sfpoet.com

September 22, 2007

At 4:30 this morning, I finally got to see the northern lights here in Dawson.

I first saw the northern lights in 1967. It was on a deserted stretch of highway in Saskatchewan in the middle of the night. My father pulled the car over and woke everyone up. We hustled out onto the shoulder of the highway and looked up. I did not think it would be 40 years until I would see them again.

This morning the sky was clear and starry. The green northern lights seemed to form a semi-circle in the north part of the sky, while a wide river of green light ran straight back from the WNW. That part looked like the milky way, only green and perpendicular the milky way.

Polaris was almost overhead from Dawson, so the north lights must have been very far north.

They moved a lot. Not visibly, but noticeably over the course of just a minute or two.

We were in our pajamas outside. I'd pulled on my warm hooded sweatshirt (thank you Osprey Media!), while Rob had thrown on his Tilley jacket. So, for 35 minutes we shuttled between the yard and the big kitchen window, just watching.

We were too tired and cold to stay up any later -- but the show was still going on.

This morning the temperature was -5C when we got up (late). The first time it's been below zero while we were awake.

Tonight is the closing night for Diamond Tooth Gerties. I suspect we will make an appearance. Last night was the big Gold Raffle draw at Gerties. I have a ticket, but we went to bed early rather than go to the 11:59pm drawing. It's a fund raiser for the Yukon Order of Pioneers.

I'm way behind in my blogging, as you can see!

It's only 4 days until we leave Dawson for Whitehorse. Two days there, then we are back in Mississauga and it will be all over.

- Carolyn

My sonnet for the POEtry Anthology was accepted! Woohoo!

The editor, Stephen M. Wilson, is starting his own small press so that he can publish this project (as well as other projects).

The list of poets for this Anthology is unbelievable!:

Linda D. Addison
Brian Aldiss
Joseph Armstead
Michael A. Arnzen
Michael Bishop
Louise Bohmer
Bruce Boston
C.S.E Cooney
Jennifer Crow
Malcolm Deeley
James S. Dorr
Andy Duncan
Amal El-Mohtar
Suzette Haden Elgin
Robert Frazier
M. Frost
Rain Graves
Joe Haldeman
Charlee Jacob
Jarret Keene
Deborah P Kolodji
David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Geoffrey A. Landis
John Edward Lawson
Nick Mamatas
Elizabeth Massie
Robin Mayhall
Mark Anthony McLaughlin
Drew Morse
Roger E. Naylor
Patrick O'Leary
Terrie Leigh Relf
Ann K. Schwader
Marge Simon
Mary A. Turzillo
Scott Urban
David Niall Wilson
Corrine De Winter
Jane Yolen

And me! I hope this happens just so I can say I was in a book with all these great poets. I've even met some of them ;)

- Carolyn

August 14, 2007

Today I emailed my poem in to the POEtry project. Hopefully he'll take it. Which would be cool because the payment is $1/line with a minimum payment of $20. It's a sonnet, 12 lines, so I'd get the $20.

Mainly I'd be pleased because it's a who's who of fantastic poets. And I'd love to be on that list.

And tonight, at Rob's reading at the Dawson Public Library, Suzanne put into motion a get together of the local poets where we'll have tea & read our poetry to each other. Which, as I said, would be much more fun than just listening to me read. That's for sure!

And I just judged the poetry submissions for the "Writers on Eighth" contest. The assigned topic/theme was the International Gold Panning Championships. Exactly my thoughts. The Championships are being held here next week — but we're off to China and won't see them.

There were ... a limited number of poems entered, which made the job easier. There were even fewer short stories for Rob to judge. We have to announce the winners at the open house here on Thursday.

- Carolyn

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Dan & Betty very kindly drove us around the gold fields today in their moose-struck SUV. This is definitely 4W-drive territory. We visited the gigantic dredge #4, the discovery claim (where the gold rush started), and Gold Bottom.

At Gold Bottom, we got to pan for gold. Rob didn't get any flakes in his pan. I got 3! We were being shown how to pan by Andrea, a very lovely 14 year old. She's a real pro at panning for gold — she's won awards.

Tonight Rob read at the Dawson Public Library. He was great! The 13 people who came out had a good time. Lots of lively discussion afterward, too. But it looks like a bunch of us poets are going to get together once Rob & I are back from China. Should be fun!

Dan and Betty and Suzanne and Dawne were there tonight, plus two SF fans from Fairbanks, Alaska. We're going to have lunch with them tomorrow at the Triple J.

Tomorrow I'll be cleaning for the open house on Thursday. Finished the laundry today. Yipee!

- Carolyn

August 12, 2007

Suzanne arranged complimentary tickets for us on the Yukon Queen II round trip from Dawson to Eagle, Alaska.

We had to get up early to get to the dock for the 8:30am boarding. We are not morning people. We were a little late.

The boat was really nice. A catamaran hull, but similar to the ill-fated fast ferry from Rochester, NY to Toronto. [Both boats were built in Australia] They fed us lunch on the way up, and dinner on the way back. The food was excellent. The coffee & tea were free!

Eagle itself is a town of 129 people and an assortment of historic Gold-Rush era buildings. We had to go through customs both ways because we crossed the border. In each case, the customs agent came on board the boat and we showed our IDs and answered some basic questions to get off the boat.

There was not much to buy in Eagle as "The Eagle Mall" is closed on Sundays. "The Eagle Mall" is a tent with 4 vendors selling homemade crafts & jewelry. I'd have liked to have seen it. But, because the tickets were free, the boat people said we had to go on Sunday as that's their slow day.

The courthouse museum shop had stuff for sale from the same 4 vendors. I bought a necklace with an interesting metallic eagle hanging off it.

They did a cute mock-trial at the courthouse with people from the tour bus as judge, defendant, and jury. The defendant was excellent, given he had no preparation ahead of time. And the judge was chosen for his uncanny resemblance to the actual judge of the time — whose portrait hung behind the bench.

Eagle was named Eagle for the bluff beside the town where bald eagles nest. Their claim to fame seems to be that Roald Amundsen telegraphed the news from Eagle to Norway, that he had found the illusive northwest passage. He also asked them to send money.

On the way up in the boat we saw two moose and an eagle. On the way back we saw a much closer moose and a bear trying to swim across the Yukon River. He changed his mind when he saw us coming. And more eagles.

The weather was great! The next day it poured rain all day. We were lucky.

I'm starting to think that Holland-America owns the Yukon: the boat is H-A, the tour buses were H-A, the Westmark Hotel is H-A.

- Carolyn

Saturday, August 4th.

I entered the 25th Annual Dawson Women's Poker Tournament. It was Texas Holdem, but not no-limit. About 40 women paid $65 each to enter, which got you $200 worth of chips and a free t-shirt.

I was at table #5 with 6 other women and a professional dealer supplied by Diamond Tooth Gerties. Whoever finally won the tournament got something like 60% of the entry fees, and the percentages went down to 10th place getting 2%. I didn't pay attention as I arrived at 2pm and they were just starting.

I won 3 pots early on with excellent cards. And then I just bled chips until they ran out. You could re-buy: for $25 you could buy another $100 in chips. There were women at my table re-buying several times. You had to be down to $100 in chips or less before you could buy more.

Okay, my best hand was that I was dealt an AK, and the flop was KAK. Sweet. A full house without any sweat.

I'd been there 2 hours at the point my chips ran out, so I left. Ah, well. I got a t-shirt anyways. And I know where my weaknesses are in Holdem, so, I need some more practice — cheaper practice ;)

This was the same day as the 2nd Avenue sidewalk sale. Woohoo! Not as exciting as it sounds. But I did buy some stuff. Bought a very compact umbrella to take to China. Turns out it was made in China. Probably costs $1 there. Here it was on sale for $11.75. Also bought a box of Russell Stover no sugar added chocolates on sale for $6.49 — which is like Walmart's regular price, but, there's no Walmart within 600km of here.

Anyways, the poker was actually very pleasant. The women were nice, companionable, not mean spirited, so, even though I lost, I held no grudge against any of them. Oh, the poker was organized by Linda at the Westmark Hotel but held at Diamond Tooth Gerties. My thanks to Linda!

- Carolyn

I'm getting a little behind & out of sequence — sorry!

On Tuesday, July 30, I went to see the DÄNOJÀ ZHO (long time ago house) Cultural Centre. This is the one obviously new building on Front Street in Dawson. It is a place to learn the traditions and present day life of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation. They were the original inhabitants of the Dawson area and were displaced by the gold rush. Their land claims were finally settled in 1998 and they are self-governing.

It's a beautiful building right on the river. They had a display on residential schools across Canada. It was very moving, even though it was very simple — mainly consisting of old b&w photos and short written passages. They had small packs of tissues attached to a card with contact names and phone numbers for counseling, if difficult memories surfaced in the First Nations people viewing the display.

Also, beautiful hand-crafted items were available in the gift shop.

They have a special contemporary dance performance that I still want to see.

Today, Friday, August 3rd, I went to see the presentation called "Crime and Punishment: Mounties in the Klondike" at the Commissioner's residence. It's a little outside drama that takes place on the lawn, and leads to the old Mountie Barracks in the back of the residence. Interesting thing was the Mountie was a woman, which was historically accurate for about 1900. In the drama she arrests a local con-man for possession of a firearm.
When she asks the crowd what punishment the man should receive, I voted for the "blue ticket" (the "get out of town now" option), some voted for the "woodpile" (the "chop wood for six months" option), while one American observer said he should be hanged. The Mountie felt this was "a little extreme."

When I got back to the Berton House, Rob suggested we go see the Robert Service presentation, as he had not yet seen it, and it was a gorgeous day. So, we went. There was quite the crowd — two different tours, one from Ontario and one from California.

Rob introduced himself to Johnny Caribou, who was the "Ghost of Robert Service" today. Johnny had just started reading Rob's book "Hominids." So, Rob got referred to several times during the show. It was a great show. Rob loved Johnny's pun about how Robert Service was learning the business of being a cowboy by shoveling after the cows. Johnny said "[Service] was becoming quite the entre-manure."

So, even though it was my second time seeing the show, it was still fun.

Lastly, we walked into town to catch part of the 8:30pm show at Diamond Tooth Gerties. Mostly for the exercise... and the pizza. They charge $2 for a diet Coke, but refills are free!

Pretty quiet around here.

I emailed in my submission of 4 tankas to Gusts. And I'm still hard at work on my sonnet for the POEtry project. I kept the first quatrain and the closing couplet as written, and have revamped the rest.

It's been raining here a lot over the past few days. And the temperature dropped to only 6C last night. Still going up to the mid-20s during the day, but I can't help but see fall coming.

Saw a very small, bright yellow bird yesterday out a window. I almost thought it was a humming bird at first, it was so fast.

Next big thing here is Discovery Days in mid-August. (This is the celebration of the discovery of Gold in the Klondike, and precedes the International Gold Panning Championships)

Part of the celebration includes an event called Writers on Eighth. There is a writing contest with the theme of the aforementioned International Gold Panning Championships. I'm to judge the poetry and Rob the fiction.

On August 16, all interested parties are to gather at the Jack London cabin (on Eighth Avenue) for a presentation there, then walk over to the Robert Service cabin (on Eighth Avenue) for a presentation there, then walk over to the Berton House (on Eighth Avenue) where we will be hosting an open house & announcing the winners of the writing contest.

There will be a frenzy of cleaning & putting stuff away on the 15th ;) More on this later.

- Carolyn

Tuesday evening, July 24, I went to see the presentation at the Robert Service cabin across the street. Johnny had 'em laughing from before I got there.

There were about 20 or so people for the presentation. They were from Scotland, England, Alaska, NY, BC, and Ontario.

Johnny had memorized The Shooting of Dan McGrew, and gave an impassioned performance. He had arranged with a woman in the audience ahead of time to be the shill. When he comes to the part where "a woman screamed," the shill is supposed to scream. Needless to say, she didn't. She started to laugh. So, Johnny backed up and repeated the line. She still couldn't scream. Another woman in the audience screamed for her. But, Johnny wouldn't let it go until the original woman finally screamed -- to much applause.

After reading Dan McGrew, Johnny asked how many people thought that Service had written it "as is, fully formed," or how many thought he was a tinkerer -- a rewriter. Most seemed to think he wrote the poem first draft in it's finished form. I voted for tinkerer -- mainly because I'd be really bummed if he could write that well in first draft. I know I can't.

Then Johnny got one of the audience members to recite from memory the first stanza of The Cremation of Sam McGee, then he read the first draft of it from a book he had. It seemed laughably bad compared to the finished version.

He also read, in Scottish dialect, a poem called Bessie's Boil. Which is really a shaggy-dog story about a woman named Bessie who has a boil on her behind. When she goes to have a doctor look at it, much mayhem ensues.

As for the cabin, there are raspberries growing on the sod roof. I was too short to reach them. The insides were pretty dark, but my camera's flash lit them up. There was a picture of Robert Service leaning on a table -- and the table was right there. Johnny said that the stove was much fancier than the one that Service had. And that the typewriter was presented by a grand niece of Robert Service to be displayed in the cabin.

Robert Service cabin

- Carolyn

I've been at Berton House for 23 days now and have only written 3 tankas and part of a sonnet. I'd hoped to write a poem a day. HA!

The three tanka are to submit to Gusts, a Canadian tanka magazine.

The sonnet is for a project called POEtry, where a bunch of poets have to take a well-known poem and turn it into a genre poem (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.). I chose Donne's Holy Sonnet X. Which I'm turning into a hopefully-humorous SF poem. Although technically what I'm writing is more like this:

Science Fiction Writer be not proud...

The submissions deadline for both is on August 15th.

Wish me luck!