Beloved swimming hole in Dawson City, Yukon, destroyed by recent flooding

Dawson City, Yukon, can get hot in the summer months — really hot.

So it's no surprise that a swimming hole, created by a local miner just outside of town, had become a favourite spot for local people to cool off in recent years. 

But this year everything changed.

Flooding throughout the Klondike Valley last month turned the spot into a rushing river, and Marty Knutson's swimming hole is no more. 

"Mother Nature's pretty relentless," said Knutson. "I don't know why it had to be so soon, but it looks like she got her way and it's gone.

"It's now basically a river with a beach on one side that's kind of still left, and the rest of it is pretty much gone. So it'll be a good fishing hole, maybe."

Knutson, owner of Tatra Ventures, a mining outfit in Dawson City, explained how the swimming hole came to be.

"We were mining down in the Klondike," he said. "The first year we struggled to make a hole. We left it after one season. It wasn't a big hole but it was kind of an area that people went to and started swimming in it.

"Instead of back-filling the area like we would normally do, we purposely tried to leave a big enough lake. We had three or four years of mining left, that when we're all said and done, there should be a nice little pond."

The swimming hole started off as a secret among locals but it quickly grew in popularity — so much so that garbage cans and portable toilets were soon placed on site. Volunteers would also routinely maintain the area.

Knutson told CBC News he doesn't plan to reconstruct the site anytime soon.

"I mean, it's got to be the right spot, and the right sort of conditions, which the Klondike was. So I don't know."

Family memories 

Jennie Perrin and her family loved spending their summer days at the swimming hole.

"We actually had our baby shower at the swimming hole," she told CBC News. "Our daughter, you know she had like, her first swim in the swimming hole. When my niece came up from Ontario last summer, we took her there."

Perrin's experience with the area started long before the site became better known among locals.

"My partner was actually one of the people who built the swimming hole," she said.

"He's worked for Marty and Maryann for, I think, over 20 years ... My first experience at the swimming hole was when they were actually mining there."

Perrin said losing the swimming hole is not only sad for her, but for everyone who used it.

"For kids, there's not a lot to do in Dawson in the summer," she said. "It was like a safe place to go with your family. It was really unique."

A Facebook page has been created where residents share photos and stories of time spent at the Knutson's swimming hole.