I always seem to find myself homeless in my own town, Dawson City, Yukon… maybe that is what I like the most about it. Two years ago, I came out of the winter broke and jobless, living in a 4-person tent hidden in the bushes just outside of the city limits. Things were fine for a month; I even got my old job back- working nights as the doorman/bouncer at the local dive bar, “The Pit”. (Also: Crazy they hired me back since I’m probably the skinniest boy this side of Whitehorse.) One day after my shift, I came ‘home’ to my camouflaged campsite, and it was all gone. Everything. Gone. Apparently the town caught wind of my free livin’ and the bylaw officer ransacked and confiscated all of my little cache of possessions. Plus, to get it all back you have to embarrassingly hang your head over to the city hall, tell them what went down, and pay a fine of $50 to get the whole getup back…
From that point on, I tried living a couple nights in the back of my 1985 White Chevrolet Caprice Station Wagon, “Whiteherse,” until I accidently got her stuck in the muddy shoulder of the trailer park on my way to my next sleeping spot. A bunch of north end locals reluctantly helped haul me out of the muddy mess, they recognized and casually referred to me as “that long haired hippy kid sleeping in the back of his Chevy station wagon.” Oh man…
At that point I asked my farmer friend if I could camp anywhere on her property out of town by the Dredge ponds on the other side of the Klondike River. Right away the answer was no… BUT since I was apparently in such a pinch, I could stay in her musty ol’ 5th Wheel trailer from the 1970’s for about a week until a new set of WWOOFers roll in through town and need their guest trailer back.
At that point I asked my farmer friend if I could camp anywhere on her property out of town by the Dredge ponds on the other side of the Klondike River. Right away the answer was no… BUT since I was apparently in such a pinch, I could stay in her musty ol’ 5th Wheel trailer from the 1970’s for about a week until a new set of WWOOFers roll in through town and need their guest trailer back.
And, that’s when I came across, “The Squat”. Eerily perched on top of the rocky tailings at the south edge of the dredge pond. It had two stories on one side to make room for the loft upstairs, a slanted tin roof, wood stove chimney poppin’ out the top, lumber scraps nailed to the outside of the hodgepodge cabin, huge windows and a full blown deck backing right onto Bonanza Creek. Wary at first, but after a couple cautious visits I managed to sneak in to scout it all out. After a bit of snooping I noticed all the canned food on the counter expired 5 years beforehand, there was a 2009 calendar pinned to the wall, dead wasps and other massive lifeless northern insects scattered all over the cabin floor, insulation hanging from the ceiling, and a generous layer of dust coating the entire contents of the old mining shack, all suggesting that no one has been living here for at least a couple years now.
So, of course, with no other backup plan, the Squat promptly became “home”. Sweeping for days, ‘bouts of laundry, constructed a lil’ makeshift outdoor kitchen, and two of my other travelling homeless best friends Eirelyn and Pasha moved in immediately with me. WHAT A GOD SEND!!!! Finally Warm. Dry. Comfortable. A refuge far away from the squalor and recklessness of the Dawson City bar culture. A place to sit, relax, cook a meal and actually eat it. We discretely snuck in and out of the property, and kept the noise at a complete minimum to discourage any unwanted attention. Paradise. That is, until we got found out…
Quads came. Voices. Jingling of key’s to open the ‘what we thought’ forever padlocked front door. We scrambled and threw ourselves out the huge back windows, scurrying into the woods sheltering Bonanza Creek from the cabin. Shit. This is it. Times up. She’s all said n’ done.
We waited for the ‘intruders’ to do their dirty work and leave. Sulked back up to the squat, promptly packed up EVERYTHING, quickly stuffed Whiteherse full of our food and backpacks, and drove back out into the bushes to set up those lousy tents once and for all. Full circle. Thanks for nothing, Dawson.
We waited for the ‘intruders’ to do their dirty work and leave. Sulked back up to the squat, promptly packed up EVERYTHING, quickly stuffed Whiteherse full of our food and backpacks, and drove back out into the bushes to set up those lousy tents once and for all. Full circle. Thanks for nothing, Dawson.
So another dirty, grungy, sweaty month went by. And, one day, out of nowhere this Quebecois man on a forest green 4wheeler noticed me riding my bike down the road to my tenting spot. He whipped around nice n’ snug right beside me and asked, “Hey, you can say yes or no. But, were you the one who was living in that old mining shack just off of Bonanza Creek?”
Pausing for a second, I thought, oh what the hell, might as well be honest, plus what difference does it make now… So I spattered out a, “Yep, that was me.. how come?”
The curly haired scruffy man took off his ballcap, fixed his glasses, sighed, then went on to say, “Okay, well, you know what? That’s totally all right, you kept the shack clean, and looks like you respected the space. So…. *sigh* it’s fine- stay there, don’t worry ‘bout rent or nothin’, just keep on keepin’ the place clean.”
.. !!!
So that was that. Turned out being the best summer out of my 5 years up here in the north. Best-case scenario. Found my dream home, and allowed to squat the damn thing. That’s one thing about the North, It’s straight magic up here. If you belong, things really do work out for you, if you are not meant to be here, she’ll boot ya right out n’ back down south. It’s not easy living where the the sun never sets in the summer and the -40 rattles yer bones into the ground come winter, but it’s something wild n’ wooly that I think I’ll continuously crave, it’s for sure the northern addiction… The spell of the Yukon.
No one has given the mystery and beauty of Alaska like Justin Apperley has.