A ravens soars across the ice bridge as Dawsonites discuss the future of the open river. Photo by Kerry Barber

Welcome to the February 13, 2004 edition of the online Klondike Sun, which reproduces a selection of the photographs and articles from the February 10 hard copy edition.

The Sun has not been updated on the web since the January 16/04 issue. At that time our volunteer webmaster, Richard Lawrence, finally ran out of time to keep this site current. We have been some time working out another way to get back online.

We have had many inquiries about the absence of current issues here, and we note that the site has had more than 1,000 hits since the last new posting.

As this new site develops over the next few months you will note changes in the format. We expect to be asking you to pay something in order to gain access to these files, and will be giving you an option of an issue-by-issue or yearly rate. In the time we have been online, since 1997, the site has had free access. We have tried asking for donations, and if the nearly 100,000 hits on the site had each generated a loonie, we’d be laughing right now, but it hasn’t worked out that way. We need to make enough money to pay for the existence of the site, and perhaps a bit more to help our bottom line.

See you again shortly.

Mixed Opinions at Bridge Meeting

by Dan Davidson

If a building can feel emotion, then Dawson's city council chambers were probably still in a state of shock the morning after the Bridge Awareness Campaign meeting on February 4. It's been many, many months since over thirty people were in that room at one time.

The meeting was called by a group of twelve calling itself the Bridge Awareness Committee, and while host Brent McDonald

Shelly Brown speaks out at the Bridge meeting. Photo by Dan Davidson.

made a point of saying a number of times that this was not necessarily an anti-bridge meeting, it would have been hard to call his presentation, or that of any other member of the group, anything else.

McDonald's presentation adhered closely to a pamphlet which the group had prepared on the subject. The core of the group's concern is that all the official bridge impact studies done so far are out of date (the last was done under the Ostashek government in 1995) and do not reflect the current state of affairs in the community.

The group, most of whom live in West Dawson, and some of whom work on the George Black Ferry seasonally, challenge the economic benefits to the community, noting that most of the current ferry costs, including salaries for sixteen employees, are expended annually in the town.

A bridge, McDonald said, would be of short term economic benefit, with most of the construction done by imported workers and much of the expense in materials going elsewhere.

The group also challenged the ability of the government to bring in the project at anything close to the estimated $25,000,000 price tag discussed, using the cost overruns on the recent Mayo-Dawson transmission line as an example.

A letter from Mayor Glen Everitt was read in which he stated, emphasizing first that this was his personal opinion, and not a council position, that a bridge was one among many priorities for the town, and he was uncertain that it was the highest priority. Money for a sewage treatment plant, improved medical services, a permanent home for Yukon College, and even debt relief for the town would all have to compete with a bridge for top priority in Everitt's personal opinion.

Councillor Byrun Shandler pointed out that council's biggest fear in regards to a bridge is that it will, if constructed, be seen as a project for Dawson City rather than as a final piece of the Yukon territory's highway system.

"It is territorial infrastructure," Shandler said, explaining that council fears the official government line after it is built will be "we gave you a bridge, don't ask for anything else for five or ten years."

Shandler is not personally in favour of a bridge, but feels, on the other hand, that it is a project that will come someday, that it will even be necessary down the road.

He stated that he agreed that insufficient community consultation had been done on the project, though he conceded that more than likely the majority of residents in the Klondike would favour a bridge, if asked the question in isolation from other issues.

Martin Gehrig, the new president of the Dawson City Chamber of Commerce, reiterated the chamber's majority support for the bridge. Its 130 members had been polled, and while the results had not been unanimous, there had been a strong majority.

The chamber, he said, believes that a bridge would extend the travel season and bring new economic activity to the region.

The Bridge Awareness Committee conducted an informal poll of West Dawson residents recently and found them pretty much evenly split between pro-bridge and anti-bridge sentiments, with a substantial percentage offering no opinion either way.

Some, like Shelly Brown and Bridget Amos, see a bridge as having a deleterious impact on their quality of life. Others, like Cathy Wylie, want hydro power, a phone line and a chance to open a small business across the river, which she feels a bridge would give her.

In town, many business people, like Bill Bowie (Arctic Inland Resources), see major benefits coming from a bridge. Others, like dentist Helmut Schoener, think it's a bad idea that would give tourists and travellers the opportunity to drive right by without stopping.

"I'm surprised that local business hasn't given this more thought," Schoener said.

The committee prepared a letter for people to send to the government if they had concerns. The letter protests the "lack of solid research brought forward to justify the bridge" and demands more public consultation on the project.

These are technical arguments. Many of the arguments in favour of the bridge have an air of wishful thinking to them, as often happens with major projects. That said, a number of the arguments against the bridge have an air of wistful thinking, perhaps summed up by a comment made by recent arrival Holly Haustein, who runs a horse and carriage business called Slow Rush Tours in the summer.

"It'll make life faster," he told the crowd, "and that's not what we're here for."