DAWSON CITY – The exterior of the former home of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) should look somewhat better by the end of the construction season.
The City of Dawson bought the former bank building from then-owner Mike Palma for $170,000 in 2013, ending a dispute that looked likely to eat up a lot more than that in legal fees.
Palma had purchased the building from the bank after it ceased operations there in 1989 and relocated its offices to the Dawson Plaza complex on Second Avenue.
The CIBC deserted its original home just one year after the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada designated the building as a National Historic Site.
The Bank of Commerce (before the merger with the Imperial Bank of Canada in 1961) had arrived in Dawson at the behest of the Dominion government to set up banking in 1898, and the present building was erected in 1901.
As the plaque mounted on the boulder says, “This Renaissance Revival building is one of Canada’s finest surviving structures clad in decorative pressed metal.”
The metal is shaped and painted to look like the stone buildings that the style imitates. It is one of two such buildings in Dawson, the other being the Masonic Lodge at Queen and Fourth.
Its other claim to fame is that Robert Service worked there. As noted on the plaque still affixed to the building: “Robert Service was among the clerks who worked here, before his poetry earned him financial independence and the honourary title ‘Bard of the Yukon.’”
The town has been working to make the building useful and more attractive since 2015. As the objective is to restore it to its pre-1961 appearance, it’s generally referred to as the Canadian Bank of Commerce, or CBC, in the town’s paperwork.
The CBC building’s final end use has not been determined, but the town is exploring a variety of options. Those include the removal of lots of hazardous materials to make both floors of the place accessible to the public.
Last summer, an enclosed stairwell was completed on the north side of the building, and future planning includes the installation of an elevator.
Town council discussions in June involved deciding whether Phase 2 would deal exclusively with necessary work on the interior or whether some of the $1.1 million budgeted for this year would be used to fix up some of the exterior. That has seen very little remediation since the work began.
The work is being funded by the Canada Community-Building Fund, formerly known as the Gas Tax fund.
The first option of the restoration plan would have been to focus on the interior of the building.
After several meetings, council decided on the second option for this year: the restoration of the exterior cladding.
The strongest argument in favour of this decision was the importance of showing the public that progress is being made, since much of the interior work to date has been hidden from public view.
