Dawson City's UNESCO World Heritage bid put 'on hold'

Dawson City's bid to be designated a World Heritage site by the United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) may be on ice — but not forever, according to the group behind the bid.

"The project is not done but it's currently, I suppose you could say, it's on hold," said Molly Shore, World Heritage project manager with the Tr'ondek Hwech'in First Nation in Dawson.

The local group submitted its bid last year, but withdrew it after UNESCO's advisory body, "had some trouble understanding the site as we presented it, and in particular the evolving nature of our heritage landscape," Shore said.

It was pitched as a site significant for its Indigenous and Klondike Gold Rush history, but also for its ongoing mining activities.

Shore said it was important to community members to look at the region's significance "through a broader lens."

"We wanted to get past the old gold rush narrative and talk more about what this landscape really looked like then, including Indigneous people stories, and what it's looked like in the 120 years since then," Shore said.

Local skeptics

Still, the UNESCO bid has some skeptics in Dawson. Placer miners worry a World Heritage designation might put new restrictions on their activities.

Shore said that's not the intention.

"We want to make sure that today's activities are a part of what we commemorate going forward," she said. "We have no desire to inhibit what people are doing today."

Shore says her group will continue to work with stakeholders, including Parks Canada, to talk about how to keep the project alive, and whether to rework their bid.

"I know that the Rideau Canal in Ottawa had to be pulled back and reworked and then put forward again before it was added to the World Heritage list," she said.

"It is a lengthy process, but Canada is in for the long haul and so are we."