boneyards + hungry ghosts

Ye olde Yukon Order of Pioneers boneyard. Rotting wooden tombstones stand like ironing boards, off-kilter in the snow.

Dawson City is a place where cheery, hearty people live with the still-active ghosts of a famous past. The bones of goldrush buildings lean here, there and everywhere - some refurbished and brightly painted but still containing their original features and character, and some nearly collapsed into the ground or leaning against each other in their final ramshackle days. Old lantern slide photos of early miners, women, children, trappers and indigenous peoples are displayed in the buildings that are still used, as well as in the windows of the many boarded-up buildings. The local dive bar is covered floor to ceiling with paintings of local characters from over the years. Nobody here forgets the rich past that built Dawson. And, the past doesn't forget, either.

Live entertainment tonight at "The Pit", one of the only remaining open bars in December.

As your primer on the ghost situation here at good ole Macaulay House, read this. Jude Griebel, whom I met in Montreal (because he was going through the MFA program at Concordia at the same time as me, but a year or two ahead of me), collected all the stories from former residents about the ghosts at Macaulay. Well, now I have some new ones of my own to add.

I met a local indigenous woman in Whitehorse, on my way to Dawson, whom I spoke to about ghosts. She told me that she was always told to feed crackers to ghosts, and to talk to them. I told her that one story of the ghost in Macaulay House that I've heard of, is that there was a young woman who once lived here, and she refused to marry the man her father wanted her to marry, so he locked her up in one of the bedrooms and let her starve to death. Hungry ghosts, imprisoned in a last state of injustice.

I can tell you from my experiences thus far at Macaulay, that the ghost has something to say, is pretty tech savvy and is trying to communicate with me through music and electronic devices. Three times yesterday, while I was sitting in my studio, my phone, asleep on the desk beside me, randomly started playing a song. The music app WASN'T EVEN OPEN. I couldn't find a way to shut the song off, either. The first song that played itself: The Last Beat of My Heart by Souxsie and the Banshees. You seriously can't make this shit up.

The second time it happened, even though I went through and shut off EVERY app on my phone, the song she selected to play for me was, Crystalline by Björk.

Underneath our feet

Crystals grow like plants

(listen how they grow)

I'm blinded by the lights

(listen how they grow)

In the core of the earth

(listen how they grow)

Crystalline

Internal nebula

(Crystalline)

Rocks growing slow mo

(Crystalline)

I conquer claustrophobia

(Crystalline)

And demand the light

The third time, she got funny with me. The song that played was, What's the Buzz? from the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack.

The buzz is this: My co-resident and housemate, Evan Sabourin, is organizing a hungry ghost party/ music jam/ performance event at our place (in his studio downstairs) this Sunday. He'll be performing the role of hungry ghost for the assembled guests. As for me, I'll be leaving out a plate of crackers in the kitchen tonight.

End note: Lest I come across as simply hysterical, I have to add that I did my due diligence on this matter and Googled something to the effect of: "why the hell is my phone randomly playing songs?" and discovered that there are one or two other people out there on the Internet who are convinced that their phones are possessed for similar reasons. It seems that ghosts have discovered a new medium for communication, effectively turning electronic communication devices into a contemporary ouija boards.