The Pit
May 17th 2026 ended a 128-year long North American record – that record was held in Dawson City, Yukon by the Westminster Hotel, for holding a continuous liquor license since the Yukon Gold Rush, the license issued in 1898. That is a remarkable feat especially given that much of Dawson burned to the ground the following year of 1899. I had often stood on those crooked floors, pint in hand, feeling a direct linage, somehow, to a sometime when - a sweaty old miner, covered in dirt with the ‘fever’ in his eyes, trying to forget some ill-conceived deed,– now tired and lost, stepping on those fresh floorboards 128 years ago, thinking of home, wondering how he had found himself filthy and frostbitten down a hole, looking for that paydirt. Then in a direct line, every other seeker, lost soul, adventurer, tourist, miner, good-timer, and those few that stayed on and made Dawson their homes – rare indeed is that sort of living history and lineage, especially in Canada. Now even rarer still. For now that beloved bar, affectionately known as ‘The Pit’ is gone - all its dingy, seady, crooked, smelly, and charming personality up in smoke, its luck finally ran out, a blazing fire razing it to the ground.
My first memory of ‘the pit’ was some march in the early 90’s the temperature in the early - 50ºC – that’s without the wind chill my friends, and as an aside, for all the ‘southerners’ one should know that, this is not uncommon in Dawson, and it DOESN’T shut the town down. We stumble into ‘the pit’ stepping down from the snow pack outside and in through the ice covered door, I thought, “oh, this is why its called ‘The Pit’ you step down into it?” – well, that wasn’t the last time I was wrong in my life. I was later corrected, the full name being the arm pit…some saying, naturally or architecturally because it was to the side of the larger room, the main hall being called the snake pit. Well, however cute that explanation was, I quickly learned it had more to do with other details of its charm perhaps, its hairy history, odorous bouquet, and thick humidity, which even in the depths of winter would linger and run down the walls.
Now, don’t get me wrong – it had loads of charm and personality, just as many an armless dress or muscle shirt would, sensual, revealing and looking for a good time and many a good time was had inside those pink doors.
My favourite - true Canadian moment was had there. One summer solstice evening the sun still high in the sky, it was 11:30-ish - early by Dawson summer standards, the door on the pit propped open, music spilling out, fiddle, guitar and scratchy east coast lilt. My cousin from Austria was visiting and I was giving him the grand tour of the Yukon and the pit was a must stop on the tour, we slid in through the crowd. The band was a group of east coasters living in the north and touring all the small bars making some summer coin. I had just retuned with two pints to one of the round tables, which never seamed to have permanent locations, we toasted the midnight sun, the past and our current moment.
Then the strangest and most wonderful thing happened, The lad at the mic with a long screaming drawn-out, “OOOOhhhhhhhh” - Everyone, I mean everyone, that wasn’t already standing, stood-up, held their pints to their hearts and belted out with a seriousness and pride I have yet to see be repeated, “…the year was 1778, how I wish is was in Sherbrooke now!”
Everyone, I mean everyone, somehow, suddenly knew every single word to the infamous Stan Rogers tune Barrett’s Privateers. I looked at my cousin as the hair on the back of my head stood on end, and a single tear rolled down my cheek, EVEN he was singing! The whole bar was a chorus, a chorus of adventurers, locals and lucky tourists, the crowd outside singing too, butts in corners of their mouths, broken and beautiful voices together unified by song, unified in history and pride - I felt the ghosts of miners past wake-up and fill the space between us and join us right to the last stanzas.
And there it lingered, it lingered for what seemed like a full minute the last reverberations of our voices, the whole pit silent in the moment of what had just happened, all of sweaty and overcome with joy. Then with a blink, it was back to the clinking of glasses and din of the bar. I looked at my cousin, still a little stunned, “well, you just witnessed a true Canadian moment” I said, and he replied, “or just another day in The Pit?” Perhaps even as a tourist he saw and felt something that the local Dawsonites always knew and only the few that dared to enter did, a locale like no other.
In the summer of 2019 we made a special stop on the wetplate adventure to Tuktoyaktuk, returning to Dawson for the Music festival, I NEEDED to make an image of this iconic building. Little did I know that this would become the last and perhaps the only, wetplate image every made of the Westminster Hotel. So, I give you this image in tribute to all the remarkable, quirky and glorious artists that hung on its walls - the strange portraits of locals and heroes, the lewd and racy images by Halin de Repentigny, the photographs of bygone days, the sweat stained wall paper, the aluminium foiled dance floor, the forever Christmas lights, the hightop side booths, its iconic pinky façade and all the wonders of humanity that passed through it’s doors…
Rest In Power and glory.
