DAWSON CITY – A fire which broke out last Saturday evening has destroyed the cave home of Bill Donaldson.

The two dogs inside survived, while a third canine was safe outside.

The fire was first noticed by the operators of the George Black ferry.

Donaldson wasn't home at the time. He found out when he was flagged down on Queen Street and informed his home, across the Yukon River from the main part of Dawson, was aflame.

Donaldson is not insured, but expects to have his house rebuilt and closed in before the snow arrives.

His main structure is still intact, since he lives in a series of caves above the river's high water mark.

He resides in the centre and largest cave, which is now a scorched and a blackened chamber, while the cave chickens live on one side and the generator cave is on the other.

Donaldson has lived in the cave complex since 1996.

"(Yukon MP) Larry Bagnell came over and said if anybody gives you a hard time, give me a call,” Donaldson told the Star, smiling at the memory.

"I hadn't planned on staying here for any length of time. The first summer, I did very little to the place. It was just a tarp stretched across. As the winter set in, I tied the tarp down tighter and a friend of mine gave me this wood stove.

"By mid-winter, I moved into the Pit. In the spring, I added two by sixes and over the years built it up.”

Donaldson had lived in other places in Canada, but often found the societal mores restrictive for someone who enjoys living a minimalist lifestyle.

"I come up here and people were, ‘yeah, that is a good idea' (living in a cave); people were camping out in wall tents all winter and no one bats a eye. It just kind of evolved.”

Donaldson has been making furniture styled after civil war military campaign furniture.

"It is good for camping,” he said, pointing to the pile of furniture that survived the fire.

The house has an indoor living space which burned. The outdoor storage areas survived the blaze, which spared most of Donaldson's possessions.

Dawson's dump acts as a recycling centre, which Donaldson took advantage of when the arena was re-wired.

"When they ripped it all out, it just went to the dump,” he said.

"I got 120 feet of the stuff. The chicken cave is wired; all three caves are wired.

"There is a little crack that goes from the generator cave to the back of the living cave. In the winter, it gives you a little draft and it might have been what saved the dogs' lives.”

He was sure his pets had perished in the blaze.

" The wall cooked off, the propane tank cooked off. I bet on the ceiling it was over 800 degrees in there.”

Donaldson showed the aged Selkirk-style insulated chimney he suspects was the starting point of the fire. He had hoped it could last another year.

Examining the blackened cave and piles of debris that were once Donaldson's possessions, it's hard to imagine that any living creature could survive the inferno that must have been the interior of the cave.

The two dogs cowering in the depression in the floor at the back of the cave did make it, though the smaller of the two had very red eyes and a nasty hack the next day.

Donaldson is undismayed at the prospect of having to rebuild his living space under the threat of winter.

There are logs along the river, and tin is usable from the fire, along with other stored roofing.

The most difficult part will be getting the blackened spalling rock faces clean for the rebuild. Being included in the West Dawson land use plan adds a sense of legitimacy to the living complex.

"This is my home; art is like spoor, like the marks an animal leaves behind, its nest, scat, its scratching trees,” Donaldson said.

"I always considered my life is art. Living the way you want to, it demonstrates the way you think.

People see it; I don't know if they agree with it; however, it makes them think about it, I don't know.

"To me, it is home. it is warm, where my bed is, where the dogs and the chickens hang out.”

Caveman Bill is the name Donaldson has earned in Dawson, shortened to Caveman.

His life is another of the characters of the Colourful Five Per Cent, though it seems Dawson has a much higher percentage of those characters.

Mark Prins is a Whitehorse writer and photographer.