The Pit, the old Westminster Hotel in Dawson City, Yukon, has burned to the ground.
Built in 1898, it was sometimes thought of as the “living room” of Dawson City. I’ll never see it. Sad.
It had already been closed because of a terrible flood, but hopes were high that it would reopen this summer. What is a flicker of sadness for me is a deep gash in the lives of those in Dawson City. I’m going to make a bold, even over-the-top comparison. It is like when Notre Dame burned down. For Parisians with a lived connection to the Cathedral, it was soul crushing. For tourists, it was sad, but not the same. The Westminster Hotel was that important to Dawson City.
The loss of the Westminster Hotel has me thinking about how everything seems to be changing so fast and what some people call disaster tourism, a desire to see something before it’s gone. Get to Taiwan while it is still Taiwan. Go north and see the polar bears before they go extinct. I think of the tiny town of Lytton, BC, still reeling and not rebuilt from the wildfire that went through it in 2021. A year later, we were travelling through the area and there were signs up asking tourists not to go there. Disaster tourists. No one wants them. They do not help. And there they are, looking for a sandwich. No one has the time or energy to give them a sandwich. They need all the sandwiches they have for themselves.
There’s so much that is disappearing. Some of it happens because of “natural” disaster, and some of it happens because of shockingly bad policy and politics. According to a recent story, “Climate Policy on the Ropes” by Chris Hatch (Sunday May 17, 2026 in the National Observer), the pod of Southern Resident Killer Whales known as J-Pod that live near me is about to be even more endangered. Changes being brought in by Mark Carney’s Liberal government that eviscerate environmental approval processes and therefore environmental protections are coming so that Carney’s major projects (many of which are pipeline and fossil fuel related) will get passed. Hatch writes,
“Tim Gray, a veteran of the Harper government’s assaults, and now executive director of Environmental Defence, says the [new] proposed process would ‘sacrifice the rule of law and our most sensitive species and ecosystems in order to build pipelines and other projects. If approved, this proposal will take Canada back to a more dangerous, toxic and destructive time and leave Canadians facing impacts that could last for generations.’ Several government sources told [journalist] Althea Raj that the proposal is specifically designed to facilitate projects (like a West Coast pipeline or ports) that would impact the critically endangered southern resident orcas. There are only 74 whales left (perhaps as few as 10 or 12 reproductive females) and they’re the ones that make tragic news every few years when mothers carry their dead babies for days and even weeks in painful displays of mammalian grief.”
And that’s just the Orcas.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, the rate of species extinction is estimated at 200 to 2,000 extinctions per year, which is about 1000 to 10,000 times greater than the natural extinction rate. It’s a big differential, for sure, until you remember that we are still guessing how many species are actually on earth. Every moment we fail to address climate change or demand our governments address climate changemakes us all culpable.
Beyond different plants and animals, land itself is changing. Glaciers are melting. So is permafrost. Deserts are getting larger. Shorelines are expected to continue to change dramatically with sea level rise.
So, if, for some strange reason, you have a wild desire to go see Florida, you’d better go soon. The Everglades are already just a shadow of what they once were. So is the Amazon rainforest. Even the Colorado River is drying up.
[Side note: There is a magnificent essay about the Everglades in Joy Williams’s book, “Ill Nature.” The whole book is great, but the Everglades essay has never left my soul.]
Go before it’s too late. This is the essence of disaster tourism.
I’ve been to the Everglades. It bore no resemblance to what I saw as a child on the TV show “Gentle Ben.” I hiked the Blue Mountains in Australia the season prior to giant wildfires that raged through them and changed them forever. It was not disaster tourism but I was also so grateful I got to see this beautiful place before the worst happened. Not to mention a colony of little penguins along the southern shore of Australia.
What really troubles me about it all is all the effort, energy, money, and even C02 that goes into tourist trips to see the “almost gone” that could go to saving what is. We should put at least as much effort into mitigating the disaster as we do to witnessing it. I am coming to grips with the ways in which I am culpable through my travel.
How much of my desire to go to the Yukon this summer comes from wanting to see this magnificent place as it is now, before it changes (even more) forever? Or is it more simply something I want to experience before I die? How much damage will my trip cause. What is the impulse? Do I want to see a herd of caribou? You’re darn right I do. Muskox? I’d love to see Muskox. We might see Muskox if we were to take a short flight-seeing tour to Herschel Island. Herschel Island is currently being consumed by rising sea levels. The flight seems too much like part of the problem to do it.
But there’s more to my desire to go to the Yukon than ticking off the Muskox box. Have you ever seen the light in Kluane National Park? One of the parts of the trip I am looking forward to the most is a trip through the Mackenzie Delta. I just want to feel what that is like. I want to be in that place. It’s not something I can explain. At least not yet. I anticipate joy in this trip. Lots of joy.
But there will be no Westminster Hotel. My condolences to the people of Dawson City.
Muskox
