Efforts are underway to make Dawson City, Yukon, more accessible — but it's not easy

Chris MacIntyre · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 05, 2025 8:11 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 minutes ago

To galore residents and visitors, the unpaved streets, crooked boardwalks and historic buildings of Dawson City, Yukon, are a large portion of the Gold Rush town's charm — but for radical with mobility issues, they can also beryllium a batch of trouble.

That's wherefore efforts are underway to marque the municipality much accessible, without losing its unsocial character.   

Sally DeMerchant has lived successful Dawson City for the past 12 years. She said she lives with fibromyalgia, a chronic information that causes symptom successful the body's muscles and brushed tissues, and that affects her mobility. 

DeMerchant said immoderate of the toughest things to navigate in town are the raised boardwalks and steps starring to the town's businesses.

"Even if you sprain an ankle, you go precise painfully alert that conscionable being capable to entree your groceries, oregon be a assemblage event, becomes challenging," she said.

DeMerchant said that 1 of the enactment services she relies connected has moved locations, so she present has to spell up a formation of stairs to entree the office. She said she tin bash it, but others may have challenges accessing the service.

Lana Welchman, a kinesiologist and a erstwhile therapy adjutant astatine the town's agelong word attraction home, said she regularly sees radical who've suffered injuries from assorted activities. She said galore of the elders she worked with often had an highly hard clip getting astir town.

"I retrieve taking an elder to Indigenous Peoples' Day celebration," Welchman recalled. "I was trying to propulsion him successful a wheelchair up the gravel. It's astir impossible. So I had to get him retired and effort to get him to locomotion down the wheelchair — but helium couldn't navigate that footing.

"So I'm virtually trying to get idiosyncratic to enactment successful an important assemblage event, and it's highly hard to get there."

Both Welchman and DeMerchant accidental things are adjacent much hard successful winter. 

They're calling connected the municipality to consult with assemblage members astir their needs, and to make a corporate imaginativeness for a much accessible community.

'Access Dawson City'

Some section organizations such as the Klondike Visitors Association (KVA) are besides looking to code the issue, 1 tiny measurement astatine a time.

Last week, the KVA, successful concern with the municipality and a section contractor, built an accessible ramp astatine the town's farmer's marketplace gazebo.

"We're looking for immoderate easy, low-hanging effect opportunities to marque our spaces much accessible," said Ricky Mawunganidze, enforcement manager for the KVA.

"We had a footrise connected determination that was ever truthful hard for folks successful [wheel]chairs, for seniors to access, and for strollers to get in."

Mawunganidze acknowledged the town's practice plan "failed to see accessibility arsenic a superior motivating factor" and said it's present up to the assemblage to bash its portion to fix that.

That's wherefore the KVA launched an "Access Dawson City" campaign wherever businesses tin motion up and person accreditation for gathering basal accessibility standards. 

"Really, we're trying to make a mode ... for assemblage members and visitors to cognize that these facilities, these services, are accessible and the radical that are operating these are ever reasoning astir however tin they marque their merchandise much accessible to the divers scope of accessibility needs that we have," Mawunganidze said.

He said 9 businesses and organizations person the designation truthful acold and helium anticipates much volition motion up passim the summer.

Mawunganidze said making Dawson afloat accessible volition not hap overnight but the program is to tackle small opportunities wrong the concern sector to scope the larger goal.

"How bash we alteration our mindset astir providing accessible services?" Mawunganidze said. "How bash we alteration the mode that we run arsenic a concern truthful we tin conscionable customers wherever they're at, if we cannot alteration our biology design?"

Paul Robitaille, a long-time Dawson nonmigratory and the town's acting main administrative officer, said helium agrees that the municipality could and should beryllium much accessible. He said each caller buildings being constructed successful Dawson volition present person ramps, and different features for accessibility. He said the municipality besides supports immoderate community-led initiatives to code the issue.

But Robitaille said it's going to instrumentality a full batch of work, time, and readying earlier Dawson tin beryllium astatine the level of accessibility that galore radical privation it to be. It's not arsenic casual arsenic simply putting successful a ramp, helium said.

"We're trying to shoehorn a 2025 philosophy into an 1898 gathering strategy," Robitaille said.

"When you look astir Dawson we've got each these boardwalks, and we look a batch of snowfall each winter, permafrost — and there's challenges erstwhile it comes to making those buildings accessible for the standards we're astatine today."