Mike always shows that picture keeping his smile, and waiting for the unmissable "wow" coming from the other side: in the picture the temperature on the front door of the Keno City Snack Bar is 40 degrees. Forty degrees Celsius above zero. "Oh yes, Summer can be very hot up here". With 80 degrees gap between the seasons, the Yukon is the land of extremes. Of temperatures, of light, of projects.
As if frozen waiting for Summer, everything in Keno City tells other stories. About thousands visitors a day in August, about hundreds of musicians playing on the stage of the Music Fest, about tents and guitars and fires up on the Sign Post, where people gather at 2000 meters high to wave to the midnight sun on June 21st.
In the land of the extremes, they are looking for the difficult balance between tourism and mining activities. The aim is to keep people here, to give people jobs. And the best paid jobs are those offered by the mining companies. That's why the community in Keno City is faced with a new challenge: the village that has attracted visitors because of the memories of the old mine, that closed 20 years ago, is seeing the opening of a new mine, just close to town. And the visitors might stay away. Who knows? Everybody is preparing for Summer. Alexco has opened the tunnel that will probably go all underneath the village. The camp will host 200 workers. And the Government has already positioned acoustic sensors to measure the impact of the mine on the village. In the village. |
All of a sudden, Summer seems far again. Nobody wants to really think about it. Neither the sky, that offers the show of the sun dog, where particles freeze in the air and works as mirrors. A triple sun. A pair of rainbows.