Many Yukon artists emerged from hibernation this past weekend to attend, teach and learn at coinciding festivals in Dawson City.
The Riverside Arts Festival, which featured “a weekend of interdisciplinary arts,” launched with an arts crawl at 15 pop-up galleries around Dawson on June 10.
The festival then took over Riverside Park for most of June 11 and 12.
A demo tent at the park brought masters of many crafts, all offering exhibitions and quick lessons to passersby. The wide variety included wooden spoon carving with Bill Donaldson, rabbit wool spinning with Jess Sellers, egg art with Jasmina Majcenic and flint knapping with Kent Pigott.
Yukonstruct also brought a forge from Whitehorse to exhibit blacksmithing as well as leatherworking.
Driftwood’s Cabin, a handmade stage built by Driftwood Holly, hosted two full-day lineups on Saturday and Sunday.
The Print & Publishing Festival also took place at the Dawson Daily News. The News was operational from 1899 to 1954, and its building has opened to the public each year for the festival beginning in 2012. An 1890s Chandler & Price letterpress, restored for use at the festival, was on display among other artifacts.
The News building hosted two full days of print-adjacent workshops, including printmaking, songwriting, zine-making and comic-writing.
On the evening of June 11, the Commissioner hosted a Platinum Jubilee Celebration at the Dawson Museum in honour of the Queen. The reception was planned in place of the traditional Commissioner’s Ball.
Contact Gabrielle Plonka at gabrielle.plonka@yukon-news.com