This Thursday, CBC Yukon host, Chris Windeyer will come to Macaulay House to interview Evan and me. He's coming to visit with us in our studios, to talk about what we're doing in Dawson and how we feel about spending Christmas here. This is a question I should probably find a witty answer to. Perhaps: I'm closer to Santa up here and therefore look forward to getting my presents as soon as Rudolph is out of the gate. Mwah, mwah... I'll keep thinking.
I'm situated in the upstairs studio at Macaulay House, while Evan, my
co-resident and housemate, has the downstairs studio. Living and working
in a house with another artist like this is an excellent setup. I can
trot downstairs to find Evan, borrow a paintbrush, share a thought
or feeling, or compare notes about the new experiences of
Dawson, including the house ghost. If it were just me and Little Charlotte here day after day, things might get wiggy.
Speaking of wiggy, tonight I'll be doing some beard-making in my studio with a new friend, Carly. This activity is in preparation for the drag show/ dance this Friday, a fundraiser for the
(S)hiver Winter Arts Festival happening here next month (unfortunately, I'll miss it). Thursday morning, I'll be teaching an art class at the local high school, Robert Service School. Next week, I teach another one--these are some of the lovely perks of the KIAC residency. There are various art and culture events happening almost every night of the week. I've read previous artists'-in-residence blogs regarding their time here, and they all say the same thing: there's so much going on and the people are so great that it's hard to focus on getting studio work done. It's a halfhearted complaint, though because really, nobody's complaining. Even for a town that's 80% shut down, Dawson, you keep a girl busy.
So far, my mucking about in the studio has been completely stream of consciousness, with minimal focused production. Mainly, in my first week here, I've been intent on getting the lay of the land in Dawson, expanding the neural cartography I'm drafting of the place, and scouting locations for the abandonment of objects.
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| Beginning of production. |
I hiked up to the boulder field at the base of Moosehide Slide yesterday, after gawking for a while at the ice bridge being plowed and formed across the frozen Yukon River. I asked the fallen tribe how they were doing under the rubble. All was deathly silent. I also located a lone grave in the woods nearby, next to a humble house--a priest's final resting place, a solo boneyard for the "Saint of Dawson" (very top photo is at this location). I wonder if any sick have been healed by visiting it, or if any other stories exist. There are a few rosaries left draped over the tombstone.
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| The view of (and from) Moosehide Slide, which keeps on sliding down a bit more each year. |
Negotiating a boulder field covered in snow is a tricky endeavour, one which I undertook as I attempted to climb as far as I could up the rock slide. I followed a set of animal tracks, because I figured the local wildlife would have more wisdom than I about where to step. I really wasn't interested in a twisted ankle out there by myself. I tread carefully along the snowy indentations until I came to a set of
very large tracks. They seemed to be two-legged tracks, versus those from a four-legged animal but I'm no wilderness tracker, so I can't be sure. They could have been human-shaped footprints but they also appeared to have the impression of foot pads, like an animal without shoes. I compared my own boot print to the ones I'd discovered and they were drastically bigger and not boot-shaped at all, but foot/paw shaped. At this point, I got a little spooked and decided to end my pursuit there. I scrambled clumsily back down the hillside to the familiarity of human civilization, bumping into a man out with his dogs. They barked and barked and barked at me as I hoofed it out of the hills, like I was a threatening wild animal and I yelled out to him, "They think I'm a sasquatch!"
Sometimes I think you have, "Grand-dad's", heart and soul, when it comes to adventuring, and prowling the wild, and picking up odd bits and pieces of things. He would have loved all of this. You also have his desire to tell your stories to others, and can do so with beautiful colour, and drama. That is such a wonderful talent. :)
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