Klondike Sun ~ February 10, 2010
Dog team Owners Warned to Clean Up
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On many days a dog team or two can be found parked along the edge of the dike. We don’t know whose team this is and this picture is not intended to suggest that it left any traces behind it. We just think it looks neat.
Story & Photo
by Dan Davidson
Front Street in Dawson is a parking place for many kinds of vehicles: cars, trucks, SUVs, RVs and skidoos. But the sight that many winter visitors find most strange is that of a dog team parked on the public common between the street and the dike, the dogs tethered and waiting for their master or mistress to finish shopping.
It is a fetching sight, but one that some people apparently associate with something a little less pleasant: dog droppings.
Hence the recent poster which has appeared on the post office bulletin boards.
“ATTENTION DOG TEAM OWNERS “If you would like to continue to use the area along Front Street to tie your dog sled teams, PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELVES! Failure to do so will result in the banning of tying dog teams up within the City of Dawson limits.”
Dawson’s animal control bylaw actually does prohibit people from tying their dogs along the street or outside businesses while shopping, and most people obey this bylaw, though there are usually some exceptions to be found.
The notice was posted by Bylaw Services Constable Elizabeth Foubister. Her supervisor, Fire Chief Jim Regimbal, says this came about as a result of a number of complaints received by the town office before Christmas. He said he was aware that most local mushers cleaned up after their teams, so the sign was, for the most part, a reminder.
A posting on cityofdawson.com by musher Sebastian Jones pointed out that the number of vehicles that are idling along the streets probably cause more environmental damage than the dogs.
“It thus seems somewhat ironic that other vehicles that can often be found idling around town are not subject to any penalty,” he notes, “despite the fact that the products of internal combustion engines are a source of air pollution here and a serious problem globally. Dog poop on the other hand is biodegradable.”
Levity aside, Jones suggested that an area be set aside as a “barking lot” for dog teams. Regimbal thought this was an interesting idea.
Council Calls for New Recreation Centre
by Dan Davidson
Dawson’s council has decided that the best possible future for the town’s recreation facilities would be a new recreation centre and has passed a resolution to that effect. The administration has been instructed to begin “rationalizing” the status and use of the “current building, maintaining current usage and begin to discuss the capital and O&M funding of a new arena with the appropriate governments.”
Feelers and discussions have already begun with the territorial government and the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in to come up with a joint project for this purpose.
Mayor Peter Jenkins indicated that he has heard positive things from both of these sources, though there doesn’t seem to be anything on paper as yet.
Discussions towards this potential project were kickstarted by a letter outlining just such a proposal from Klondike MLA Steve Nordick, who was seeking to know the will of the new council since the fall election.
Discussions related to the Art and Margaret Fry Recreation Centre have always been fraught with problems, and Councillor Ashley Doiron reiterated that the previous council had endorsed the current $4 million dollar stabilization program financed by YTG only in terms of keeping the current building open until a better solution could be developed.
There had been hopes that some of the $4 million could be used to complete some basic work on the unfinished second floor of the building. This is also the part of the building that appears to be most stable according to engineers. During a telephone conference with the members of the Arena Oversight Committee held on January 14 it was learned that using any of the funds identified in the contribution agreement for work on the second floor mezzanine would be in contravention that agreement.
A report from Acting CAO Scott Widmeyer stated that any attempt to do work on the second floor would “put into jeopardy the whole of the funding.”
Councillor Wayne Potoroka stated that it was essential that the public should understand this as he was hearing about all sorts of hopes and dreams for that second floor. At the January 27 meeting project manager Claudia Heath indicated that all the pilings in the building were moving, but that some of this movement was simply the seasonal movement that occurs to nearly every building in town anyway.
The basic problem with the building, she said, is that it was designed to sit on a foundation of frozen ground, and the ground never did freeze back when the thermosiphons failed to perform as promised.
The building, she added, is not shifting to the point of being dangerous, except in the area of the mechanical room which is located off the curling club.
The curling club end of the building remains the area with the biggest problems, but the roofs over both sections of the building have limited life spans, ranging from three to five years.
Download full online edition: (pdf – 8.82MB)
IN THIS ISSUE (24 pages!):
1 – Dog Parking / Recreation Centre
2 – DCMF Concerned / Reel Success
3 – Gate of Evolution
4 – Uffish: Mind the Gap
5 – Letter of Thanks / Town Events Calendar
6 – Silicone Review
7 – Curling News
8 – RSS Goes Green
9 – Glaciers and Blackouts
10 – At the ODD Gallery
11 – Bagging with the Class of ‘99
12-16 – Sun TV Guide pages deleted
17 – Heritage Management
18 – Meet David Rohatensky
19 – Bookends: God Is.
20 – History Hunter
21 – Rangers in Faro / Cartoons
22 – Obituaries
23 – Classifieds, Jobs, Business Directory
24 – City of Dawson News & Notices
