![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/dawsonn.jpg\")
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DAWSON, Yukon Territory – The folks here still roll
\n their own cigarettes, drink hard and gamble in a casino where ragtime
\n is played on a stand-up piano.<\/p>\n
These days the town is down to a population of 1,200
\n and the municipal government is bankrupt despite a growing tourism industry
\n and artists’ colony. But some things never change in the remote Yukon.<\/p>\n
This area used to be known as the Wild West. Dawson,
\n which many residents still call Dawson City, still is. Just the other
\n day, a man burned down a garage at the local Royal Canadian Mounted Police
\n headquarters, destroying a jet boat, for no apparent reason.<\/p>\n
One hotel in town is rumored to be haunted and another
\n follows an old tradition by serving drinks mixed with pickled human toes
\n (the establishment says they are dehydrated and preserved in salt) donated
\n by people in their wills or by the unfortunate who suffer frostbite in
\n the winter. (Those who imbibe are installed in the "Sourtoe Cocktail
\n Club.")<\/p>\n
"One thing about the Yukon, you check your past
\n at the door," said Bob Hilliard, 53, Dawson’s leading saloon piano
\n player, who is better known as Barnacle Bob. "There are a lot of
\n personal histories here best left outside the territory. All I can say
\n is Yukon me, I con you."<\/p>\n
Mayor Everitt is now the subject of a Royal Canadian Mounted
\n Police investigation, and he has publicly admitted to the Canadian Broadcasting
\n Company to having submitted a bar bill of more than $2,000 for payment
\n by the city that was written on a cocktail napkin and signed by a waitress.
\n His explanation to CBC was that it was "a promotional thing."<\/p>\n
"In a city, a guy like me would be considered a
\n bum and rich people would have little to do with me," said Bill
\n Donaldson, 41, who is better known here as Caveman Bill, since he lives
\n in a cave across the river from town. "Here I can shoot the breeze
\n with anybody and they’ll listen to me, and if you didn’t know us you
\n wouldn’t necessarily know who was the rich guy and who was the bum. We
\n look the same."<\/p>\n
This sounds like our kind of place. We may from the New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DAWSON, Yukon Territory – The folks here still roll their own cigarettes, drink hard and gamble in a casino where ragtime is played on a stand-up piano. These days the town is down to a population of 1,200 and the … Continue reading
\n have to case the joint as a possible retirement hideout in case things
\n go
\n sour in Ecuador where, as all old South American hands know, the political
\n climate can change as fast as an armored personnel carrier can get from
\n the Presidential Palace to the International Airport in Quito.<\/em><\/p>\n