Tales of Nahganne
For as long as humans have been in the Yukon, they have shared this vast land not only with various animals but also with…
British Columbia
The Gifts of Haida Gwaii
Some places, like some people, are incredibly special but also a little bit elusive. They may not make things easy; they can be difficult to reach and they don’t open themselves up to just anyone.
Water and rock – Hiking and loving “the mystery of it all”
The landscape east of the Klondike Highway, between Log Cabin and Fraser, B.C., is a giant jigsaw puzzle of water and rock. Large, round rocky outcrops are surrounded by water, with scattered vegetation growing in-between the rocks.
From the Punjab to the Yukon
Gurdeep Pandher was one of the first people I met when I moved to the Yukon. I walked into a Scottish country barn dance at the Old Fire Hall, in Whitehorse, and here was a guy in the remote North in his pagri, at an event, sitting and absorbing the dances and people.
Bear Mountain – A redux
If you’ve read about our first attempt to climb (or even glimpse) Bear Mountain, you may be wondering how or why we ever returned. I wish I knew myself, with any sort of confidence. Was it the resentment of failure? Was it the undeterrable enthusiasm we had for this climb? Was it because of a …
Making the ‘impossible’ possible
Darryl Tait, from Atlin, didn’t allow an accident slow his passion for freestyle sports. Adaptive Skiing is now part of Mt. Sima training.
Remembering (and never repeating) history
The Japanese Canadian Association of Yukon (JCAY) recognized the 30th anniversary of the success of the Redress campaign in 1988.
Jade — Green, tough, and valuable
On July 8, 1992, the Whitehorse Star reported a find near Frances Lake of what was stated to be a world-record-sized piece of jade at 577 tonnes. It was speculated to be worth $5.8 billion. There is no consensus on what is the largest piece of jade ever found. To start, there are two different …
Bear Mountain: A loving tribute to a living nightmare – Part 2
Things started off great when we immediately got off trail (we wouldn’t know this till days later). We attempted to follow some GPS tracks I plucked from the internet. This involved scaling a wet, lushly vegetated and slippery mountainside. This became increasingly tiresome and ludicrous, with steep precipice falls a constant reminder of our mortality. …
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Bear Mountain – A loving tribute to a living nightmare
In the late summer of 2016, my friend Dan and I attempted to climb Bear Mountain, a 2,400-metre tall peak situated in the North Cascades National Park, just south of British Columbia. The north buttress of this mountain offers 670 metres of superb alpine granite. Tucked away in northern Washington, the base of the climb …
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Advice to the unwise: I have the questions, if you have the answers
One of the more interesting jobs I’ve ever held was hosting an open-line show (we secretly called it “open-mouth”) on a private radio station in Charlottetown, PEI. Unlike some parts of Canada—especially B.C., with its tradition of brash (often infuriating) talk-radio hosts such as Jack Webster, Raif Mair, Christy Clark and others, mid-’70s PEI was …
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Bucket List: Skydive in the Yukon
Skydiving has always been popular and it has just now come back on the scene in Yukon, thanks to Skydive BC agreeing to come north to teach classes.
A record-breaking class at the forty-third annual First Nations graduation
On May 25, students from all over the Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories gathered in Whitehorse at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre, in celebration of the forty-third annual First Nations graduation.
Are you ready for a good time? Love country rock?
Teslin will again be hosting an electrifying country-rock concert called Teslin Rocks Country, featuring a slate of excellent contemporary Canadian country artists. Headlining the show will be two artists from from British Columbia: Aaron Pritchett and The Washboard Union.
Picking our battles
As a nurse, I have a role in challenging systemic and individual racism. I challenge you to do the same.
No Sour Grapes
Kevin Kane (left) and Bryan Potvin on a break during a Northern Pikes recording session in Calgary earlier this month. Kane & Potvin will perform at the YAC on March 2. PHOTO: Don Schmid If he hadn’t been so exhausted from a 23-hour train ride, Kevin Kane might have joined forces with fellow singer/guitarist Bryan …
‘Canadian Ice Man’ tells his story
Editor’s Note: This is part two of two highlighting Kwädąy Dän Ts’ìnchį: Teachings from Long Ago Person Found. It was introduced during the Haines Junction Mountain Festival, which took place December 8 to 10. Part 1 is available in the December 6 edition of What’s Up Yukon. Diane Strand, director of community wellness at the …
‘Canadian Ice Man’ tells his story
Eighteen years ago three sheep hunters discovered the oldest natural mummified body unearthed to date in North America. he story of this mysterious “Canadian ice man” comes full-circle this year with a new book, Kwädąy Dän Ts’ìnchį: Teachings from Long Ago Person Found.
Apple bourbon crumble
Apple crumble is as close to a perfect food as I’ve ever found. It can be breakfast just as easily as it can be dessert or even dinner. It’s fast to prepare, and when it comes right down to it, pretty healthy.
The Northern Review remembers World War I
Volume 44 of The Northern Review contains the complete list of the papers from The North and the First World War Conference that was held in Whitehorse, and in Dawson City, May 9-12 2016.
Making it last
Cathy Stubington doesn’t mind being in the shadows when she does a show. In fact, she prefers it.
Giving Everyone a Chance to Shine
Getting a medal isn’t the point. “We’re there to have fun,” says Gaetan, captain of Yukon’s Special Olympics soccer team. “doing your best.”
There’s a New Drummer in Town
Meet Lee Campese, Yukon’s most recent import and the latest addition to the groovy rhythmic assemblage, Major Funk and the Employment.
Jack ‘n Sack
I knew on the Saturday morning warm up on the driving range I was in for a unique caddying experience. This was the days of the “shag bag” when caddies would stand out on the range serving as targets for their golfers and often catch their shots in the bag on the fly. Not so …
A Feast of Living Off Canada’s Northern West Coast
ookbook-cum-community memoir: A Taste of Haida Gwaii: “They love cooking. The only trouble is cooking doesn’t love them back…”
Playing in the Dark
“Think of magic as a tree. The root of supernatural ability is simply the realization that all time exists simultaneously. Humans experience time as a progression of sequential events in much the same way we see the horizon as flat: our reality is shaped by our limitations.” –excerpt from Son of a Trickster by Eden …
A Contemplative Celebration of Place
“To come here is to travel into a past that still intrudes the present.” –an excerpt from A Walk With the Rainy Sisters: In Praise of British Columbia’s Places, by Stephen Hume Our environment says much to those who will listen, and author Stephen Hume is all ears. Distilled from curiosity and personal ruminations, Hume …
Finding a New Way Home
From Tomaso Albinoni to Django Reinhardt, by way of Led Zeppelin? It’s all part of guitarist Marc Atkinson’s musical journey. The 48-year-old Atkinson grew up on B.C.’s relatively remote Quadra Island, without YouTube, or even television, but with access to the major music source of the day, vinyl records. “I didn’t know that humble peasants …
The Last Ski Race of the Year
Volunteers are gearing up for the Buckwheat Ski Classic. The cross country ski race is on March 25, but starting in early March volunteers were driving up to Log Cabin, B.C. from Skagway, Alaska two times a week to set tracks for the course. The last two years the race was rough – the weather …
Coy Cup Comes to the Yukon
“Get ready for some high paced hockey,” says Whitehorse Huskies Coach Michael Tuton. “The top AA teams of B.C. and the Yukon are battling it out for the Coy. It’s gonna be great hockey. Very hard hitting games. “Bring some excitement. Let’s blow the roof off the Takhini arena.” Tuton says to expect a high calibre tournament …
Taking on Sunshine Crack
I sleep in the next morning and Dan and I take it slow. Ironically named, Sunshine Crack faces north and does not catch sun until late in the day. It is cold in the Bugaboos, despite it being late July. Our approach is easy however and we are at the base by 11 a.m. There …
Pacing Ourselves to Pigeon Spire
On my third day in the Bugs I team up with my friend Andrew, who is one of the late-comers. We wake up when our bodies decide to and have a leisurely morning. Our objective for the day is the West Ridge of Pigeon Spire – a very easy technical climb, but one made popular …
Taking the Kain Route
We begin the next day by eating cereal with rehydrated milk powder, gathering our things and setting out. The hike and scramble to the base of the climb involves navigating past several glacier pools, ascending a snow ramp in crampons, and scrambling up a loose low-angle rock slab. Upon reaching the saddle between Bugaboo Spire …
Cedric Wants You
Whoooo the heck is Cedric, anyway? We’ll come back to that later. About a year after Beth Hawkes moved to Salt Spring Island with her husband, she saw a small ad in the Gulf Islands Driftwood about a literary competition for unpublished B.C. writers over the age of 50. “I just looked at the ad, …
Birdie – Tracey Lindberg
“Maybe she didn’t cry because tears were a currency in her life for so long that holding them back meant she was richer.” Birdie is an experience. Here the written word weaves between oral and written history, dreamtime and shared reality; it wraps and warps time and memory, ancient knowledge and new experiences, into one …
She’s Been Bitten
It was the promise of bannock that first lured Melaina Sheldon into the orbit of Gwaandak Theatre in 2010. The show’s limited budget also allowed Sheldon to use some of the design skills she had developed in a one-year diploma course in fashion design in Vancouver. “I’m a Salvation Army thrift store shopper, for sure, …
Sweet Swing
The All City Band is comprised of students between the ages of 12 and 17, playing alongside more experienced adult musicians. The group is comprised of sections: the All City Jazz Band, the Junior and Senior Concert Bands and the Grade 8 Band. “The All City Band is a great musical opportunity for students in …
A Yukoner at Heart with a Lot to Give
Since graduating from Porter Creek Secondary Nicolai Bronikowski has been working on ship design and transit studies. Through his work in Finland, Russia and Canada he showcases the Yukon’s strong science programs and growing potential as an Arctic research hub. Bronikowski came to the Yukon in 2009 for an exchange year, after finishing Grade 9 …
Life Lines
Faye Ferguson understands the value of documenting one’s life stories, for both the writer and the eventual reader. Ferguson is a personal historian based in Victoria, B.C. who helps people fashion their life stories into print or digital forms, either as full-length memoirs or as scrapbook-type snippets that highlight specific remembered moments or stages of …
Bugaboos, Part 1
Due to the geographical layout of the valley we ascend, Anniversary Peak and Hound’s Tooth remain in view for most of the way while all other peaks are generally obscured by trees and hills. The hike takes us three hours, with few breaks, and spits us out onto an incredible plateau of rock, overlooking the …
Just For Kids
On Saturday, Dec. 3 the kids get to shop. All by themselves, without parents watching over shoulders. It’s the perfect chance for them to buy Christmas presents for their family. The Kids Shopping Hour is part of the Second Annual Christmas Market at The Old Firehall, which runs for two days: Friday, Dec. 2, from …
All Tarted Up
I extracted a small tub of raspberries from the freezer yesterday, comforted to see it near overflowing with the season’s harvest. Though saskatoons and blueberries came in in droves this year, the raspberries that made it to the freezer were few and far between – their perishability and spotty cropping this summer made them all …
Healing Through Art
Dennis Shorty created his first sculpture when he was eight years old. It was a moose carved out of poplar with a burbot fish skull for antlers and a bit of “fish glue” to hold them in place. He was proud of the sculpture and showed his father, Alec Shorty. Alec told the young carver …
On Simple Pleasures
There is a microwave placed awkwardly in front of the little, old fashioned split-glass window. The curtains are open and on the other side of the window freight ships move across the bay slowly, deliberately, as if the water was thick as muskeg and they had to work much harder than they expected to get …
Making Sangria While the Sun Shines
I bought a nectarine in Juneau a couple of weeks ago. It looked large and rosy and promising. The flesh was firm and yet it gave slightly under the pressure of my fingertips and I thought, “Wow, a real nectarine.” But when I cut into the fruit, the flesh was mealy and dry, lacking even …
What’s Up in the Sky
When I was a kid my mom ran a park in the southern interior of British Columbia. Mabel Lake Provincial Park. Mabel Lake is remote and undeveloped. There was electricity in our trailer, but no phone lines. Whatever isolation this lead to during the day, it meant the nights were dark. The same families would …
4-H is Good for Kids
Kids and horses, life doesn’t get much better than that. 4-H is thriving in the Yukon. We are the Spirit Riders 4-H Horse Club, based in Whitehorse and loving everything. We are a district club operating under the umbrella of 4-H Yukon and regionally under 4-H British Columbia. 4-H has been around the Yukon for …
A Warm Home in a Cold Place
Did you grow up or work in Tungsten, in the Northwest Territories? If so, you’re invited to a party and might not even know it. Expats from this now defunct mine and community are putting together a reunion June 24 to 28 at Mount Robson Provincial Park near Valemount, BC. The group hopes to get …
You Know It’s Spring When the Swans Arrive
“Last year was a big year,” says Scott Cameron, Environment Yukon’s Wildlife Viewing Technician. “We were up to 2,000 swans every day for a few days.” The height, he says, was April 9, when 2,200 were counted out on M’Clintock Bay. Typically that number is closer to 1,200. “And early too – usually you expect …
Repurpose, Recycle, Reintegrate
Reducing our solid waste is not an easily digested subject. An upcoming conference in Whitehorse hopes to break down solutions into manageable bites. The Working Towards Zero Waste in the North Conference will bring together approximately 120 representatives from governments, businesses, non-profits, academia and the public to share success stories from other northern regions. The …
Wanted down south
Summer may be drawing to a close, but there is still a great music festival that you can catch. Taking place in Victoria, B.C., the Breakout West festival takes place Sept. 17-20. The festival has been going for 13 years strong. It started as the Western Canadian Music Awards. Now the performances have broken away …
Head in the Clouds
The motto on the Montana licence plate is Big Sky Country. I went to Montana before I knew the true meaning of ‘big sky’ — I was raised on the slope of a mountain in the narrow-valleyed interior of British Columbia. I had a déja vu-like inkling of the meaning, though. The Pacific Ocean gave …
When your Fingers Stumble Through the Pages
On the whole, there are two positive things about this year’s edition of NorthwesTel’s Northern British Columbia and Yukon Directory. The first is that the painting on the front cover, the dramatic “Blue Break Up” by Simon James Gilpin, is reproduced in a larger size than in previous directories. The second is that because the …
Spellbound at Kelsall Lake, B.C.
It always seems that for other people things happen quite easily. They have an idea and voila — there it is. I don’t know; maybe it’s true for some, with some things. Anyway, it took me 20 years after I first dreamed about it, to finally float on Kelsall Lake, B.C. It was better than …
A Testament to the Disappearances of Aboriginal Women
International Women’s Day is Saturday, March 8, it’s a day to pause and consider women’s health, dreams, and safety — worldwide, and in Canada. It’s a perfect time to see The Hours that Remain, a play by Ontario Métis artist Keith Barker. The play explores the love, loss, and grief for families and communities surrounding …
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Matching Wine to Cheese Fondue
I’m always interested whether when people choose the foods for dinner first, and then select accompanying wines, or vice versa. I use both methods. Several weekends ago my partner and I hosted a cheese fondue in honour of a friend’s birthday. The recipe called for a white wine to melt the cheese. We don’t really …
Homeward Bound
Rossland is a small ski town in British Columbia – or logging town, I’m not sure which prevails. I’ve raced here once before and it went well, so I was looking forward to another good weekend of racing. I was off to a good start in the sprint. With a mixed field of U.S. skiers, …
All Apologies
What do you do if your family is “the most apologized-to family in Canada?” If you’re Mitch Miyagawa, local writer and filmmaker, you create a documentary about it. Miyagawa’s documentary, A Sorry State, chronicles his family’s experience of receiving three official government apologies for historical injustices: one issued to his First Nations stepmother for the …
A Great Wine Match for Salmon
I suspect salmon and hospitality have been partners a long time in this part of the world. The salmon makes regular appearances in the artwork of the First Nations peoples all along the Yukon River and across the mountains to the BC Coast. I look at the old black and white photographs of the native …
A Recipe for a Lasting Memory
What makes a vacation, at least for me, is going to a place different than what you are accustomed to. This could be a change in your physical surroundings, your schedule and even what you explore and taste. The last several weeks have been all of that for me and for my children. Even with …
In Search of a “Local-ish” Organic Red
I noticed, when I worked as a wine merchant, that wine enthusiasts love a challenge. Occasionally a customer would come into the store, and relate a menu he or she was planning for a dinner, and ask for advice about wines to serve. Invariably, two or three of us would huddle, pose more questions of …
BC Pinot Gris: Well Worth Trying
A kind friend returned from a trip with a belated gift for my 50th birthday – a mixed half case of British Columbia VQA wines, five reds and a white. What a terrific gift for a wine lover. As a bonus, BC wines are an area with which I am woefully unfamiliar. Recently my paddling …
Exploring Gray Monk Estate Wines
Several weeks ago, I had the happy opportunity to explore a significant portion of the range of Gary Monk Estate wines. A friend of mine who helps organize the annual Rotary Club Wine Festival represents the Gray Monk Estate Winery, and invited me and several other Rotary Club members to taste their wines. Gray Monk …
Wine Money Diet: Part 2
One of the delights of wine is that there are always surprises to be found and bargains to be enjoyed, if you are open to trying new things or going off the beaten path. I thought I had a pretty good handle on the Yukon Liquor Corp selection until I went on my “money diet”, …
Beer Cocktail, Anyone?
Beer adulteration. It sounds dirty. But it’s a way to make an otherwise pedestrian beer seem wildly exotic. So-so wine can be made into sangria. So-so beer can be mixed with clamato for a great hangover remedy and an inscrutable flavour combination. However, I suspect people who drink this abomination are either caesar drinkers in …
Fine Pairings for a Birthday Treat
I’m not looking to expand my writing into the restaurant review arena, but I couldn’t help but relate an excellent dining experience I had last week. A couple of close friends invited me out to dinner last Thursday night, to celebrate both my birthday and the successful completion of an exam one of my friends …
Great Beer, and a Star Sighting to Boot
Phew! After two columns dedicated to near beer, I’m so glad I can trade in my Holsten 0.0% for a beverage that doesn’t make me feel bloated yet empty at the same time. It’s time to start writing about real beer again. Yay! My autumn was enlightened by a beer journey to British Columbia (yes, …
Defying Gravity
For anyone who likes to play on two wheels on the local bike trails, Mount Sima is the place to be the weekend of July 14 and 15. That’s when the local ski hill will play host to the AFD Gravity Cup, the second and final downhill mountain bike race in the 2012 AFD Downhill …
