Fire destroys greenhouse on off-grid Dawson City farm

A fire has damaged a greenhouse on a farm north of Dawson City that provided fresh produce to the community's waterfront market as well aslocal grocery stores and restaurants.

The Dowdell & Digby Farmis about 12kilometres upriver from Dawson City on an island in the Yukon. Its owners, Grant Dowdell and Karen Digby, have used its three acres to grow produce and flowers for more than 30 years.

"Grant and Karen make a tremendous contribution to Yukon's agriculture and thedamage tothe farm is a huge blow to the Yukon," said Dawson City Fire Chief JimRegimbal. "At the end of the day they're not going to be able to provide what they normally provide the community."

Regimbaldescribes the fire as a "devastating blow" to the farm's greenhouse. The farmers' house was not damaged.

Regimbalsays the fire happened on May 2, but fire services were not called at the time as its ownersusuallycommunicate by email.

On May 5 the fire chief created a fundraising pageat www.gofundme.com to help the farmers. As of Wednesday evening, it hadraised more than$2,000.

'This will have an impact on Klondike food security'

Dawson City resident Sebastian Jones posted on Twitter "this will have an impact on Klondike food security."

One Dawson City restaurateuragrees.

Florian Boulaisis co-owner of Alchemy Caf.

"If they're not able to harvest this summer it's going to be a challenge for us to find the same quality of produce they were bringing," Boulais said. "Their produce was absolutely magnificent.You can't really find that on the market. Not in Dawson City anyway."

During the summer the farm also grows flowers whichdecorate many of Dawson City's historic buildings,hotels and homes.

DowdellandDigbywererecognized in 2009 as Yukon's Farmers of the Year by the territorialgovernment.