown as
7952-404: The most commercially successful poetry of the century. Yet his most popular works "were considered doggerel by the literary set." During his lifetime, he was nicknamed "the Canadian Kipling ." – yet that may have been a double-edged compliment. As T. S. Eliot has said, "we have to defend Kipling against the charge of excessive lucidity," "the charge of being a ' journalist ' appealing only to
8064-728: The national population density value. Canada's population grew by 5.0% between the 2006 and 2011 censuses. Except for New Brunswick , all territories and provinces increased in population during this time. In terms of percent change, the fastest-growing province or territory was Nunavut with an increase of 12.7% between 2011 and 2016, followed by Alberta with 11.6% growth, while New Brunswick's population decreased by 0.5%. Generally, Canadian provinces have steadily grown in population along with Canada. However, some provinces such as Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador have experienced long periods of stagnation or population decline. Ontario and Quebec have always been
8176-402: The north to produce hydroelectric power for the dredges. The dredges shut down for the winter, but one built for "Klondike Joe Boyle" was designed to operate year-round, and Boyle had it operate all through one winter. That dredge ( Dredge No. 4 ) is open as a National Historic Site of Canada on Bonanza Creek. The last dredge shut down in 1966, and the hydroelectric facility, at North Fork,
8288-657: The one minority provincial/territorial government is held by the Liberals in Yukon . They are in government with a formal confidence and supply agreement from the Yukon New Democratic Party . The Canadian National Vimy Memorial , near Vimy , Pas-de-Calais, and the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial , near Beaumont-Hamel , both in France, are ceremonially considered Canadian territory. In 1922,
8400-452: The persona of an American poet in Paris who serves as an ambulance driver and an infantryman in the war. The verses are separated by diary entries over a period of four years." In the 1920s, Service began writing thriller novels. The Poisoned Paradise, A Romance of Monte Carlo (New York, 1922) and The Roughneck. A Tale of Tahiti (New York, 1923) were both later made into silent movies. During
8512-414: The population and East Asian Canadians accounting for 3.0% of the population. Today, Dawson City's main industries are tourism and gold mining . Electricity is provided by Yukon Energy Corporation (YEC). Most of the grid power is hydroelectric power through the north-south grid from dams near Mayo , Whitehorse and Aishihik Lake . After the local hydroelectric power plant for the gold dredges
8624-424: The population plummeted. When a new municipal act was adopted in the 1980s, Dawson met the criteria of "town", and was incorporated as such although with a special provision to allow it to continue to use the word "City", partially for historical reasons and partially to distinguish it from Dawson Creek , a small city in northeastern British Columbia . Dawson Creek is also named in honour of George M. Dawson. This led
8736-410: The province of Newfoundland, in 1949. In 1999, Nunavut was created from the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories. Yukon lies in the western portion of Northern Canada, while Nunavut is in the east. All three territories combined are the most sparsely populated region in Canada, covering 3,921,739 km (1,514,192 sq mi) in land area. They are often referred to as a single region,
8848-567: The provinces, the territories of Canada have no inherent sovereignty and have only those powers delegated to them by the federal government. They include all of mainland Canada north of latitude 60° north and west of Hudson Bay and all islands north of the Canadian mainland (from those in James Bay to the Queen Elizabeth Islands ). The following table lists the territories in order of precedence (each province has precedence over all
8960-494: The provincial and federal government within the Constitution Act, 1867 , and each province thus has its own representative of the Canadian Crown , the lieutenant governor . The territories are not sovereign, but instead their authorities and responsibilities are devolved directly from the federal level, and as a result, have a commissioner that represents the federal government. There are three territories in Canada. Unlike
9072-567: The reduction of British military forces in the Maritimes to a small garrison for the protection of the Halifax dockyard, which would be withdrawn when that dockyard was handed over to the Dominion government in 1905 for use by the new Canadian naval service. Britain retained control of Bermuda as an imperial fortress, with the governor and commander-in-chief of Bermuda (a military officer previously ranking between lieutenant-colonel and major-general) becoming
9184-464: The region in 1887. It served as Yukon's capital from the territory's founding in 1898 until 1952, when the seat was moved to Whitehorse . Dawson City was the centre of the Klondike Gold Rush . It began in 1896 and changed the First Nations camp into a thriving city of 16,000–17,000 by 1898. By 1899, the gold rush had ended and the town's population plummeted as all but 8,000 people left. When Dawson
9296-500: The same name. For example, no provincial Conservative or Progressive Conservative Party shares an organizational link to the federal Conservative Party of Canada , and neither do provincial Green Parties to the Green Party of Canada . Provincial New Democratic Parties, on the other hand, are fully integrated with the federal New Democratic Party —meaning that provincial parties effectively operate as sections, with common membership, of
9408-474: The same theme, which were published as Songs of a Sourdough (re-titled The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses in the U.S.), and achieved a massive sale. When his next collection, Ballads of a Cheechako , proved equally successful, Service could afford to travel widely and live a leisurely life, basing himself in Paris and the French Riviera . Partly because of their popularity, and the speed with which he wrote them, his works were dismissed as doggerel by
9520-456: The size of the North-West Territories. In 1898 the Yukon Territory, later renamed "Yukon" in 2003, was carved from the area surrounding the Klondike gold fields . On September 1, 1905, a portion of the North-West Territories south of the 60th parallel north became the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 1912, the boundaries of Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba were expanded northward: Manitoba's to
9632-514: The spring of 1898 for the Klondike Gold Rush found that there was very little opportunity to benefit directly from gold mining. Many instead became entrepreneurs to provide services to miners. Starting approximately 10 years later, large gold dredges began an industrial mining operation, scooping huge amounts of gold out of the creeks, and completely reworking the landscape, altering the locations of rivers and creeks and leaving tailing piles in their wake. A network of canals and dams were built to
9744-541: The stories of the great gold rush." He also "took part in the extremely active Whitehorse social life. As was popular at the time he recited at concerts – things such as ' Casey at the Bat ' and ' Gunga Din ', but they were getting stale." One day (Service later wrote), while pondering what to recite at an upcoming church concert he met E. J. "Stroller" White, editor of the Whitehorse Star . White suggested: "Why don’t you write
9856-531: The territorial government to post the following signs at the boundaries of the town: "Welcome to the Town of the City of Dawson". As of the 2001 Municipal Act , the town's official legal name is now simply the "City of Dawson". The Yukon River is navigable (when not frozen) and historically was travelled by commercial riverboats to Whitehorse and downstream into Alaska and the Bering Sea . Yukon School of Visual Arts ,
9968-413: The territorial level. The King's representative in each province is the lieutenant governor . In each of the territories there is an analogous commissioner , but they represent the federal government rather than the monarch. Most provinces have rough provincial counterparts to major federal parties. However, these provincial parties are not usually formally linked to the federal parties that share
10080-694: The territories, regardless of the date each territory was created). Another territory, the District of Keewatin , existed from October 7, 1876, until September 1, 1905, when it rejoined the Northwest Territories and became the Keewatin Region . It occupied the area that is now the Kenora District of Ontario, northern Manitoba, and mainland Nunavut. The government of Keewatin was based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The territory did not have any representation in federal parliament. The vast majority of Canada's population
10192-621: The toe received increased attention in June 2017 after the toe was stolen; it was soon returned to the hotel by mail along with a written apology. Bonanza Creek has two National Historic Sites; the Discovery Claim and the Dredge No. 4 . Tr'ochëk is the site of a traditional Hän fishing camp on the flats at the confluence of the Klondike River and Yukon River . The site is owned and managed by
10304-494: The two biggest provinces in Canada, with together over 60% of the population at any given time. The population of the West relative to Canada as a whole has steadily grown over time, while that of Atlantic Canada has declined. Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were the original provinces, formed when several British North American colonies federated on July 1, 1867, into the Dominion of Canada and by stages began accruing
10416-676: The verses just flowed: "I took the woodland trail, my mind seething with excitement and a strange ecstasy.... As I started in: There are strange things done in the midnight sun, verse after verse developed with scarce a check ... and when I rolled happily into bed, my ballad was cinched. Next day, with scarcely any effort of memory I put it on paper." In 1926, Archibald MacMechan , Professor of English at Canada's Dalhousie University , pronounced on Service's Yukon books in his Headwaters of Canadian Literature : MacMechan did give grudging respect to Service's World War I poetry, conceding that his style went well with that subject, and that "his Rhymes of
10528-639: The war for the Toronto Star (from 11 December 1915, through 29 January 1916), but "was arrested and nearly executed in an outbreak of spy hysteria in Dunkirk ." He then "worked as a stretcher bearer and ambulance driver with the Ambulance Corps of the American Red Cross , until his health broke." Convalescing in Paris, he wrote a new book of mainly war poetry, Rhymes of a Red Cross Man , in 1916. The book
10640-478: The west in the United States and Canada, often in poverty. When his bank sent him to the Yukon, he was inspired by tales of the Klondike Gold Rush , and wrote two poems, " The Shooting of Dan McGrew " and " The Cremation of Sam McGee ", which showed remarkable authenticity from an author with no experience of the gold rush or mining, and enjoyed immediate popularity. Encouraged by this, he quickly wrote more poems on
10752-469: The winter season, Service used to live in Nice with his family, where he met British writers, including H. G. Wells , A. K. Bruce, Somerset Maugham , Rex Ingram , Frank Scully , James Joyce , Frank Harris , and Frieda Lawrence , who all spent their winters in the French Riviera, and he wrote that he had been lucky to have had lunch with Colette . In 1930, Service returned to Kilwinning, to erect
10864-540: The winters until the 1820s, when Bermuda (which was better located to control the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States, impossible to attack over land, and almost impregnable against attack over water) became the main base year round. A large British Army garrison in Bermuda , which fell under the commander-in-chief in Nova Scotia , existed to defend the colony as a naval base (and to prevent it becoming as useful
10976-574: Was Tr'ochëk , a fishing camp at the confluence of the Klondike River and Yukon River , now a National Historic Site of Canada , just across the Klondike River from modern Dawson City. This site was also an important summer gathering spot and a base for moose -hunting on the Klondike Valley. The current settlement was founded by Joseph Ladue and named in January 1897 after noted Canadian geologist George M. Dawson , who had explored and mapped
11088-733: Was Charles H. Gibbons, editor of the Victoria Daily Colonist , who invited Service to submit his work. By July 1900, six poems by "R.S." on the Boer Wars had appeared in the Colonist – including " The March of the Dead ", which would later appear in his first book. (Service's brother, Alick, was a prisoner of the Boers at the time. He had been captured on 15 November 1899, alongside Winston Churchill .) The Colonist also published Service's " Music in
11200-587: Was a time, fifty years ago," he added, "when Robert W.Service represented, with some accuracy, the general level of poetic experience in Canada, as far as the popular reader was concerned.... there has been a prodigious, and, I should think, a permanent, change in public taste." Robert W. Service has been honoured with schools named for him including Robert Service High School in Anchorage, Alaska , Robert Service Senior Public School (Middle/ Jr. High) in Toronto, Ontario , and Robert Service School in Dawson City. He
11312-566: Was also asked to play himself in the movie The Spoilers (1942), working alongside Marlene Dietrich , John Wayne and Randolph Scott . "He was thrilled to play a scene with Marlene Dietrich." After the war, Service and his wife returned to his home in Brittany, to find it destroyed. They rebuilt, and he lived there until his death in 1958, although he wintered in Monte Carlo on the French Riviera . Service's wife and daughter, Iris, travelled to
11424-525: Was closed when the City of Dawson declined an offer to purchase it. Since then, placer miners returned to the status of being the primary mining operators in the region until recently. In 2016, Goldcorp announced a takeover of Kaminak Gold's Coffee Project south of Dawson. This marked a shift in the region, drawing the interest of the major gold mining companies in the Yukon. In 2017, Newmont Mining Corporation , Barrick Gold and Agnico Eagle Mines Limited have all committed significant investment, engaging in
11536-555: Was dedicated to the memory of Service's "brother, Lieutenant Albert Service, Canadian Infantry, Killed in Action, France, August 1916." Robert Service received three medals for his war service: 1914–15 Star , British War Medal and the Victory Medal. With the end of the war, Service "settled down to being a rich man in Paris.... During the day he would promenade in the best suits, with a monocle . At night he went out in old clothes with
11648-436: Was divided into Ontario and Quebec )—united to form a federation , becoming a fully independent country over the next century. Over its history, Canada's international borders have changed several times as it has added territories and provinces, making it the world's second-largest country by area. The major difference between a Canadian province and a territory is that provinces receive their power and authority from
11760-466: Was exactly the word he used: "For it came so easy to me in my excited state that I was amazed at my facility. It was as if someone was whispering in my ear." And this was just after someone had tried to shoot him. He continued: "As I wrote stanza after stanza, the story seemed to evolve itself. It was a marvelous experience. Before I crawled into my bed at five in the morning, my ballad was in the bag." Similarly, when he wrote "The Cremation of Sam McGee",
11872-647: Was honoured on a Canadian postage stamp in 1976. The Robert Service Way , a main road in Whitehorse, is named after him. Additionally, the Bard & Banker public house in Victoria is dedicated to him, the building having at one time been a Canadian Bank of Commerce branch where Service was employed while residing in the city. Service's first novel, The Trail of '98 , was made into a movie by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , directed by Clarence Brown . " Trail of '98 starring Dolores del Río , Ralph Forbes and Karl Dane in 1929 ...
11984-558: Was in honour of a rich uncle; after that uncle neglected to provide for him in his will, Service dropped the middle name. When he was five, Service was sent to live in Kilwinning with his three maiden aunts and his paternal grandfather, the town's postmaster . There he is said to have composed his first verse, a grace , on his sixth birthday: At nine, Service re-joined his parents who had moved to Glasgow . He attended Glasgow's Hillhead High School . After leaving school, Service joined
12096-645: Was incorporated as a city in 1902, the population was under 5,000. St. Paul's Anglican Church , also built that same year, is a National Historic Site. The downtown was devastated by fire in November 1897 (started when dance hall girl Dolly Mitchell threw a lamp at another girl in an argument), 1899 (started in the Bodega Saloon), 1900 (started at the Monte Carlo Theatre) and flooding in 1925, 1944, 1966, 1969 and 1979. The population dropped after World War II when
12208-431: Was not "serious poetry," but something else he called "popular poetry": "the idioms of popular and serious poetry remain inexorably distinct." Popular poems, he thought, "preserve a surface of explicit statement" – either being "proverbial, like Kipling's ' If ' or Longfellow 's ' Song of Life ' or Burns 's ' For A' That '," or dealing in "conventionally poetic themes, like the pastoral themes of James Whitcomb Riley , or
12320-473: Was shut down in 1966, YEC provided electrical power from local diesel generators . In 2004 YEC connected Dawson to its grid system. Since then the diesel generators function as a backup to the grid. Gold mining started in 1896 with the Bonanza (Rabbit) Creek discovery by George Carmack , Dawson Charlie and Skookum Jim Mason (Keish) . The area's creeks were quickly staked and most of the thousands who arrived in
12432-449: Was smitten, "MacLean was looking for a man of education and means to support her" so was not that interested. To please her, he took courses at McGill University 's Victoria College , but failed. In 1903, down on his luck, Service was hired by a Canadian Bank of Commerce branch in Victoria , British Columbia, using his Commercial Bank letter of reference. The bank "watched him, gave him
12544-588: Was the first talking picture dealing with the Klondike gold rush and was acclaimed at the time by critics for depicting the Klondike as it really was." In 1968 Canadian-born country singer Hank Snow recorded recitations of eight of Service's longer poems for an album entitled, Tales of the Yukon . The album was released by RCA Victor . Snow and other musicians including Chet Atkins and Chubby Wise provided background music. Folksinger Country Joe McDonald set some of Service's World War I poetry (plus "The March of
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