Liverpool FC Forum

[Bad Bob]

The Town of the City of Dawson or Dawson City is a town in the Yukon, Canada.

It is positioned at 64° 2' 30" N latitude and 139° 7' 15" W longitude







Background
The population was 1,327 at the 2006 census.[1] The area draws some 60,000 visitors each year. The locals generally refer to it simply as 'Dawson', but the tourist industry generally refers to it as 'Dawson City' (partly to differentiate it from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, which is at Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway).

The townsite was named in January 1897 after noted Canadian geologist George M. Dawson, who had explored and mapped the region in 1887. It served as the Yukon's capital from the territory's founding in 1898 until 1952, when the seat was moved to Whitehorse.

Dawson has a much longer history, however, as an important harvest area used for millennia by the Hän-speaking people of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and their forebears. The heart of their homeland was Tr'ochëk, a fishing camp at the confluence of the Klondike River and Yukon River, now a National Historic Site. This site was also an important summer gathering spot and a base for moose-hunting on the Klondike Valley.

The Klondike Gold Rush started in 1896 and changed the First Nations camp into a thriving city of 40,000 by 1898. By 1899, the gold rush had ended and the town's population plummeted as all but 8,000 people left. When Dawson was incorporated as a city in 1902, the population was under 5,000.

The population was fairly stable until the 1930s, dropped after World War II when the territorial capital was moved to Whitehorse and languished around the 600-900 mark through the 1960s and 1970s, but has risen and held stable since then. The high price of gold has made modern mining operations profitable, and the growth of the tourism industry has encouraged development of facilities. In the early 1950s, Dawson was linked by road to Alaska, and in fall 1955, with Whitehorse along a road that now forms part of the Klondike Highway. In 1978, another kind of buried treasure was discovered when a construction excavation inadvertently found a forgotten collection of more than 500 discarded films of fragile nitrate filmstock from the early 20th century that were buried in and preserved in the permafrost. This historical find was moved to Library and Archives Canada and the US Library of Congress for both transfer to safety filmstock and storage.

The City of Dawson and the nearby ghost town of Forty Mile are featured prominently in the novels and short stories of famed American author Jack London, who lived in Dawson are from October 1897 to June 1898. One of the books it's been featured in is the beloved book Call of the Wild.
[edit] Geology

Dawson City lies at the western end of the meeting of two continental plates. The line between these plates, called the Tintina Trench, continues eastward for several hundred kilometres. Erosional remnants of lava flows form outcrops immediately north and west of Dawson City.
[edit] Climate

Like most of the Yukon, Dawson City has a subarctic climate. The average temperature in July is 15.6 °C (60 °F) and in January is −26.7 °C (−16 °F). The highest temperature ever recorded is 34.7 °C (94 °F) on May 31, 1983 and the lowest temperature ever recorded is −55.8 °C (−68 °F) on February 11, 1979. It experiences a wide range of temperatures surpassing 30 °C (86 °F) in most summers and dropping below −40 °C (−40 °F) in winter.[2]

The community is at an elevation of 320 m (1,050 ft)[3] and the average rainfall in July is 48.4 mm (1.9 in) and the average snowfall in January is 24.2 cm (9.5 in). Dawson has an average total annual snowfall of 160.0 cm (63.0 in) and averages 90 frost free days per year.[2] The town is built on a layer of ice, which may pose a threat to the town's infrastructure in the future as the permafrost melts.[4][5]


[hide]Weather data for Dawson City
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Record high °C (°F) 9.7
(49) 9.5
(49) 11.1
(52) 22.3
(72) 34.7
(94) 32.9
(91) 33.5
(92) 33.5
(92) 25.3
(78) 17.7
(64) 10.6
(51) 6.5
(44)
Average high °C (°F) -22.5
(-9) -16.5
(2) -3.6
(26) 7.6
(46) 15.5
(60) 21.3
(70) 23.1
(74) 19.8
(68) 12.2
(54) -0.5
(31) -13.9
(7) -20.4
(-5) 1.8
(35)
Average low °C (°F) -30.9
(-24) -28.2
(-19) -20.2
(-4) -7.5
(19) 1
(34) 6
(43) 8.1
(47) 5.1
(41) -0.6
(31) -9.4
(15) -21.8
(-7) -28.9
(-20) -10.6
(13)
Record low °C (°F) -53.8
(-65) -55.8
(-68) -45.2
(-49) -32
(-26) -8.2
(17) -3
(27) -1.5
(29) -11
(12) -23.2
(-10) -36.5
(-34) -47.9
(-54) -51.8
(-61)
Precipitation mm (inches) 19.2
(0.76) 12.7
(0.5) 11.1
(0.44) 8
(0.31) 28.4
(1.12) 40.4
(1.59) 48.4
(1.91) 42.5
(1.67) 35
(1.38) 31.6
(1.24) 25.8
(1.02) 21.3
(0.84) 324.4
(12.77)
Source: Environment Canada[6] 2009-07-12
[edit] City or town
Most of Dawson's buildings look old-fashioned; all new construction must follow this policy.
Klondike Kate's Restaurant
Dredge No. 4

Dawson was incorporated as a city in 1902 when it met the criteria for "city" status under the municipal act of that time. It retained the incorporation even as the population plummeted. When a new municipal act was adopted in the 1980s, Dawson met the criteria of "town", and was incorporated as such, although with a special provision to allow it to continue to use the word "City", partially for historic reasons, partially to distinguish it from Dawson Creek, a small city in northeastern British Columbia. Dawson Creek is also named in honour of George Mercer Dawson. This led the territorial government to post the following signs at the boundaries of the town: "Welcome to the Town of the City of Dawson".
[edit] Law and government

In 2004, the Yukon government removed the mayor and the town council, as a result of the town going bankrupt. The territorial government accepted a large portion of the responsibility for this situation in March 2006, writing off $3.43 million of the debt and leaving the town with $1.5 million still to pay off. Elections were set for June 15, 2006. John Steins, a local artist and one of the leaders of the movement to restore democracy to Dawson, was acclaimed as mayor, while 13 residents ran for the 4 council seats.

The government of Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, now a self-governing First Nation, is also located in Dawson.
[edit] Industry

Today, Dawson City's main industries are tourism and gold mining.

Gold mining started in 1896 with the Bonanza (Rabbit) Creek discovery by George Carmack, Dawson Charlie and Skookum Jim Mason (Keish). The area's creeks were quickly staked and most of the thousands who arrived in the spring of 1898 for the Klondike Gold Rush found that there was very little opportunity to benefit directly from gold mining. Many instead became entrepreneurs to provide services to miners.

Starting approximately 10 years later, large gold dredges began an industrial mining operation, scooping huge amounts of gold out of the creeks, and completely reworking the landscape, altering the locations of rivers and creeks and leaving tailing piles in their wake. A network of canals and dams were built to the north to produce hydroelectric power for the dredges. The dredges shut down for the winter, but one built for "Klondike Joe Boyle" was designed to operate year-round, and Boyle had it operate all through one winter. That dredge (Dredge No. 4) is open as a national historic site on Bonanza Creek.

The last dredge shut down in 1966, and the hydroelectric facility, at North Fork, was closed when the City of Dawson declined an offer to purchase it. Since then, placer miners have returned to the status of being the primary mining operators in the region.

Besides Tr'ochëk, Dawson is home to several national historic sites many of which are included in the Dawson Historical Complex.[7]
[edit] Community profile

According to the Canada 2006 Census:[1][8]

    * Population in 2006: 1,327
    * Population in 2001: 1,251
    * Change 2001 to 2006 population change (%): 6.1
    * Total private dwellings: 768
    * Population density per square kilometre: 40.9
    * Land area (square km): 32.45

[edit] Transport and communications
Ferry for Highway 9.
Paddlewheeler Keno

    * Airports: Dawson City Airport, located 8 nautical miles (15 km; 9.2 mi) east of the town, has a 5,000 ft (1,524 m) gravel runway. Dawson City Water Aerodrome is located next to the community on the Yukon River. Both are classified as an airport of entry and, as such, can handle aircraft with up to 30 passengers. The water aerodrome is one of only two in Canada that that is able to handle aircraft with more than 15 passengers.[9]
    * Road: Klondike Highway (Yukon route 2) from Whitehorse-open year-round; Top of the World Highway (Yukon route 9) and Taylor Highway (Alaska route 5) from Tok, Alaska.
    * Winter transportation: During the winter, Dawson City is accessible via snowmachine or dog sled. The Yukon Quest sled dog race uses Dawson as the midway point of its competition in February.
    * Rail: none
    * Boat: none except for the Highway 9 ferry at the north end of town, although the Yukon River is navigable (when not frozen solid) and historically was travelled by commercial riverboats to Whitehorse and downstream into Alaska and the Bering Sea. Holland America Line also operates a catamaran, The Yukon Queen II, daily (roundtrip) between Dawson City and the town of Eagle, Alaska. This is mainly a service for its package tour customers, though anyone may purchase a ticket for the trip.
    * Television: local transmitters for Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (CH4261 channel 9) and CBC Television (CBDDT channel 7, rebroadcasting CFWH-TV)
    * Radio: CFYT-FM 106.9 (local community station, rebroadcasts CKRW Whitehorse when not originating local broadcasts); local transmitters for CBC Radio One (CBDN AM 540, rebroadcasting CFWH), CHON-FM (VF2049 90.5FM)
    * Newspaper: no daily newspapers locally, Klondike Sun published every two weeks, Yukon News is available three days per week
    * Cable television: municipal government-owned system with several channels via satellite
    * Telephone/Internet: Northwestel telephone exchange, with ADSL Internet; also dial-up internet from Yknet; cellular service to be introduced during late 2006 or spring 2007
    * Electricity: Yukon Energy Corporation (hydro from the Mayo, Yukon dam, diesel back-up)

[edit] Famous residents

Dawson City is also home of the Berton House Writers' Retreat program, housing established Canadian writers for four three-month get-away-from-it-all subsidized residencies each year. Berton House was the childhood home of popular-history writer Pierre Berton, and is across the street from the cabin that was home to poet Robert W. Service, and just up the street from the cabin that housed writer Jack London during his time in the town.

Dawson City was also the starting place of impressario Alexander Pantages. He opened a small theatre to serve the city. Soon, however, his activities expanded and the thrifty Greek went on and became one of Americas greatest theatre and movie tycoons.

Pierre Berton narrated the 1957 film City of Gold which describes the excitement of Dawson City during the gold rush. Pierre Berton also wrote the book "Klondike", a historical account of the gold rush to the Klondike 1896-1899.

The city was home to the famous Dawson City Nuggets hockey team, who in 1905 challenged the Ottawa Silver Seven for the Stanley Cup. Travelling to Ottawa by dog sled, ship, and train, the team lost the most lopsided series in Stanley Cup history, losing two games by the combined score of 32 to 4.

Martha Black, the second woman elected to the Canadian House of Commons, as a single mother living in Dawson she earned a living by staking gold mining claims and running a sawmill and a gold ore-crushing plant. She later married George Black, Commissioner of Yukon, and in 1935 was elected to the House of Commons for the riding of Yukon as an Independent Conservative taking the place of her ill husband.[10]

William Judge, a Jesuit priest who during the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush established a facility in Dawson which provided shelter, food and any available medicine to the many hard-at-luck gold miners who filled the town and its environs.[11]

William Ogilvie, a Dominion land surveyor, explorer and Commissioner of the Yukon. He surveyed the townsite of Dawson City and was responsible for settling many disputes between miners.[12]

[andy_g]

Dawson is a lunar impact crater that lies on the southern hemisphere on the far side of the Moon. It lies across a crater triplet: the southeast rim is intruding into the crater Alekhin; the northwest rim also intrudes into the larger satellite crater Dawson V, and the northeast rim is attached to the comparably sized Dawson D. To the south of this formation is the large crater Zeeman. West of Dawson is the crater Crommelin, and to the north lies Fizeau.

Dawson is a relatively young formation that lies in the midst of a field of ancient, heavily eroded craters. The outer rim is nearly circular, but slightly distorted due to the craters it overlaps. The western rim is slightly flattened where it overlaps Dawson V. The crater formation shows little appearance of wear, with only a small craterlet across the northwest rim and another inside the northeast rim. The interior is irregular with some slight terraces along parts of the inner wall.

[Ben Patrick]

Mork calling Dawson....come in dawson.....

[Dazzer]

Dawson's Creek

Premise

Aimed at a teenaged audience, the semi-autobiographical show is based on the small-town childhood of its creator Kevin Williamson (who also wrote the slasher film Scream). The lead character, Dawson Leery, mirrors Williamson's interests and background. Filmed in Wilmington and Durham, North Carolina, the show was set in a small fictional seaside town called Capeside, Massachusetts. It focused on four friends who were in the early part of their sophomore and first year of high school when the series began. The program, part of a new craze for teen-themed movies and television shows in America in the late 1990s, catapulted its leads to stardom and became a defining show for The WB. Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times declared in 2005 that "The WB is turning out to be the television equivalent of the United Nations" and that "Dawson's Creek was its Dag Hammarskjöld: It was the first series bold enough to pick up the mantle of Beverly Hills, 90210 and an inspiration for many variations on the teenage angst theme, including One Tree Hill on The CW."

Dawson's Creek generated a high amount of publicity before its debut, with several television critics and watchdog groups expressing concerns about its anticipated "racy" plots and dialogue; the controversy even drove one of the original production companies away from the project, but numerous critics praised it for its realism and intelligent dialogue that included allusions to American television icons such as The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. By the end of its run, the show, its crew, and its young cast had been nominated for numerous awards, winning four of them. The series is known for the verbosity and complexity of the dialogue between its teenaged characters—who commonly demonstrate vocabulary and cultural awareness that went beyond the scope of the average high school student, yet that is combined with an emotional immaturity and self-absorption reflecting actual teens. This precociousness has been a staple of a number of teenaged-themed shows since, notably including One Tree Hill (also filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina), The O.C. and Gossip Girl.

Origins and reaction

Kevin Williamson, a native of the small coastal town of Oriental, North Carolina, was approached in 1995 by producer Paul Stupin to write a pilot for a television series. Stupin, who as a Fox Network executive had brought Beverly Hills, 90210 to the air, sought out Williamson after having read his script for the slasher film Scream—a knowing, witty work about high school students. Initially offered to Fox, the network turned it down. The WB, however, was eagerly looking for programming to fill its new Tuesday night lineup. Williamson said "I pitched it as Some Kind of Wonderful, meets Pump Up the Volume, meets James at 15, meets My So-Called Life, meets Little House on the Prairie". The show's lead character, Dawson Leery, was based on Williamson himself: obsessed with movies and platonically sharing his bed with the girl down the creek.



Joey Potter (Katie Holmes) and Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek) in the "Pilot" episode (c. 1998).

Procter & Gamble Productions (which produces such daytime dramas as As the World Turns and Guiding Light) was an original co-producer of the series. The company, however, sold its interest in the show three months before the premiere when printed stories surfaced about the racy dialogue and risqué plot lines. John Kieswetter, television columnist for The Enquirer wrote: "As much as I want to love the show—the cool kids, charming New England setting, and stunning cinematography—I can't get past the consuming preoccupation with sex, sex, sex". Syndicated columnist John Leo said the show should be called "When Parents Cringe," and went on to write "The first episode contains a good deal of chatter about breasts, genitalia, masturbation, and penis size. Then the title and credits come on and the story begins". Tom Shales, of The Washington Post commented that creator Kevin Williamson was "the most overrated wunderkind in Hollywood" and "what he's brilliant at is pandering." In his defense, Williamson denied this was his intention, stating that "I never set out to make something provocative and racy".

The Parents Television Council proclaimed the show the single worst program of the 1997-1998 season, a title the Council would also award it for the 1998-1999 season. The Council also cited it the fourth worst show in 2000-2001. However, on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, the National Organization for Women offered an endorsement, deeming it one of the least sexually exploitive shows on the air. For every scathing review there was a glowing one: Variety wrote that it was "an addictive drama with considerable heart...the teenage equivalent of a Woody Allen movie—a kind of 'Deconstructing Puberty.'" The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called it "a teen's dream." The Dayton Daily News listed Capeside as a television town they'd most like to live in. The Seattle Times declared it the best show of the 1997-1998 season. The New York Times had perhaps the best headline on its review: "Young, Handsome, and Clueless in Peyton Place." That was precisely the sort of allusion real teenagers weren't likely to get, let alone make, but the show's punchy dialogue was full of them. Dawson calls his mother's co-anchor "Ted Baxter" and refers to his parents as "Rob and Laura Petrie." He responds to his principal's request for a film glorifying the football team as belonging to "the Leni Riefenstahl approach to filmmaking." Jen says her parents followed "the Ho Chi Minh school of parenting." The verbiage was high-flying too: star Michelle Williams confessed in interviews she had to consult her dictionary when she read the scripts.

While never a huge ratings success among the general television population, Dawson's Creek did very well with the younger demographic it targeted and became a defining show for the WB Network. (The first season's highest ranked episode was the finale, which was fifty-ninth, while the highest rated was the second episode, scoring so well only because there was no programming on the other networks, which were carrying President Clinton's State of the Union address in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal.)

The show endured phenomenal success in Australia where it rated number one in its timeslot for every episode covering seasons one to four. Its incredible support extended out into the music industry too when "Songs From Dawson's Creek", released in 1999 on Sony Music, reached #1 on the Australian Album Chart. It remained in the top spot for six weeks and was certified 3x Platinum; inevitably, it was the fifth highest selling album of the year. This was followed in 2001 when "Songs From Dawson's Creek — Volume 2" was released. Debuting at #1, the show's second soundtrack went on to achieve platinum status and was praised by critics and fans alike.

[LFC2007]

That dredge (Dredge No. 4) is open as a national historic site on Bonanza Creek.

[Bad Bob]

City of Dawson Creek

Location of Dawson Creek within the Peace River Regional District in British Columbia
Coordinates (City Hall): 55° 45' 38" N lat. 120° 14' 8" W long.
Country Canada
Province British Columbia
Region Peace River
Incorporated 1936-05-26 (village)
1958 (city)
Area
- Total 20.66 km2 (8 sq mi)
Elevation 665 m (2,182 ft)
Population (2007)
- Total 11,811
Time zone Mountain Time Zone (UTC-7)
- Summer (DST) not observed (UTC-7)
Postal code FSA V1G
Area code(s) 250
Website City of Dawson Creek
Flag of Canada.svg




Dawson Creek is a small city in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. The municipality of 20.66 square kilometers (7.98 sq mi) had a population of 15,000 in 2009. [1] Dawson Creek derives its name from the creek of the same name that runs through the community. The creek was named after George Mercer Dawson by a member of his land survey team when they passed through the area in August 1879. Once a small farming community, Dawson Creek became a regional centre when the western terminus of the Northern Alberta Railways was extended there in 1932. The community grew rapidly in 1942 as the US Army used the rail terminus as a transshipment point during construction of the Alaska Highway. In the 1950s, the city was connected to the interior of British Columbia via a highway and railway through the Rocky Mountains. Since the 1960s, growth has slowed.

Dawson Creek is located in the dry and windy prairie land of the Peace River Country. As the seat of the Peace River Regional District and a service centre for the rural areas south of the Peace River, the city has been called the "Capital of the Peace". It is also known as the "Mile 0 City", referring to its location at the southern end of the Alaska Highway. The community is home to a heritage interpretation village, an art gallery, and a museum. Annual events include a fall fair and a spring rodeo.
Contents
[hide]

    * 1 History
    * 2 Demographics
    * 3 Geography and climate
    * 4 Economy
    * 5 Transportation and infrastructure
    * 6 Culture, recreation, and media
    * 7 Government and politics
    * 8 References
    * 9 External links

[edit] History

Dawson Creek is named after the watercourse of the same name, itself named after George Mercer Dawson who led a surveying team through the area in August 1879; a member of the team labelled the creek with Dawson's name.[2] The community that formed by the creek was one of many farming communities established by European-Canadian settlers moving west through the Peace River Country. When the Canadian government began issuing homestead grants to settlers in 1912, the pace of migration increased. With the opening of a few stores and hotels in 1919 and the incorporation of the Dawson Creek Co-operative Union on 28 May 1921, Dawson Creek became a dominant business centre in the area.[3] After much speculation by land owners and investors, the Northern Alberta Railways built its western terminus 3 km (2 mi) from Dawson Creek.[4] The golden spike was driven on 29 December 1930, and the first passenger train arrived on 15 January 1931. The arrival of the railway and the construction of grain elevators attracted more settlers and business to the settlement. The need to provide services for the rapidly growing community led Dawson Creek to incorporate as a village in May 1936. A small wave of refugees from the Sudetenland settled in the area in 1939 as World War II was beginning.[5] The community exceeded 500 people in 1941.[6] Upon entering the war, the United States decided to build a transportation corridor to connect the US mainland to Alaska. In 1942, thousands of US Army personnel, engineers, and contractors poured into the city – the terminal of rail transport – to construct the Alaska Highway.

The highway was completed in less than a year; even after the workers involved in its construction departed, population and economic growth continued. By 1951, Dawson Creek had more than 3,500 residents.[6] In 1952, the John Hart Highway linked the town to the rest of the British Columbia Interior and Lower Mainland through the Rocky Mountains;[7] a new southbound route, known locally as Tupper Highway, made the town a crossroads with neighbouring Alberta. The next year, western Canada's largest propane gas plant was built[8] and federal government offices were established in town. In 1958, the extension of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway to the Peace from Prince George was completed,[7] and the village was re-incorporated as a city. Between 1951 and 1961, the population of Dawson Creek more than tripled.
The former Dawson Creek city logo, retired in 2002.

Growth slowed in the 1960s, with the population reaching its all-time high in 1966. In the 1970s, the provincial government moved its regional offices from Pouce Coupe to the city, Northern Lights College opened a Dawson Creek campus, and the Dawson Creek Mall was constructed. Several modern grain elevators were built, and the town's five wooden grain elevators, nicknamed "Elevator Row", were taken out of service. Only one of the historic elevators remains, converted to an art gallery. Since the 1970s, with the nearby town of Fort St. John attracting much of the area's industrial development and Grande Prairie becoming a commercial hub, the town's population and economy have not significantly increased.

Since 1991, the city has undergone several boundary expansions. One expansion incorporated undeveloped land in the southeast for an industrial park and a Louisiana-Pacific Canada veneer factory.[9] The city extended sewer and water lines to the location; however, the area was not developed and with the factory only half-built, L-P Canada abandoned its plans. A business making manufactured homes bought the factory and completed its development in 2005.[10] Another expansion incorporated the existing oriented strand board factory in the northwest corner of the city, while further incorporations have included undeveloped land to the south and north.
[edit] Demographics
Population, 1976–2006.[11][12]

The 1941 census, the first to include Dawson Creek as a defined subdivision, counted 518 residents.[6] Its growth spurred by the construction of the Alaska Highway, the town recorded a sevenfold increase to 3,589 residents in the 1951 census. Within five years, the population doubled to 7,531.[6] New transport links with southern British Columbia and Alberta spurred continued growth into the next decade. The population peaked in 1966 at 12,392, then declined throughout the 1970s, rising again briefly during the construction of the nearby town of Tumbler Ridge in the early 1980s. Dawson Creek's population has remained relatively stable since then. In the ten-year span from 1998 to 2007, the population was lowest in 2003 (11,144) and highest in 2007 (11,811), per provincial estimates.[12]
Canada 2006 Census[13]
Dawson Creek British Columbia
Median age 35.6 years 40.8 years
Under 15 years old 21% 17%
Over 65 years old 12% 14%
Visible minority 3% 25%

According to the 2006 Canadian census, there were 10,994 people living in 4,650 households within the city[13] (the official provincial figure was 11,563 people, including an estimate of net census undercount[12]). Of the federally surveyed households, 33% were one-person households, slightly above the 28% average provincewide; households consisting of couples with children, at 26%, were very close to the provincial average; and households of couples without children, at 24%, were below the provincial average of 30%. Among its 3,000 census families, Dawson Creek had a smaller proportion of married couples than the province, 62% compared to 73%, but the same average number of persons per family, 2.9. With 92% of Dawson Creek residents being Canadian-born, and 93% speaking only English, the city has few visible minorities. Only 17% of residents aged 35–64 had a university certificate or diploma, compared to the provincewide rate of 29%. Among those aged 25–64, 20% did not have a high school certificate or equivalent, much higher than the 12% provincewide rate.[13]
Crime rate, 1984–2005.[14]

In 2005, the 22-officer Dawson Creek Royal Canadian Mounted Police municipal detachment reported 2,561 Criminal Code of Canada offenses. This translated into a crime rate of 225 Criminal Code offenses per 1,000 people, down from the previous year's rate of 231, but still much higher than the provincial average of 125. In 2004, per 1,000 people, the city had higher crime rates compared to the provincial averages on all Criminal Code offenses except theft from motor vehicles (19.8 city, 20.2 province), heroin-related offenses (0 city, 0.13 province), and murder (0 city, 0.03 province). The city had slightly higher but comparable levels of offensive weapons charges, cannabis-related offenses, robbery, and motor vehicle thefts. Per 1,000 people, the city had much higher levels of shoplifting (13.8 city, 4.2 province), cocaine-related offenses (7.8 city, 1.4 province), commercial break-and-enters (11.2 city, 4.2 province), residential break-and-enters (13.9 city, 6.0 province), and non-sexual assaults (26.2 city, 9.9 province).[14]
[edit] Geography and climate

At the foot of Bear Mountain ridge, the city developed around the Dawson Creek watercourse which flows eastward into the Pouce Coupe River. The city is located on the Pouce Coupe Prairie in the southwestern part of the Peace River Country, 72 km (44.7 mi) southeast of Fort St. John, and 134 km (83.3 mi) northwest of Grande Prairie. According to the Canada Land Inventory, the city is on soil that has moderate limitations, due to an adverse climate, that restrict the range of crops or require moderate conservation practices.[15] The land is flat, but slopes upwards in the northeastern corner elevating a residential area over the rest of the city.

The city is in the British Columbia Peace Lowland ecosection of the Canadian Boreal Plains ecozone on the continental Interior Platform. Located in the Cordillera Climatic Region, it has a subhumid low boreal ecoclimate. In the summer, the city is often dusty and arid. Heavy rain showers are sporadic, lasting only a few minutes. In the winter, the city can get bitterly cold and dry. It is subject to very strong winds year round.[16] Unlike the rest of the province, the city and its region use Mountain Standard Time throughout the year, since the area already has long daylight hours in the summer and short daylight hours in the winter.


[hide]Weather data for Dawson Creek
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Record high °C (°F) 15
(59) 15.5
(60) 18.9
(66) 29
(84) 32.2
(90) 33.3
(92) 32.5
(91) 34.5
(94) 32
(90) 27.5
(82) 18.9
(66) 13.9
(57)
Average high °C (°F) -8.7
(16) -4.9
(23) 0.9
(34) 10
(50) 16.5
(62) 19.9
(68) 21.7
(71) 21.1
(70) 16
(61) 9.4
(49) -1.6
(29) -6.8
(20) 7.8
(46)
Average low °C (°F) -20.6
(-5) -17.2
(1) -10.6
(13) -2.9
(27) 2.2
(36) 6.9
(44) 8.6
(47) 7.2
(45) 3.2
(38) -1.8
(29) -12
(10) -18
(-0) -6.4
(20)
Record low °C (°F) -48.3
(-55) -45
(-49) -44.4
(-48) -27.2
(-17) -13.3
(8) -5
(23) -1.7
(29) -7.1
(19) -16.7
(2) -30.9
(-24) -39.8
(-40) -49.2
(-57)
Precipitation mm (inches) 28.9
(1.14) 22.3
(0.88) 21.3
(0.84) 18.1
(0.71) 37.1
(1.46) 76
(2.99) 83.9
(3.3) 60.4
(2.38) 46.7
(1.84) 28.8
(1.13) 28
(1.1) 30.6
(1.2) 482
(18.98)
Source: Environment Canada[17] 2009-07-10
[edit] Economy

The economy of Dawson Creek is based around four major industries: agriculture, retail, tourism, and oil and gas.[18] Agriculture has historically been the most important industry to Dawson Creek, as the city is the regional transshipment point for agricultural commodities. The city is surrounded by the Agricultural Land Reserve, where the soil can support livestock and produces consistently good yields of quality grain and grass crops, such as canola, hay, oats, alfalfa, wheat, and sweet clover.[19] The service and retail sector caters to the city's inhabitants, smaller nearby towns, and rural communities. However, there is significant retail leakage to Grande Prairie, the closest major Alberta city, where there is no provincial tax on retail purchases, while British Columbia charges 7%.[20] In 2006, the BC government rejected a proposal to lower the sales tax in the province's border communities to 4%.[21] The problem of leakage has been exacerbated in recent years by the introduction of large-format retail stores into the small city. Residents still cross the border for high-priced items but now also purchase medium- and low-priced items from foreign-owned large-format chain stores.
Economy (2001)[22]
Rate City Province
Unemployment rate 10.3% 8.5%
Participation rate 69.5% 65.2%
Poverty rate 16.5% 17.8%
Average male income $49,551 $50,191
Average female income $30,846 $35,895

Dawson Creek has a large tourism industry as Mile "0" of the Alaska Highway.[23] Thousands of people drive on the highway every year, starting in Dawson Creek and ending in Fairbanks, Alaska. The trek is often made with recreational vehicles, sometimes in convoys which gather in the city. In the winter, the hospitality industry caters to workers from the oil patches. Discoveries south of Dawson Creek[24] and higher energy prices have spurred oil and gas activities, which have in turn driven the nearby Fort St. John economy to spill over to the Dawson Creek economy. British Columbia's first wind farm is expected to be constructed several miles southwest of the city in 2008.[25]
[edit] Transportation and infrastructure
The City of Dawson Creek in relation to the highways and the Dawson Creek watercourse.

Dawson Creek's road network was laid out in the mid-20th century as the town rapidly expanded. The city maintains 88 km (55 mi) of paved and 11 km (7 mi) of unpaved roads.[26] The primary roads generally follow a grid pattern around large blocks of land. Because the grid contains many internal intersections with stops signs, traffic is forced onto two arterial roads: 8 Street going north–south and Alaska Avenue going southeast–northwest. These two roads meet at a traffic circle where a metal statue marks the beginning of the Alaska Highway. Officially designated British Columbia Highway 97, it runs north from Dawson Creek to Fort St. John and the Yukon – where it becomes Highway 1 – before reaching Alaska. The other highways emanating from Dawson Creek are the John Hart Highway, also 97 (southwest to Chetwynd and Prince George), Highway 2 (south to Grande Prairie and southern Alberta), and Highway 49 (east to Peace River and northern Alberta). A road with few intersections along the southern and western borders of the city, incorporating a stretch of Highway 2, is designated as a "dangerous goods route" for heavy trucks so that they can avoid traveling through the city. However, Highway 49 has no direct access to such a ring road, so many trucks bound to or from the east use the city arterials, slowing traffic and damaging roads.
Looking south past traffic circle down 8 Street, with the metal statue pointing the way northwest to Alaska.

Dawson Creek is a regional node for air, rail, and bus services. The Dawson Creek Airport, which services commercial flights by Central Mountain Air, was built in 1963; its 1,524 m (5,000 ft) runway was paved in 1966. There are larger airports in Fort St. John and Grande Prairie that maintain more comprehensive flight schedules. Passenger rail service was available in Dawson Creek between 1931 and 1974. Service began when the Northern Alberta Railways (NAR) built its northwest terminus in the town and was extended in 1958 to Vancouver with a rail line through the Rocky Mountains. Passenger rail service ended as commodity shipments of grains, oil and gas by-products, and forestry products became more important in the resource-based economy. Greyhound Lines maintains a bus station in Dawson Creek which connects the city to Vancouver, Edmonton (via Grande Prairie), and Whitehorse (via Fort Nelson).

The city draws its water supply from the Kiskatinaw River, 18 km (11 mi) west of town. Before reaching the city, the water is pumped through a settling pond, two storage ponds, and a treatment plant where it is flocculated, filtered, and chlorinated. The city also provides drinking water for Pouce Coupe and rural residents. Sewage is processed by a lagoon system east of town and released into the Pouce Coupe River.[24] Dawson Creek is located in School District 59 Peace River South which maintains five elementary schools (Tremblay, Parkhill, Frank Ross, Crescent Park, and Canalta elementary schools), one middle school (Central Middle School), and one high school (South Peace Secondary School). Established in 1975, Northern Lights College's main campus is located in Dawson Creek and offers diplomas for two-year programs and degrees from the University of Northern British Columbia.
[edit] Culture, recreation, and media
Dawson Creek Art Gallery in NAR Park.

The culture of Dawson Creek is centred around its designation as Mile "0" of the Alaska Highway. The Mile "0" post, depicted in the city flag, is located in the historic downtown area, one block south of the Northern Alberta Railways Park. This four-acre (1.6 ha), mostly paved park is the gathering point for travellers. The park includes the Dawson Creek Art Gallery, which exhibits work by local artists and craftsmen. The Station Museum, connected to the art gallery, displays artifacts and exhibits associated with the construction of the NAR railway and the Alaska Highway. Other parks in Dawson Creek include the Mile Zero Rotary Park and the Walter Wright Pioneer Village. Annual events in the city include the Dawson Creek Symphonette and Choir performance, the Dawson Creek Art Gallery auction, the Dawson Creek Spring Rodeo, and the Peace Country Blue Grass Festival.[27] The largest event, held annually since 1953, is the Dawson Creek Fall Fair & Exhibition — a five-day professional rodeo, with a parade, fairgrounds, and exhibitions.[28]

City recreation facilities include two ice hockey arenas, a curling rink, an indoor swimming pool, an outdoor ice rink, and a speed skating oval. The South Peace Community Multiplex, a new facility under construction on the outskirts of the city, will replace the swimming pool.[29] Voters approved building the Multiplex in a 2004 referendum which projected its cost at C$21.6 million.[30] The project became controversial when construction began and the cost projection was raised to $35 million.[31] The facility is located close to the city's exhibition grounds, away from residential uses. It features an indoor rodeo arena and a 4,000-seat convention centre/ice arena with skyboxes. Nearby Bear Mountain, located south of the city, provides over 20 km (12 mi) of snowshoeing and cross-country skiing trails, as well as areas for downhill skiing and about 500 km (300 mi) of trails for snowmobiles, mountain bikes, and all-terrain vehicles.

Dawson Creek is served by several regional newspapers. The Dawson Creek Daily News (formerly Peace River Block Daily News) and Fort St. John's Alaska Highway News, both part of the Glacier Ventures chain of local papers, are dailies available in the city. The Northeast News, a free weekly published in Fort St. John, has sub-offices in Dawson Creek and Fort Nelson. The only radio station broadcasting from Dawson Creek is 890 CJDC AM, which first went on air in 1947.[32] Originating in Chetwynd, 94.5 Peace FM (CHET) is rebroadcast in Dawson Creek. The Fort St. John stations 95.1 Energy FM (CHRX), 101.5 The Bear FM (CKNL). A local community group, the Cable 10 Society, operates a community television station. The only other television station is the CBC Television affiliate CJDC-TV, which has been broadcasting from the city since 1959.[33]
[edit] Government and politics

The City of Dawson Creek has a council-manager form of municipal government. A six-member council, along with one mayor, is elected at-large every three years. On October 19, 2008, Mayor Calvin Kruk died.[34][35] Kruk had served on the city council for three years before being elected mayor in November 2005, defeating one-term incumbent Wayne Dahlen. In the 2008 municipal elections, Kruk was running for re-election as mayor but after being diagnosed with lung cancer, he ran for a seat on council instead.

In 2007, the city authorized $54 million in expenditures, which paid for services such as sewerage, parks, recreation, road maintenance, snow removal, water treatment, and fire and police protection.[36] For creating its Community Energy Plan, which involved the installation of low-voltage street lights and solar-powered hot water heaters, the city was awarded the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' 2007 Sustainable Community Award.[37] The city is represented in School District 59 by two school board trustees,[38] and the Peace River Regional District by one director.[39]

Dawson Creek is situated in the Peace River South provincial electoral district and is represented by Blair Lekstrom of the British Columbia Liberal Party in the provincial assembly. Lekstrom served as mayor of Dawson Creek between 1996 and 2001. He became a Member of the Legislative Assembly in the 2001 provincial election with 67% support from Dawson Creek polls[40] and was re-elected in 2005 with 57% support from the city.[41] Before Lekstrom, Peace River South was represented by Dawson Creek resident Jack Weisgerber. Weisgerber was first elected in 1986 as a member of the Social Credit Party and served as the province's Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources and Minister of Native Affairs. While the Social Credit Party lost power in 1991, Weisgerber was re-elected and served as interim party leader. He joined the Reform Party of British Columbia in 1994 and won re-election in 1996 as party leader, even though Dawson Creek polls put him in third place behind the BC Liberal Party and New Democratic Party candidates.[42]

Federally, Dawson Creek is located in the Prince George—Peace River riding. The riding is represented in the Canadian House of Commons by Conservative Jay Hill. Before Hill, who was first elected in 1993, the riding was represented by Progressive Conservative Frank Oberle. Oberle served as its Member of Parliament for 20 years.[43]
Canadian federal election, 2006: Dawson Creek polls in Prince George—Peace River[44]
Party Candidate Votes city  % riding %
      Conservative Jay Hill 2,532 64% 60%
      New Democrat Malcolm Crockett 653 16% 17%
      Liberal Nathan Bauder 489 12% 16%
      Green Hilary Crowley 265 6.7% 6.4%
      Independent Donna Young 45 1.1% 0.9%


British Columbia general election, 2005: Dawson Creek polls in Peace River South[41]
Party Candidate Votes city  % riding %
      BC Liberal Blair Lekstrom 2,167 57% 58%
      New Democrat Pat Shaw 1,314 34% 33%
      Green Ariel Lade 338 8.9% 9.5%

[metalhead]

Peter Dawson (31 January 1882 - 27 September 1961) was an Australian bass-baritone who gained worldwide renown through his song recitals and the numerous recordings of classical arias, oratorio solos and ballads that he made in a career spanning almost 60 years.

Although his repertoire included a great deal of popular and light music, Dawson possessed a remarkable and impeccable vocal technique that was combined with an attractive dark timbre, an ideal balance of diction and vocal placing, a strong but integrated 'attack' without resort to intrusive aspirates, and a near-perfect ability to manage musical ornaments and roulades.

These qualities probably derived from his studies with Sir Charles Santley, the great English baritone of the Victorian era. If Dawson's interpretations were not profoundly penetrating, they were not shallow either; and in his chosen field of English concert repertoire of the vigorous, manly, outdoors' kind, he remains unequalled. The tremendously high technical quality of his Handel singing sets an unmatched standard, too.

In 1984, Dawson was chosen by the Guinness Book of Recorded Sound as one of the top 10 singers on disc of all time, alongside such luminaries as Elvis Presley and Enrico Caruso.

Dawson's early career
Peter Dawson was born of immigrant Scottish parents, Thomas Dawson and Alison, née Miller, in Adelaide, South Australia, the youngest of nine children. At 17 he joined a church choir and took singing lessons from C.J. Stevens. At 19 he won a prize for bass solo in a competition at Ballarat, Victoria, and began taking concert engagements.

He was sent to London to be taught by Charles Santley, who first sent him to F.L. Bamford of Glasgow for six months’ training and coaching in exercises, arias, oratorio and classical songs. He then studied from 1903-1907 with Santley, who gave him a thorough training in voice production and a meticulous understanding of the great oratorios, especially Handel's Messiah, Mendelssohn's Elijah and Haydn's The Creation. In 1904 he joined Santley on an eight-week concert tour of the West of England with Emma Albani.

He attended many performances at Covent Garden in the period and heard the leading singers of the age, including the baritones Titta Ruffo, Pasquale Amato, Mattia Battistini, Mario Sammarco, Marcel Journet, Edouard de Reszke and the bass Pol Plançon. Throughout his life he acknowledged the example of Battistini. In addition to Italian opera he also grew to admire the Wagner operas.

In around 1908 he married Nan Noble, daughter of the box-office manager of the Alhambra Theatre, who sang soprano under the name Annette George. A Russian specialist assisted him to extend his upper range, until his compass extended from E flat in the bass to a high A or A flat. In 1909 he appeared at Covent Garden as the Night Watchman in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (beside tenor Walter Hyde as David) under Hans Richter. During one of these performances, after winning a large kitty at poker in the wings from Claude Fleming, he hurried on at his call and accidentally scattered his winnings over the stage. (Dawson, who had a lively sense of humour, was a master of such anecdotes, usually about other performers.) He did not find the opera stage congenial, and his career developed instead as a concert and oratorio singer.

[edit] The concert platform
He was approached to appear at the Queens Hall, but first (1909-1910) made a successful six-month tour of Australia with the Amy Castles company. On his return he began appearing in Promenade Concerts. A second long tour with his own company in Australia and New Zealand ended with the outbreak of war. He returned to England via South Africa, but decided to go back to Australia to enlist.

After the War and another South African tour he returned to a British tour with the International Celebrity Concerts (recitals of operatic numbers). With Gerald Moore he gave lieder recitals at the Wigmore Hall in 1924. His sixth Australian tour was in 1931, and he paid further visits in 1933, 1935, early 1939 and 1948-9. He made an extensive singing tour of India, Burma and the Straits Settlements during the 1930s. He also toured in Ireland. His first BBC radio broadcast was made in 1931 and included songs of Schubert and Brahms: he was afterwards a prolific broadcaster, and was still active ‘on air’ in the 1950s.

[edit] Dawson and the Gramophone
The Gramophone was a major factor in Dawson's career. Dawson made his first recording in 1904, and continued to release songs for EMI and HMV until 1958. A recent biography estimates that he issued in excess of 1,500 recordings. An estimate quoted in his autobiography suggests that he had recorded 3,500 different titles. His first were made for Edison Bell on wax cylinders in 1904. After a few experiments, Fred Gaisberg signed Dawson to an exclusive disc record contract for the Gramophone Company (HMV) in 1906; however he continued to record on cylinder for Edison until the company closed its London studios before World War I. Dawson's standard repertoire rapidly became a mainstay for HMV. In addition he recorded Scottish songs popularized by Harry Lauder under the pseudonym Hector Grant, for the sister Zonophone label.

In 1906 Dawson took part in the first series of partially complete Gilbert and Sullivan opera recordings, together with other studio artists. Beginning in 1919 he took part in an extensive series of musically complete recordings of Gilbert and Sullivan operas with members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company under the supervision of Rupert D'Oyly Carte and conducted by HMV staff conductor George W. Byng. By 1920 he had achieved total record sales of five million discs. After the First World War, technology was improving, and he recut many of his titles during the early 1920s, his sales exceeding 8 million by 1925. With the introduction of electrical microphone recording in 1925, the core body of his work was committed once again to disc, including new Gilbert and Sullivan versions under Sir Malcolm Sargent. Dawson's electrical recordings from the late 1920s and early 1930s had the longest shelf-life, and most households owned at least one. By the Second World War his sales exceeded 12 million. He even recorded some stereo tracks in the 1950s.

[edit] Repertoire
Dawson's repertoire was essentially adapted to the purposes of the recital platform, growing out of the late 19th-century tradition of the smoking concerts and Chappell Recitals. He was an advocate of singing in English.

He owed to Santley a taste and technique suited to Oratorio, of which Handel's Messiah was his favourite work. Handel standards ("O Ruddier than the Cherry"; "Why do the Nations?"; "Honour and Arms"; "Arm, arm ye Brave" and "Droop not Young Lover") and Mendelssohn ("I am a Roamer" and "It is Enough" (Elijah)) remained constantly in his work, and he sang the Elgar roles, including "Oh My Warriors" from Caractacus. His concert operatic titles were principally "The Prologue" (Pagliacci), "Credo" (Otello), "Even Bravest Heart" (Gounod's Faust – originally written for his teacher Santley) - "Largo al Factotum" (Barber of Seville), "Non piu andrai" (Marriage of Figaro), "O Star of Eve" (Tannhäuser), "Toreador Song" (Carmen), "Pari siamo" (Rigoletto) and Sarastro's "Within this Hallowed Dwelling" (The Magic Flute).

The German Lied attracted him, notably Schubert ("Erl King", "Ave Maria", "Who is Sylvia", "Sei mir gegrusst", "Erstarrung", "Wasserflut", "Die Krahe" and "Ungeduld"); Schumann ("Die Beiden Grenadier", "Fruhlingsnacht"); Karl Loewe ("The Clock", "Edward"); Brahms ("Die Mainacht", "Botschaft", "Standchen", "Der Tod das ist die Kuhle Nacht", "Blinde Kuh"); Richard Strauss ("Traum durch die Dammerung") and Hugo Wolf ("Nun wandre Maria", "Verschwiegene Liebe"). Russian standards also appeared in his programmes, notably Tchaikovsky ("To the Forest", "None but the Lonely Heart", "Don Juan's Serenade"), Rachmaninoff's "Christ is Risen" and Malashkin's "O Could I But Express in Song".

However it was in English language and British song that Dawson was especially famous, and his career helped to preserve the concert recital, and many of the older ballad type of songs, at a time when other forms of popular music were displacing the Victorian fashion. He was particularly successful with the heartier, rollicking songs such as Off to Philadelphia, The Old Superb, or Up from Somerset. He sang a good deal of Stanford and Arthur Somervell, a few Sullivan warhorses, and had a select range of items by contemporaries such as Percy French, Peter Warlock, Liza Lehmann, Granville Bantock, Eric Coates, Roger Quilter, Thomas F Dunhill, Edward German, George Butterworth, Gustav Holst, Landon Ronald, Michael Head, Frank Bridge, Arnold Bax and W.A. Aitken.

Many songs became personally identified with him, including "The Floral Dance" (Moss), "The Kerry Dance" (Molloy), "The Bandolero" (Stuart), "The Cobbler's Song" (from Chu Chin Chow), "In a Monastery Garden" and "In a Persian Market" (Ketelbey), "The Lute Player" (Allitsen), "The Boys of the Old Brigade" (Weatherley), and "On the Road to Mandalay" (Speaks and Hedgcock versions). His performance of the "Four Indian Love Lyrics" (Amy Woodforde-Finden) and his "Roses of Picardy" (Wood) were famous. He composed a number of songs himself, under the name J.P. McCall, most famously his setting of Rudyard Kipling's "Boots", which won the author's approval and was one of Dawson's greatest successes.

His recitals were also enlivened by the inclusion of many Australian songs, notably "Waltzing Matilda", "Song of Australia", "Clancy of the Overflow" and "The Rivetter" (Albert Arlen's settings), "Six Australian Bush Songs", and also Alfred Hill's version of the New Zealand Māori song "Waiata Poi".

[laza]

[Dazzer]

Jill Dawson

Jill Dawson is one of Britain's most talented contemporary writers. She began publishing at the age of 22 by winning first prize in a national short story competition. She went on to win an Eric Gregory Award for poetry, and published her first novel, Trick of the Light, in 1996. She is the author of six novels, editor of six anthologies of poetry and short stories, and has published one poetry pamphlet. Fred & Edie, her third novel, was shortlisted for both the Whitbread and Orange Prize, and was voted one of 50 essential novels by a living author.
She has held many fellowships, including the British Council Fellowship in Amherst, and the Creative Writing Fellowship at UEA, where she taught on the Writing MA.
In 2006 she received an honorary doctorate in recognition of her writing and her work with new writers.
Her latest novel, The Great Lover, has been selected as a Summer Read for 2009 by TV's Richard and Judy Book Club. 
Jill Dawson is currently director of Gold Dust, a mentoring scheme for writers.

[woof woof !]

Short history: courtesy of Sir Jack Dawsons facebook

Dawson has been under much discussion for many centuries now. it was first rumoured he is a devil incarnate but was disregarded shortly after. Today scholars believe Sir Jack Dawson was created in newcastle. raised a novacastrian dawson developed his intense training routine, highly focusing on power enhancement. it was this very training routine that found Dawson's calfs to be the size of small cows.
it was then jack moved down to sydney, mosman where he calls home. it was here where Dawson was adopted by the Sydney Roosters. Since then Dawson has truely reached his potiential making him the ultimate human being he is today

Other Interesting Facts:
Apple pays Dawson 99 cents every time he listens to a song.

Dawson can sneeze with his eyes open.

Dawson destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.

Dawson can kill two stones with one bird.

Dawson can Slam a Revolving door

Dawson uses pepper spray to spice up his meal

and finally (or maybe not)

Dawson has returned to Mittagong, and is now closer to God than Jesus.

[Reg]

Dawson's gone.....

Les Dawson was born in Manchester in 1934 and rose to fame with jokes insulting his wife and the mother-in-law, a staple, if rather un-PC, type of British humour. He left the Army after his National Service and as he had had a short story published he moved to Paris to become a writer. What in fact happened was he started to play the piano in a brothel to pay the bills (although for weeks he thought it was nothing more than a cabaret club!)

His act was bright and breezy and went down well with most audiences (although there was always one or two where he died on stage, one time being when he had to follow two minutes silence in respect of the recently deceased club chairman!), but the act really turned the corner when he was engaged at a Hull club, and after a whole week of performances, he got drunk at before the last, and came on bemoaning life, and slumped over the piano. 'I don't have to do this for a living, I just do it for the luxuries like bread and shoes'. On this his new act was born, but it didn't make too much difference until he entered Opportunity Knocks! in 1967 and won. He never really looked back.

Dawson began his entertainment career as a club pianist ("I finally heard some applause from a bald man and said 'thank you for clapping me' and he said 'I'm not clapping - I'm slapping me head to keep awake.'"); but found that he got more laughs by playing wrong notes and complaining to the audience.

He made his television debut in the talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1967 and was seldom absent from British television screens in the years that followed. His best-known routines featured Roy Barraclough and Dawson as two elderly women, Cissie Braithwaite and Ada Shufflebotham. Cissie had pretensions of refinement and often corrected Ada's malapropisms or vulgar expressions. As authentic characters of their day, they spoke some words aloud but only mouthed others, particularly those pertaining to bodily functions and sex.

No respectable woman would have said, for instance, "She's having a hysterectomy." Instead they would have mouthed, "She's having women's troubles."(Dawson's character, of course, mistakenly said "hysterical rectomy.") These female characters were based on those Les Dawson knew in real life. He explained that this mouthing of words was a habit of millworkers trying to communicate over the tremendous racket of the looms, and then resorted to in daily life for indelicate subjects. To further portray the reality of northern, working-class women, Cissie and Ada would sit with folded arms, occasionally adjusting their bosoms by a hoist of the forearms. Many of the Cissie and Ada sketches were written by Terry Ravenscroft. This was also typical of pantomime dame style, an act copied faithfully from his hero, Norman Evans, who had made famous his act Over The Garden Wall.

One of Les's best loved routines was where he would perform a song on the piano, however, he would play the piano very badly. It is alleged that it takes a very good piano player to play the piano as 'badly' as Les could.

Les Dawson was of portly build and often dressed in the traditional 'John Bull' of England costume. He introduced to his BBC TV shows a dancing group of very fat ladies called the Roly Polys. He loved to undercut his own fondness for high culture. For example, he was a talented pianist but developed a gag where he would begin to play a familiar piece such as Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. After he had established the identity of the piece being performed, Dawson would introduce hideously wrong notes without appearing to realise that he had done so, meanwhile smiling unctuously and apparently relishing the accuracy and soul of his own performance. He also used a grand piano in a series of sketches where it became animated, for example, trying to walk away from him across the stage, collapsing or shutting its lid etc.

Dawson's style as a comic performer was world-weary, lugubrious and earthy. He was as popular with female as with male audiences, and genuinely loved by the British public. A news reporter from The Sun looking for him after a show to interview him found him joking with and making some cleaning women laugh backstage.

Before his fame Dawson wrote poetry and kept it secret. It was not expected that someone of his working class background should harbour literary ambitions. In a BBC TV documentary about his life, he spoke about his love for some canonical figures in English literature, in particular Charles Lamb, whose somewhat florid style influenced Dawson's own.

His love of language influenced many of his comedy routines - for example one otherwise fairly routine joke began with the line "I was vouchsafed this vision by a pockmarked Lascar in the arms of a frump in a Huddersfield bordello...". He was also a master of painting a beautiful word picture and then letting the audience down with a bump: "The other day I was gazing up at the night sky, a purple vault fretted with a myriad points of light twinkling in wondrous formation, while shooting stars streaked across the heavens, and I thought: I really must repair the roof on this toilet."

Dawson wrote many novels but was always regarded solely as an entertainer in the public imagination, and this saddened him. He told this second wife, Tracey, "Always remind them - I was a writer too."

Having broken his jaw in a boxing match, Dawson was able to pull grotesque faces by pulling his jaw over his upper lip. This incident is described in the first volume of Dawson's autobiography A Clown Too Many.

His first wife, Margaret, died on 15 April 1986 from cancer. They had had three children ; Julie, Pamela and Stuart. He later married Tracy on 6 May 1989, despite worries that his showbusiness contemporaries and the public would object, as she was 17 years younger. They eventually had a daughter, Charlotte who was born on 3 October 1992.

Dawson starred in a radio sketch show Listen to Les, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 during the 1970s and 1980s. Television series in which he appeared included Sez Les, "The Dawson Watch", written by Andy Hamilton and Terry Ravenscroft, The Les Dawson Show, written by Terry Ravenscroft, Dawson's Weekly, Joker's Wild and the quiz show Blankety Blank, which he presented for some years. His final TV appearance was on the LWT Series Surprise Surprise hosted by Cilla Black, when he sang a comical rendition of "I Got You Babe" with a woman from the audience who wanted to fulfill a wish to sing with him.

Les lived with his second wife Tracy, for many years, in Lytham, Lancashire, where a commemorative statue of him was unveiled by Tracy and Charlotte live during an edition of 'The One Show" on BBC TV on 23 October 2008. The Roly Polys were there too.

Classic Les Jokes;
I said to the chemist, 'Can I have some sleeping pills for the wife?' He said, 'Why?' I said, 'She keeps waking up.'
***
I upset the wife's mother the other Guy Fawkes Night. I fell off the fire.
***
She told me it was her 30th birthday. So I put thirty candles on her cake arranged in the shape of a question mark.
***
Duck goes into the chemist's shop.
'A tube of lipsol please.'
'Certainly, that will be fifty pence.'
'Put it on my bill, please.'
***
I said to my wife, 'Treasure' - I always call her Treasure, she reminds me of something that's just been dug up.
***
She was the flabbiest stripper I've ever seen. When she ran off the stage she started her own applause.
***
People say to me, 'Cheer up, Lady Luck will smile on you one day.' By the time she smiles on me she won't have any teeth left.
***
I wouldn't say the room was small but when I talked to myself, one of us had to step outside to reply.
***
I was in a play on TV once. It was one of those suspense plays. It kept you wondering... what's on the other channels?
***
There was an old farmer from Greece
Who did terrible things to his geese
But he went too far with a budgerigar
And the parrot phoned the police.
***
I went to a small guest house. The manager said, 'You want a room with running water? I said, 'What do you think I am? A trout?'
***
I wouldn't say the house was damp but the kids went to bed with a periscope.
***
Kids are maturing so much earlier now. Every Sunday I've been taking my six-year-old over to the park to play on the swings and the slides. Last Sunday he refused to go. He said he's too old for that sort of thing. So now I'll have to play on the swings on my own.
***
I said to the wife, 'I wish you wouldn't smoke in bed.' She said, 'But a lot of women do.' I said, 'Not bacon they don't.'
***
Ours is a football marriage, we keep waiting for the other one to kick off
***
What amazes me is that so many people think showbusiness is glamorous and exciting. Believe me, it's about as glamorous as changing sheets in a bed-wetting clinic.
***
No laughs hey? I know the act smells, but I'm right on top of it and you don't hear me complain.
***
I was lying in bed the other morning playing a lament on my euphonium when the wife, who was prising her teeth out of an apple, looked back at me and said softly, 'Joey.' She calls me Joey because she always wanted a budgie. She said, 'I'm homesick.' I said, 'But precious one, this is your home.' She said, 'I know, and I'm sick of it.'
***
He drank so heavy, the only thing that grew on his grave were hops.
***
A letter came from the bank. I could tell it was from the bank as it was written on a wreath nailed to the front door.

[Emerald Red]

Somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic?

[Bad Bob]

[Sabre]

About Dawson Media Design
Dawson Media Design creates engaging, attractive and usable web sites based on the latest standards. Interested in learning more? Get in touch with me today. — Scott Dawson

http://www.dawsonmediadesign.com/

[Reg]

Dawson (pornographic actor)    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dawson (born June 18, 1972) is a American gay porn star and lifetime exclusive for Paul Morris' Treasure Island Media.[1] He became well-known in the gay porn industry with his debut performance in Dawson's 20 Load Weekend directed by his frequent collaborator Max Sohl. The video went on to win 6 Bareback Video Spoogie Awards including Video of the Year while Dawson received multiple awards including Best Newcomer and Hottest Bottom.[2][3]

In 2007, Dawson was named the most popular downloaded gay porn star on AEBN as the winner of the VOD (Video on Demand) Performer of the Year Award[4][5] and appeared on the cover of Instigator Magazine [6] as part of an in-depth interview with the performer.