The Danoja Zho Cultural Centre was all decked out for the Christmas season. Photo by Dan Davidson.

Welcome to the December 14, 2004 online edition of the Klondike Sun, reproducing a selection of the articles and photographs from the newsstand edition of the same date. That was a 24 page paper with 28 articles and 17 pictures. This was our only December issue.

While the online edition is posted some time after the newsstand (after all, we have to sell this paper), they now have the same dates.

We could easily have called this our Pierre Berton Memorial issue. He will be missed here and in the rest of the country.

This issue is being readied for posting on February 3, 2005.

The best (and most current) way to read the Klondike Sun is still to have the paper in your hands. There is subscription information on the Home page of this website.

New Care Facility Drawings on Display

by Dan Davidson

Sometime after the last public meeting of cabinet in Dawson the following witticism began making the rounds:

Q - Whatís the definition of a multi-level care facility?

A - A two story medical services building.

Of course, the emphasis should be on the word ìcareî and should involve a lot more than a nursing station on two levels, but it does happen that the

The four side views of the proposed new multi-level care facility for Dawson City.

elevation drawings and layout on display in Dawson this week depict a two story building, so part of the punch line was accurate.

The proposed new structure would be several times the size of the venerable Nursing Station, which opened in 1970 and has been on the local hit list for replacement since the mid-1980s, although it was a federal building until the mid-1990s and nothing could really be done about it before the health care transfer took place.

At present Dawsonís medical services include the Nursing Station, the Dawson Medical Clinic, which is housed in the same building at the corner of Sixth and Church. McDonald Lodge Seniors Home is about a block away. Like the nursing station, it has undergone many renovations and upgrades over the decades.

Beside the lodge is the single garage which houses one of the townís two ambulances for Emergency medical Services. The communityís dentist used to work out of the nursing station, but currently has space in the Old Territorial Courthouse on Front Street.

The new building, as designed by Whitehorse architect Charles A. McLaren, would incorporate all of these features under one roof.

An envisioned at this point the continuing care facility would be on the ground floor. It would include twelve rooms for residents as well as the other facilities needed for senior care and a training room. An extensive deck space is planned around the part of the building for outdoor sitting in good weather.

Also on the ground floor would be two ambulance bays (built large enough to hold the new 4x4 vehicle) and garage space for several other vehicles. There would also be access to two elevators which would take trauma patients to the medical facilities on the second floor.

This would be the home of the nursing station, the doctorsí offices, and the dentistís office. It was clear from comments by the few who attended the evening meeting that there was some hesitation about having the business end of the center upstairs. Traffic into the building would be mostly through a main entrance just off the lane that runs beside the Victory Gardens. The Lodge would have a lot less traffic than the other facilities, but would still hear a lot of it as people made their way to the stairs or the elevator.

The new center will have a parking lot, which has never been a feature of the existing station.

The building will encroach on the current childrenís playground, but that does sit on land which was long ago reserved for this purpose, so it will have to be moved in the direction of the ballpark.

There is some question as to whether lodge residents will really want to be even closer to the Dawson City Musical Festival site, which blasts at high volume late into the night on the third weekend in July.

Jim Newnham, the project manager with the Property Management Agency, says that no one has a firm handle on what this will cost, The display was simply concept drawings to show elevations, possible design features and a layout proposal. Nothing has been done by way of engineering at this point.

There were not a lot of people at the eveningís open house. Less than half a dozen appeared during the second hour. The team, which included Director of Continuing Care Cathy Morton-Bielz and Director of Community Nursing and Emergency Medical Services Joy Kajiwara, had spent part of the day showing the project to potential residents and seniors at the lodge.

The ballpark guess of the projectís cost is currently sitting between $11 and $14 million, but that could change as the detailed plans are developed. The hope is to have the foundation work under way next summer and the construction completed in 2007.