Dawson City overhauls civic addresses ahead of 911 service

Attention Dawsonites: the town office has your number.

Municipal officials are attempting to bring order to the town's civic addressing system, by assigning new street addresses and handing out number signs. They're needed before rural 911 service goes online next year.

"When you're phoning for an emergency, and you have to tell the operator where to send the emergency services — whether it's police, fire or ambulance — you have to have a number," said Dawson's fire chief Jim Regimbal. 

"You can't give 'a brown house,' a description of the house," Regimbal said. "It's all for safety reasons."

Right now, the town is a patchwork of different numbering schemes. Many homes and buildings don't have numbers at all. Others don't make much sense.

"If your door goes on 8th Street, we don't want your address to be on Craig Street," Regimbal said.

Dawson mayor Wayne Potoroka, who has his new number, said it's "a mishmash of civic addresses out there." 

"In some cases, people's homes, when they were moved from one place in town to another, kept the numbers on the front."

The town began handing out new address numbers on Thursday, free of charge to residents outside the historic townsite. The big, blue, reflective signs, available at the town office, come with instructions on how to install them.

Buildings downtown are responsible for providing their own number.