Story and photos by Bruce Northam

After I declined a shot of whiskey, a scruffy saloon man cracked, “You’ve come a long way to behave yourself.” While fond of mischief, I’m still an amateur in Dawson City, a Yukon River-side port in the midst of the Yukon Territory’s pure vastness—a flash in the gold pan, defined. In its 1897-98 heyday, this gold-rush mining settlement, flanked by mountains, was the largest city north of Seattle and west of Winnipeg. At least 100,000 gold seekers set out for its riches, but only 40,000 made it.

Since then, it seems most people drawn to the Yukon Territory are searching for something. I also discovered a long-awaited treasure here—my inner grown-up. Although getting to Dawson is no longer brutal, settling down certainly was for me.

Today, a checkerboard of dirt roads unites a gritty Canadian West living history museum with boardwalk sidewalks, bearded brew-sippers, sassy female bartenders sporting armpit hair, and at-home First Nations artists mingling in wooden establishments. Still a sleepy small town despite seasonal crowding, Dawson also attracts at-ease ski bum types in a region without ski-lifts. They all have a story and share it with Canada’s trademark sentence-ending uptone, which makes their declarations resemble inquiries.

One exchange involved self-appointed Klondike Kaye. I happened upon this quintessential mountain woman outside the Snake Pit tavern. She was a vision with muscular arms jolting out of a cutoff plaid shirt and sporting muddy hiking boots. An over-served logger I was chatting with turned and asked her “Are you left-wing or right-wing?” Smoking and illuminated by a golden rush of sun, she stepped off the boardwalk onto the road and mused, “The whole bird.” Then she walked away with that Arctic cowgirl strut. She made the New York women I see every day putting makeup on in the subway seem uncharacteristically fragile.

The evolving me didn’t accost Klondike Kaye. Various landmarks inspire men to come of age—finding or losing jobs, turning 30, becoming a parent, experiencing a health scare or loss. I had difficulty locating my fun off-switch and extended the shenanigans into my mid-40s. I began accepting adult scheduling when I simply tired of hollow sex, late nights, boozy babbling, and bedbugs. Moreover, having a daughter turns womanizers into girl guards. Sometimes getting away from it all—the Yukon certainly fits that bill—sends everything you’re fleeing right back to you.

Everything evolves. With an eclectic mix of restaurants—Greek, French Canadian, gourmet moose burgers joints—it’s not hard to imagine this river valley town having the potential to become another Aspen in 20 years. It does already sport Hawaii prices, minus the beach and salted with harmless outlaws. Meandering between bars, I watch a strolling cop nod toward a cougar wearing a CANADA: It’s better on top t-shirt and smirk, “This is a drinking town with a sightseeing problem.” I peer at my watch, and it’s still happy hour. I talk to the cop instead of the cougar. What have I become?

A Few People Among the Moose

Together, Canada’s 10 provinces and three Arctic-hugging territories form the world’s second largest country. Declared territories because they’re only loosely tied to the constitution that governs the provinces and the rules that concern most people—you can still stake land there. The Idaho-shaped Yukon Territory is home to 14 indigenous tribes and eight different linguistic groups. Bordering Alaska and the Arctic Sea, it is home to 35,000 people and encompasses the same land mass as California, which hosts 38 million souls. Flanneled locals who refer to “outside” as the rest of the world simply call it, “The Yukon.” Our northern neighbors, way northern, puzzle over why we live on top of each other. The human population of the Yukon was higher in 1898 than it is now. Even today, moose outnumber Yukoners by two to one.

Dawson City was known as the Paris of the North because with so much gold it could afford all the luxuries that money could buy. But it wasn’t a fine wine time for many. The oft delusional hordes that didn’t perish en route were fleeced of their riches by Dawson-based conmen or prostitutes, and left broke. And then the town was basically abandoned. Repopulated, this is not the sort of place that identifies with city slickers bumbling blindly down the road ogling their smartphones. Gnarly tavern patrons lowering an eyebrow at anyone speed-thumbing their gadgets buoyed validation for my adaptation of an iPhone—an 8×11-inch piece of paper folded in eighths and a pen. Without screaming I’m ignoring you or I’m not really here, my inconspicuous reporting mode allowed me to blend in, sort of. I’d just shaved and was on beer number two, not eight.

This resuscitated prospector outpost still attracts modern fortune hunters, and I don’t mean internet tycoons. At present, pioneers still stake land—a version of homesteading—as new gold finds continue to be discovered. It lures people in search of alternatives, whether it be gold, avoiding pop reality, or a different take on life…

“We’re real miners, not Discovery Channel miners.” —overheard in Snake Pit about visiting television crew.

Next stop northbound: arctic tundra. Next stop for me: a jog instead of a joint.

Winters are dark and cold, but I was there in t-shirt weather when it stays light until 2am after six-hour-long idyllic sunsets. The wooden sidewalks creak just like they did in the late 1800s. Blink and you’re back in this century. Canada’s Wild West movie set is not just on the way to Alaska. Storming Dawson seems to be a Canadian rite of passage, akin to Americans reaching Key West. On a college spring break, I managed to never stall the flow of beer even while hitchhiking from Virginia to Key West and back. The next afternoon, immersing myself in Dawson’s multiple personalities, I danced to live bluegrass with locals, miners, and showgirls. Later, I told them about that hitch. My amateur status temporarily gave way to semi-pro.

Dawson now attracts live music prospectors. Bands drew me to this far-flung escape. Every July, the place that inspired many of Jack London’s masterpieces hosts an international music festival. It’s their Mardi Gras without the parades. The primary performance area is an in-community field with a tented main stage adjoined to an outdoor beer garden. Venues include a church with an indoor wood-burning stove and wood pile, a Victorian theatre, and a riverfront gazebo.

Truly an international event, the eclectic 2011 lineup featured a nomadic Nigerian band chanting along with a traditional First Nations drum ensemble, which inspired a communal conga-style friendship dance. Other acts included throat singers, bluegrass ensembles, blues artists (Yukon roots music maverick, Ryan McNally), classic Canadian rockers, and Whitey Houston generating computer-free drum-and-bass. Dawson’s intimacy makes it easy to mingle with the musicians. After his festival-closing show, Ryan McNally invited me to an all-night musicians’ bash that promised to see the sun rise. The guy—me, who once flew to New Orleans’ Mardi Gras and didn’t leave for two months—reached down, clicked the on switch off, and went to bed.

Continue to Page 2 – Yukon Territory

Story and photos by Becky Garrison

In my quest to transform my business trips into pilgrimages, I stumbled upon Phil Cousineau’s book The Art of Pilgrimage. He defines pilgrimage as “the art of movement, the poetry of motion, the music of personal experience of the sacred in those places where it has been known to shine forth. If we are not astounded by these possibilities, we can never plumb the depths of our souls or the soul of the world.”

In particular, I longed to explore this mystical “thin space” described by the mystics as an imaginary veil that separates this world from the next. So at the suggestion of the Rev. Kurt Nielson, author of Urban Iona and my spiritual guide, when I was in Dublin for a spell, I set out for a two-day trip to tour the ruins of Glendalough. In the sixth century, the reclusive monk St. Kevin discovered gleann dá locha (“glen of the two lakes”), a glacial valley formed during the Ice Age that looks picture perfect.

However, while waiting at Dawson Street in Dublin for the more modern St. Kevin’s Bus to transport me to Glendalough, I wondered if perhaps I might have erred in choosing this particular trek. Unbeknownst to me, Glendalough remains one of Ireland’s most frequented tourist destinations. (Note to self: Next time I set out exploring, do a bit of research instead of relying solely on a recommendation no matter how trustworthy the source.)

So, instead of immersing myself in Celtic country, I stood in a line of tourists the majority of whom seemed to be decked out in last year’s budget travel gear as they chatting mindlessly while skimming through the latest go-to travel brochures. As I seemed to be the only one wearing hiking shoes, I wondered if I could find any solace in a group that appeared more fixated on adding Glendalough to their lists of 1,000 places to visit before they die than actually exploring this soil.

After the bus dumped us off at the Glendalough Visitor Centre, we set out as a group lemming-like toward Monastic City. Every time I tried to photograph the 12th century stone ruins or capture a shot of the 30-meter Round Tower, some tourist’s visage wrecked my shot. I couldn’t even walk around the Lower Lake without being accosted by touristy clutter.

So I turned around and went back to the Visitor Centre muttering some very un-Celtic thoughts under my breath. Perhaps now I could pick up the material I should have pursued pre-trip that would enable me to find solace in what felt like a tourist trap.

I left with a map of walking trails and set off for a late-afternoon hike along Miners’ Road Walk. When I passed by Upper Lake, I could see St. Kevin’s bed, a seven-by-three-foot rock cave that, according to legend, was shown to Kevin by an angel. How Kevin managed to enter and exit this hole in the wall so he could gather the herbs and fish that sustained him remains a miracle to me.

As I was approaching the ruins of the abandoned mines, the sky opened up and gave me a good Irish dunking. Every time I took a step toward the mines, I felt myself going deeper and deeper into the mossy soil. Mist rose from the remains of this mining village as though the rain beckoned me to come in and play. So I joined in and skipped myself silly. Then the sky really let it rip. Even if I had remembered to bring my rain jacket, no amount of outerwear could keep me dry from this drenching.

Out of nowhere, the sky cleared and a rainbow graced the sky. Smiling and soaked, I squish-squished and skipped all the way back to my room at Glendalough International Hostel.

The next day, I picked out a few hikes recommended for solo hikers and set out to greet the Wicklow Mountains. first I hit up the Poulanass Waterfall and St. Kevin’s Cell routes that I picked up after walking by a series of stone crosses situated by the Upper Lake. While encircling Poulanass Waterfall, I sensed the spirit of St. Kevin winking at me as though he dared me once again to dance. Once again, I accepted his challenge and pranced around without a soul in sight.

Then I headed down the winding path that stopped by a circle of stones marking the location where St. Kevin’s Cell once stood. I continued my journey along the Green Road Walk that hugged Lower Lake. The few tourists I encountered shared my desire to continue on in silence.

After a full day of hiking and a short trek to a nearby pub, I tried to sleep but was kept awake all night due to my bunkmates, who clearly didn’t seem to comprehend the value of quiet space. Unable to sleep, I finally got out of bed at 5:00am and set out in search of breakfast while I waited for the morning bus to take me back to Dublin.

For once, I had Monastic City all to myself. I grabbed a spot on a stone wall and sat down to watch the sunrise over the ruins. Within the span of fifteen minutes, the sky morphed from blackened blue to a dark royal purple. The gray Celtic crosses and graves strutted out dressed in their silver finest to give me a Glendalough send-off. I waved to these old souls and once again, danced myself silly.

While I have yet to master the art of pilgrimage outlined in Cousineau’s book, by walking these hills, I began this transformation “from mindless to mindful, soulless to soulful travel.” Slowly, I started learning how to create tiny pockets of sacred joy even when surrounded by touristy trappings and lack of proper planning.

Becky Garrison is the author of Jesus Died for This? and a panelist for The Washington Post’s “On Faith” column. Other writing credits include work for The Guardian, Killing the Buddha, Religion Dispatches, and US Catholic. When she takes a break from her laptop, Becky can often be found kayaking, fly-fishing, biking or hiking.

Related features:
Modern Day Druids at the Hill of Tara in Ireland by Ian Middleton
Finding Old Ireland Alive in Place, Words, and Song by Michael Shapiro
Trapped beneath the Volcanic Ash Cloud by Rachel Dickinson
The Mysterious Stone Chambers of New England by Brad Olsen

Other Europe travel stories from the Perceptive Travel Archives

By Camille Cusumano

“Everywhere I look I see dead eyes,” thinks a Buenos Aires expat as she visits the Feria la Salada, a market that lives up to its reputation for danger and desperation.

“You cannot go to this market, es muy peligroso,” said my friend Carmen. I watched her big blue eyes bug out, emphatic with the probability of harm befalling me if I went to Feria la Salada. We sat in the comfort of my 10th floor apartment in Recoleta, Buenos Aires’s upper-crust barrio. Another Argentine friend, Oscar, nodded in agreement with Carmen. I had just greeted him hello and noticed his neck was fragrant with Paco Rabanne cologne—real Paco, not the knock-offs reportedly available at the market in question.

“Oh, but I have a private bodyguard,” I joked, referring to a fellow journalist, Marc Haefele, from Los Angeles, who had invited me to check out the market with him. He piqued my curiosity, saying, “La Salada is a thieves market.” It was the world’s largest illegal market, he told me, denounced by the European Union, but locally pronounced unstoppable because tens of thousands of customers support it weekly.

The hints at danger, which I often find exaggerated by locals who listen to the news more than I do, ramped up my desire to take a glimpse. I had been living in Buenos Aires for nearly three years, absorbing the culture mainly in sultry tango dance halls and classes. I was streetwise enough to deal with rowdies and mischief makers. Besides, I wanted to get out of my complacent routine here in chic Recoleta. That black market was said to sprawl in a malignant belt of land, replete with polluted meadows, just south of Buenos Aires. Time to get a close-up view at the underbelly of my adopted home, I mused.

Oscar, who like Carmen, had never set foot near La Salada, said dismissively, “It’s full of the junk they sell at Retiro bus station.” The Retiro was one of my favorite offbeat places in the city. (Only once did I have to shrug off would-be pick-pockets.) My mind kneaded a vision of stall after stall with Hong-Kong-like knock-offs crossed with Tangiers’ bazaar-like ambience. It’s big, it’s unstoppable, and it makes the news regularly. So there must be something to see at La Salada.

The market opens at 3 am on Sundays. Mark said we had to get there early to get the good stuff. So we met at my place at 5 am and hailed a taxi. The first driver said, “No, I don’t go to La Salada, too dangerous,” and took off. The second taxi said the same and sped off. The third one, a good-natured driver, said, “I’m heading home that way, so I’ll drop you.” He asked which point of entry did we prefer, Punta Noria or Punta Mogote. “Whichever is safer,” I said. “That would be Mogote,” he said.

© Olmo Calvo

A Rank River and the Dregs

La Salada started in 1991 when a handful of Bolivians set up shop on the forgotten land near a rundown swimming pool park long past its prime. They found it profitable to sell “imported” clothes at a market they called Urkupiña. Eventually two more markets sprouted and joined forces. According to La Nacion, the gangly collection of flimsy bamboo-and-sheet-metal booths or warehouses on 20 hectares of the banks of the River Riachuelo moves some $9 million weekly and employs 6,000 people to serve the 20,000 customers who come from all over the country. And it’s all illegal.

As we rolled along the ingress road, Marc told me that indeed the land here was designated during the Juan Peron years (half a century ago) as a resort for the poor. The roadside was now lined with billowing tall grasses, reeds, willow trees and a deep layer of the usual Styro-plastic urban trash, bagged and otherwise, no less visible than if the place were a designated dump. A vivid heap of some synthetic fabric cuttings in a fluorescent rainbow of colors that might have been pretty in another setting caught my eye.

As soon as Marc and I paid the cabbie, he spun around and high-tailed out of the no man’s land. We joined an ant line of people (largely Bolivian, Peruvian, Paraguayan, and other much-lamented undocumented workers of Argentina). To get to the market stalls we had to cross the Riachuelo River, rank with years of slaughterhouse detritus and god knows what else. I started having my first misgivings.

The river was so thick with trash you could cross it on foot but risk its flesh-dissolving waters. No flora or fauna survived in it. The tonnage of humanity drawn to this Hades of merchandising had to use one of two pedestrian bridges, one more hair-raising than the other. We chose to walk the plank, a sling of metal, with jerry-rigged wire railing gone in most places. The thick, hideous stew of toxic garbage in the river below threatened life much more than the actual 30-foot fall. One blogger described the potential fall like “bungee jumping without a rope.”

But the pilgrimage, four and five people deep, moved relentlessly to the altar of mercantilism. Just before Marc and I were to mount the metal sling, I spotted the three-cup monty, or shell game scam, off to our right. I wondered what sucker they were ripping off. Two men and two women were obviously in cahoots. How many times had I seen this game pulled off on unsuspecting riders of San Francisco’s Muni bus—street guys getting 20 bucks a pop? Then, as I passed, one of the women tugged my arm lightly, not unfriendly, and encouraged me to play. It was me and Marc they’d had their eye on all the time. I had carefully dressed in loose cargo pants, all my few valuables in tightly zipped pockets. I wore my decrepit running shoes. I’m dark and Argentine looking, how could they spot me among the thousands of shoppers here?

“Get your hands off me,” I scowled, angrily pushing the woman’s hand away. “Fock you,” she yelled violently after me.

“This isn’t good, Marc,” I said. “Getting into a defensive mode is not good.” It was not even 6 am. I was cranky and not yet caffeinated.

In less than ten minutes we were across the river, joking about whether an engineer had lately examined the safety of the structure. I discreetly removed my 18-karat gold earrings from Florence and tucked them in a Velcro-locking pocket. I had brought my camera but would never take it out of my left zip-lock pocket.

We were in the heat of the market. We could only proceed with the packed crowds languorously. The flow was one huge sloe-eyed sea of poor people hungry for Stuff. Need or whim for that stuff could only be measured by the beholder. “Everywhere I look I see dead eyes,” I muttered.

Continue to Page 2 – Buenos Aires Market

Story and photos by Jessica Lee

While traversing the countryside of Kenya by bus, a traveler gets a lesson in the country’s peculiar acronym-laden buffet of Christianity.

Haman Peter gripped his tattered green bible in his hand.

“You know Jessica,” he said eying up my cigarette, “addiction is wrong.”

He brought the bible down with a slap onto the metal bar in front of my seat.

“You must (slap). Give this smoking up (slap) Jessica. The Lord does not want you to smoke (slap). I Haman Peter know this is true (slap). That is Haman Peter me. Not the one in the bible (slap).”

I nodded as I lurched to the left, smacking my head against the window frame as the bus pitched over a particularly large muddy pothole.

“Haman is a man in the old testament book of Esther,” he told me. “Haman he was hung by Queen Esther. But Jessica (slap), I am not that Haman. I am me (slap).”

He balanced remarkably straight as he loomed over my seat and thumped his chest for emphasis.

“I am P.C.A.” He announced, “Pentecostal Church of Africa.”

And as the bus juddered and shook, and the pile of boxes and luggage in the aisle shifted dubiously into a position ready to avalanche on top of me, Haman Peter raised his eyebrows and thrust the dog-eared bible towards me.

Haman Peter’s sudden confession of Christian devotion didn’t surprise me. In Kenya, I’d already found out, religion was a serious business. My first morning in Nairobi I had picked my way along the pitted pavement of River Road; past the ragtag touts hollering their sales pitch over pirate CDs and cardboard boxes of cast-off clothing. The city smelled of fried chicken and exhaust fumes, and sounded like the bounding bass of Benga but the capital’s backbone still seemed strangely straight-laced.

I’d sprawled on the saggy bed of my cheap hostel and flicked through the local newspaper. Under the hole-studded mosquito net, I skimmed the entertainment section and the daily radio schedule stopped me in my tracks. Nation FM’s Early Morning segment promised “inspirational soul food” to start my day. In the evening Radio Waimini gave its listeners a double helping of Vatican Radio while Family FM headed up the major competition with a line up that included Family Prayer Circle, Through the Bible and the ominously titled “Music You CAN Believe in.” It all sounded rather depressingly staid though the cinema schedule cheered me up somewhat.

Down on Jogoo Road, Eastlands Cinema was running a six-movies-for-one-ticket promotion on both of their screens. Screen Two’s billing was a heavy going thwack over the head with a bible featuring Jesus Christ Movie, The Ten Commandments and Samson and Delilah but curiously on Screen One the schedule was advertised as “Strickly [sic] Adults Only.” A flesh-marathon with enigmatic names such as Touch of Love, Honey Moons and Hot Dreams.

I wondered what happened when someone accidentally walked into the wrong screen at the movies. Think of the shock of sitting down with your popcorn, expecting a robed-up Charlton Heston on Mt Sinai, and finding yourself facing some up-front action with Hot Dreams instead. Or making the opposite mistake—probably just as traumatizing for the would-be voyeur. Did anyone ever move between screens on purpose for a dose of porn and prayer? Watching a bit of ‘Touch of Love’ and then jumping over to Screen Two for some old prophet action in The Ten Commandments would be sort of like an instant confession. Bless me father for I have sinned. It’s been five minutes since my last masturbation.

Kenya’s rather conservative outlook was obviously a lot more complicated than I first thought.

Are you A.I.C. or P.C.E.A.?

I traveled north to Nyahururu simply because I liked the way the syllables sounded when I said them. It was a scrappy mountain town of low-rise concrete slab buildings where the two paved roads were busier with bicycles than cars. Just down the road, among the wooden shacks of the tourist bazaar beside Thompson Falls, I met Peggy at her stall, surrounded by a Lilliput zoo of miniature wooden giraffes and elephants. As soon as I sat down, she announced that she was A.I.C, the Africa Inland Church.

“Jess what religion are you?” Peggy asked and I answered that I didn’t really have one and don’t go to church.

She looked at me and frowned.

“Lots of people in New Zealand don’t go to church.” I tried to explain.

“No churches in New Zealand?”

“No, lots of churches just not a lot of people go to them.”

“People in New Zealand no go church but still good people?” Peggy asked.

“Well, some good and some bad.”

Peggy sighed and smiled. “Kenyan people all go to church but still do bad things.”

She showed me photos of her children, both still toddlers and born to different fathers.

“No husband. Only boyfriend,” she said as she tucked the photos back in the drawer. “Only boyfriend to make baby and then boyfriend run.”

Continue to Page 2 – Kenya