Historic Dawson City ‘Pink Palace’ destroyed by fire
Dawson City has suffered an irreplaceable loss but the storied Yukon community is soldiering on.
The town — the epicenter of the Klondike Gold Rush — saw its longstanding Westminster Hotel burn down on May 17, with that structure actually dating back to Dawson City’s late 19th-century gold rush heyday.
The wooden structure was levelled by the fire and Ricky Mawunganidze, executive director of the Klondike Visitors Association — the tourist board promoting Dawson City — said the loss was felt throughout the community.
“People came together there for moments of grief and moments of joy,” he said. “We (Dawson City residents) all have stories that are tied to the Westminster Hotel.”
It’s not yet clear what — if anything — will be built on the site that the Westminster stood on.
But Mawunganidze said the structure itself can’t be replaced, adding it provided an “authentic dive bar experience.”
The loss of the Westminster won’t actually affect Dawson City’s hotel room inventory as the building had stopped serving as a hotel, with part of it being used as an arts studio and it also having 2 watering hotels, with reports suggesting that the Westminster had this country’s longest operating liquor licence.
The building was easily recognizable because of its pink exterior and referred to itself as pink palace in its email address. The Westminster was known locally as The Pit, with its tavern referred to as the Snake Pit and its lounge dubbed The Arm Pit.
The Westminster routinely featured live music in a setting with paintings recalling the gold rush.
The building was actually closed when the fire broke out because of damage from winter flooding.
Mawunganidze notes Dawson City has plenty of other reminders of its lively gold rush past, including Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall, a long-running casino that features can-can dancers; the bank in which Yukon poet Robert Service worked; a cabin in which The Call of the Wild author Jack London wintered in; and the now permanently docked sternwheeler S.S. Keno, which once sailed the Yukon River.
Indeed, he’s predicting Dawson City will enjoy a good summer tourism season, welcome news considering the turbulent state of the world.
Tourism officials also note that the Dawson City area received UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2023, with UNESCO referring to the project as Tr’ondëk-Klondike and stating, “Tr’ondëk-Klondike lies within the homeland of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation. It contains archeological and historic sources that reflect Indigenous people’s adaptation to unprecedented changes caused by the Klondike Gold Rush.”
That UNESCO recognition helps ensure that the onetime Yukon capital will continue to intrigue people, Mawunganidze says.
“There’s no other town like it in terms of visitor experiences,” he flatly states.
