When Hélène met François, she’d been dreaming of a long-distance bicycle trip for years. I think the fact that François was an experienced cyclist just maybe added to the attraction. Within 18 months, they had sold almost everything they owned, and loaded what they couldn’t or didn’t want to sell into their car, parked it …
Let Me Get to Know You. How About a Little Bicycle Trip? Read More »
You may know Irish Canadian author Emma Donoghue by the fame she has gained from her 2010 novel Room, and its film adaptation. I must admit, I have neither watched the film, nor read the book. However, when it came to reading Donoghue’s ninth novel, The Wonder, which was published this year, I had a …
The Wonder builds up slowly to a thrilling ending Read More »
“It will be a special week in a very special place. Lots of one-on-one time with mentors and lots of cowriting,” says singer-songwriter Kim Beggs. That special place is Fort Selkirk, on the Yukon River, about half way between Whitehorse and Dawson City. Kim Beggs’ first trip to Fort Selkirk was in the summer of …
The Canada Games Centre, near the top of Two Mile Hill, opens every weekday morning at 5:30 a.m. I did not get there until 7:00 a.m. and that was an effort. As I walked in, I kept passing people on their way out. They were already done their workouts. I approached one of those early …
It started many years ago. My guy saw it in a movie — a fleeting scene. It was a manly glass, big, and heavy; it said, “I take my scotch seriously.” The movie, Blade Runner, came out in 1982. Rick Deckard, arriving home after a hard day of “retiring” replicants, enters the grey chaos of …
The place is busy and noisy. Paul and Jeannine Baker look more like construction workers than artists. Jeannine is sweeping drywall debris in the kitchen/workshop space , and Paul is cutting trim at the chop saw. In an adjoining room, five or six people are gathered in a circle, note pads in hand in what …
For Elizabeth Nemeth, the tiara sparkled in her eyes since she placed third in the McDonalds’ Junior Princess competition – she was 12 years old. Last year, when sponsored by her employer, the Jarvis Street Saloon, she was crowned 2013’s First Princess and Miss Congeniality in the Rendezvous Queen pageant. She loved the role, and …
Dwayne and Nellie Backstrom might never be listed in the pages of The Colourful Five Percent; I don’t think they would care to be. But 2014’s Sourdough Rendezvous’ Mr. And Mrs. Yukon have a more meaningful legacy. In their own quiet way, they are quintessential Yukoners — understated, hard working, and full of love for …
The first year I ran in The Klondike Trail of ’98 International Road Relay, I was one of a group of women who were all pretty much new to running. In fact, we had only started running the previous April. We met during a beginners running clinic set up to prepare people to run the …
“Wake up from your slumber sleeping beast. It’s time breathe again, it’s time to see again. You were born, you were born to be the greatest of all… It’s time to roar, like you did when you were king.” These are some of the lyrics from the title track of Diyet‘s new album, When You …
Pain, Compassion, and Hope: Diyet releases second album When You Were King Read More »
How do you go to the bathroom in a canoe with eight other people in it, without stopping the boat? And I am not talking number one here. It is a question that must be contemplated by every paddler in the Yukon River Quest enroute from Whitehorse to Dawson. The answer? It Depends. “We used …
The #1 and #2 Issues of Being in Boat for 12 Hours Read More »
The babies sat in the driveway, tarped over, covered in snow half-melted in the April sun. I brushed them off, to let the sun begin to warm the silver shrouds, to soak some life back into the batteries. It’s my motorcycles that make me hate early spring days. The melting snow turns my dirt laneway …
Motorcycle riders are often solitary sorts. We like the time we spend with ourselves on the road. It is a sort of meditation: no radio, no chit-chat with a passenger, no getting bored like you do driving a car. That doesn’t mean we are all anti-social, obvious from the small gatherings of motorcycles you see …
Do you ride for pleasure? … or survival? For most of us, it’s not one or the other. It depends on the day. I have a friend who sets his own work schedule. For him, hot sun on black leathers is an irresistible seduction. He generally has a particular hedonistic goal in mind: either pure …
I think I have seven versions of “Motorcycle Trip Gear List” on my computer. Every time we go on a trip there are three more things I really should have left behind and one or two more I’ve forgotten or found a newly discovered need for. Seeing all the trailers going by on the Alaska …
The season is over. As you may have guessed from my first column, I am not really an early or late-season rider. I will endure the cold as part of a larger adventure, but not for a Sunday ride. Already the weather is discouraging me from riding. Seeing fallen leaves decorating the bikes doesn’t help. …
I was told the action was in the kitchen shelter. As I walked towards the building, I immediately raised my camera to take a picture of a youngster playing caribou by holding a pair of icicles to her head like antlers. No sooner was the picture taken when Samara, a very outgoing three-year-old grabbed my …
I am convinced that the Yukon has really happy ditches. I’ve always believed that places absorb the emotional energy of the human beings who have passed through. Like up on the ski hill, a few weekends ago, my smile appeared even as I drove into the parking lot. It just felt good. It’s also, I …
You should always start planning the next adventure before the current one is complete. Even better, before the current one even gets started. I have quite eclectic interests. Some might say it is the result of a restless nature. Maybe it is just a short attention span. I consider it one of my best attributes. …
We introduced bikes. My favourite, “Flipper”, likes to “flip her rider”. Mine is Xena. I want mine to encourage my inner warrior princess.
My best rides are framed by the rituals I have adopted. When we jump in our cars or trucks to drive somewhere, unless it is for some great road trip, we are not thinking about the ride – just about our destination. For riders, the destination is almost irrelevant. It is all about the ride. …
Plastic bags cover my feet to keep out the rain and the spray from my tires. My chain slips off the sprocket, again, unable to take the strain. The hill’s grade and the combined weight of me and the 30 pounds of gear in the panniers prove to be too much for the middle-aged mountain …
The goal of the Yukon Arctic Ultra is to be “the world’s best and toughest human-powered winter (ultra)-marathon race.” It’s hard to imagine a tougher one. The Yukon Arctic Ultra began in 2003 with 27 racers. Every year it starts just after the Yukon Quest and follows that route, starting in Whitehorse. Racers can choose …
Shelley Gellatly prepares for the 430-mile Yukon Arctic Ultra Read More »
It is amazing how a day can change. It was Friday night of a Discovery Day weekend and I was pretty upset … relationship issues. I’d spent from about 10 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon telling my troubles to a good friend and now was home cleaning the refrigerator. A half-hour into …
Most of me loves the twisties. There is a small part of me that is disappointed with the fact that I don’t always do them justice. I get the feeling I am just going too slow. We are talking about curves, corners, bends … you know, “twisties”. Leaving Monterey, just south of San Francisco on …
I had to get my friend to ride my new motorcycle home from the dealership because I didn’t know how to ride. OK, it wasn’t exactly new. My first bike was a sturdy, somewhat scuffed-up Suzuki 360-DR with an oversized aftermarket fuel tank. It was yellow and white, the fuel tank that opaque whitish plastic. …
Fall is an absolutely stellar time to go mountain biking in the Yukon. It was a Sunday slated for chores when my guy gives me a call from his shop and says, “Get geared up, we’re going for a mountain bike ride.” I had felt the heat of the sun on my shoulders when I …
It is really annoying being on a road trip, not on a motorcycle. I am on a multipurpose trip; however, none of those purposes are compatible with motorcycling … 2,500 kilometres and no motorcycle. I may sound like a whiner, but it’s a long, boring drive on four wheels and, given the fact that I …
Nicholas Mah is obsessed with music. But obsessions are good: “You know how, when you are an adolescent, you can get obsessed with things?” he asks. “For me, it was music. All I wanted to do was to be a professional guitar player.” You don’t get to make a living as a professional musician, by …
Over 30 years ago, in a moment of impulsive insanity, my partner and his best friend walked off into the Vizcaino Desert in Baja, California. For three days they walked without map or compass. They had only the water they could carry and two blankets, boiling in the sun during the day and freezing at …
“I’ve loved singing since I was a little girl.” says Edwards “I remember singing on the back of my mother’s bike, on the swing set”
There is a line from the movie Evita: “it’s hard to keep momentum, if it’s you that you are following.” That’s exactly what the youth attending Yukon College’s Working and Leading program are doing. They are learning how to lead themselves. The Learning and Leading program is the result of a partnership between Service Canada …
The Biggest Challenge in Life is to Lead Yourself Read More »
Kyle Cashen is leaving the Yukon for Vancouver. “No specific reason. It’s time,” he says. “I love Vancouver and I need to live in a more densely populated place for a while.” Cashen grew up in Nova Scotia, first Antigonish, taking piano and violin lessons till the shift happened. It was Grade 7 when he …
The daybreak cacophony of squawks and splashes sounded like it was inches away from our tent. We had just spent our first night on the beach in Playa El Burro, Bahia Conception on the Sea of Cortez, about two thirds down the eastern coast of the Baja Peninsula. It was the southern-most point of our …
It is amazing what is popping up on Whitehorse trails these days. This week’s Sunday ride leader was my friend, Rick. As well as being an avid cyclist, he is also a cross-country skier. He knows the Mount McIntyre trails very well and that is good. Wendy and I were the followers, not just because …
I don’t like to admit it, but I hate the feeling I get coming back home after a long motorcycle trip. There is so much stuff everywhere, routines become bad things instead of good things, and all I can think of is setting in place plans to get away again. Stuff is probably the biggest …
Once I decided that not to ride was just plain wrong, I had to decide what kind of motorcycle to get. Not even knowing how to ride meant my criteria was practical rather than heart-driven. I wanted a deal, a second-hand bike that I wouldn’t cry over if it hit the dirt while I was …
As much as I like road biking, in Whitehorse there are two things that are almost impossible to avoid: wind and (sigh) hills. It can be discouraging. Despite the fact that the Kluane Chilkat International Road Relay was looming and I have committed to Leg 6 and the big hill it ends with, we decided …
Is it wrong to want a hill-less mountain bike ride? Read More »
Why do you ride? I’m serious. I want to know. I want to hear from every woman who reads this column. I want to know why you ride. And if you are still riding on the back (or if you don’t ride at all), I want to know why you are still NOT riding. Don’t …
I am so jealous. I just picked my guy up from the airport, back from a two-day Superbike school in California. And he was just one of four Yukon guys who got off the plane with racing track prints on their retinas. To rub it in, he brought back two videos of himself lapping the …
I’ve always had trouble when it came to focusing on a particular passion in my life. Anyone who knows me would likely say that I am constantly pursuing my passions. That’s the point: it is passions, plural, and they are changing all the time. I never stick with anything beyond intermediate knowledge or competence. Jörg …
Anybody ever read the book The Secret? If you have, you know it is about manifesting your best life ever. I spent the last hour manifesting my next motorcycle adventure. Physically, I’ve been sitting on an airplane travelling between Whitehorse and Vancouver. That means my motorcycle is not my best buddy on this trip. It …
“Power is essential for success…” But what is power? There is a famous little book that you can still pick up for about $12 new, or as little as a penny on amazon.com (check for yourself). It describes power as “organized knowledge”, the sources of organized knowledge being infinite intelligence, accumulated experience and experimentation and …
