Fires are still burning. Evacuation alerts are still in place. More structures have sprinklers on them. No buildings have been lost to fire.

The Dempster and the Klondike highway were open for a bit today but are closed again this evening.

The bank machine ran out of money. (It’s a statutory holiday here today, well Saturday, but banks and governments and some businesses, and ME, had today off – so the bank will refill the machine tomorrow).

The town is still being powered off diesel generators.

The smoke was really bad this morning but by late this afternoon, it looked just as bad, but it wasn’t thick and didn’t smell that smoky, so we got to open the windows and recharge the air in the house!

Planes weren’t able to land until this evening due to how much smoke was in the air at the airport.

It’s a bit annoying reading tourists and visitors on Facebook talk about just going around the closed highway barricades, because no one was there to stop them. There is a sense of entitlement when people come up here for an adventure, and then drive wherever they want, park wherever they want, camp wherever they want, that feels icky to me.

The Red Cross arrived today from British Columbia. They are prepping the school to be used as an evacuation center, if needed. The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in (TH) hall is open during the day for cleaner air.

It got really dark and orange for a bit this evening, and then we got a very minimal bit of rain, and then it was over. We’re going to try to leave the windows open tonight and see how it goes. Hopefully more rain will come by. There is a severe thunderstorm watch in place until 5am.

Here are some pictures as Jeff and I did a drive-around this afternoon.

Also, some of our irises are in bloom in the flower garden along the sidewalk! Our neighbour Nicole is using this garden again this summer. It’s always such a battle with the grass that tries to overgrow it, so it’s kinda nice to give away the responsibility for another summer. Thanks Nicole!

I attended the Annual General Meeting for the Dawson City Museum tonight. I agreed to stay on as the treasurer for another year. I was in so many slides during the presentation! This slide was particularly funny!

And Uncle Paul even made it into one of the slides when he joined a museum board field trip last summer!

If you want to read today’s emergency bulletin about the fires around us, it is very similar to yesterday’s. You can read it here:

Dawson region wildfire update — last updated June 23, 2025