Park it, Buster

"Signs, signs, everywhere a sign", says the old song, and sometimes signs add a bit of humor to a situation. This was seen in Dawson, Yukon Territory, Canada, and if you've not visited it yet, you're missing a magical place.

This dog was tied up sufficiently outside a downtown store-- parking on the boardwalk.

It seems everyone in the Yukon has a pickup truck and a dog in its bed. It's kind of comical to see trucks passing in opposite directions and dogs barking their greetings to each other.

Dawson was the capital of the Yukon and the center of the Klondike Gold Rush which began in 1896. It was called 'the strangest mass movements in history' by "The Klondike Quest" author Pierre Berton. Today, much of Dawson is unchanged, including the dirt roads or wooden boardwalks.

Imagine that it's August, and you leave your home and everything else you own and board a boat.  You travel to frigid Yukon, where in a couple months the temperatures could dive to -50. It's a mysterious place to which you've never been; you're hoping to find  the Mother Lode.  But there are immense obstacles.

First, you have to haul supplies for an entire year over the treacherous Chilkoot Pass. Then build a boat or raft at the tent  city of Bennett where 30,000 of your friends are doing the same thing.  When completed, float 600 miles down the Yukon River to Dawson. By the time most hopefuls arrived, the most profitable mine sites were already claimed. Few hit the big money. Of the 100,000 brave folks who made the trip to the jumping off point of Skagway, Alaska, only 40,000 made it to Dawson.

The capital moved to more accessible Whitehorse in 1953, but a few hearty souls remain. Today, Dawson is a little bigger than Goldsboro in York County. In summer, about 60,000 tourists crowd into the little town.