From The Back Country Columnist Jozien Keijzer is a visual artist, writer and avid hiker who lives in the Mendenhall Subdivision.
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.
Once upon a time, “back in the days” (last year, in October) when the Greyhound bus still existed, a garter snake slithered out of the way, a pronghorn bounced over a fence, and I happened to step into cactus. This is the beginning of a most auspicious tale … In the days of the Greyhound, …
I never understood how people love to go camping at the same spot year after year, or walk the same trail over and over, canoe the same river, or go to the same mall. I realize now that we all have different goals. I myself have a strong desire to explore. And finally, I am …
Last year we had an early spring and I found the first prairie crocus blooming on April 1st. Most years the crocus blooms near the end of April. If you want to become a crocus hunter, don’t wait for all the snow to melt. If the daytime temperature is above zero for three weeks, start …
From “Don’s Descent,” the small hill behind our house, one can look as far as Haines Junction. Mount Decoeli and Mount Archibald loom on the western horizon when skies are clear. In front of Decoeli, I can clearly make out Paint Mountain. You might know Paint Mountain as the rock face towering over Pine Lake, …
Another strange phenomena occurred that happens to me in the mountains. We looked up the side hill for Nancy, but we couldn’t see her at all. We wondered where she had gone, It turned out that she indeed was climbing in plain view, and sure enough she could easily see us on the lake. We …
I use the word ‘bug’ here, to describe little creatures with … legs. Insects, but more than that. Not everything I call ‘bug’ living underneath the ice are insects, some turn out to be crustaceans. In the beginning of October, before it started snowing, there was a brief period when the thermometer dropped below zero …
I am pleased to announce that I recently had my first encounter with a sandhill crane. I have never gone to the Crane and Sheep Festival in Faro, which is held in May, and the time and place when the cranes fly over the town. Years ago, I saw flocks of sandhill cranes in November …
This is a story from many years ago, about the day I was followed by four bears – a close-call bear encounter kind of story. I was on a solstice hike up Kelvin Mountain with Allison Morham and Jane Vincent. Jane and I see each other regularly, but I only run into Allison every few …
For me, the summer of 2016 has been the best berry year ever. My berry season starts with wild strawberries and they were bigger than ever this year. Wild raspberries are almost always abundant. Our famous Yukon cranberries are looking extremely promising this year. The wild season ends with rosehips. I like to compare Mother …
Mushroom season starts in spring. On a hike at the end of May, I came upon some black morels. In the Yukon, morels usually only grow where there has been a recent fire, although I’ve found them growing other places. With the warm weather and rain this year, I have been picking mushrooms in earnest …
Breaking out of sheer rock, on the barren ground, or beside a mountain stream, hundreds of different kinds of wildflowers grow in the Yukon mountains. Some bloom as early as the snow melts in April, some continue blooming well into September. The seven alpine flowers described below all grow on mountaintops close to Whitehorse.
Kinnikinnick’s Latin name, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, comes from arctos and ursi meaning bear and staphylos and uva meaning bunch of grapes. Amazing: the taste of those little grapes! I just tried something I had never tried before, but had read about several times. As it happens, I was treating a certain condition I had. I always …
Talking to my friend Mary Whitley, a fellow explorer, we started discussing how many trails we had found this summer that we did not even know existed. She was finding them on her side of town around Mount Lorne, and I was finding them on mine around the Mendenhall Subdivision. So, on one of those …
Why have I never written about hunting before? Maybe it’s because writing about an experience makes it more real. In the face of hunting, that is hard for me to accept. I do love my hunting partner, my husband Don, for it. He, too, is quite undone after actually shooting an animal. He will only …
Atlin Mountain might have lost some of its white stripes, but Atlin itself is still as much fun as ever – all inhabitants 100 percent colourful, all sights 100 percent amazing. Sometimes, on a long weekend, the girl gang and I drive down on a Saturday morning, spend the night and drive back Sunday evening. …
Yes! This month, Jane Vincent is coming with me on an attempt to climb the pinnacle. It’s a pinnacle I now call Dragon Mountain. Recently, hiking there on my own, setting my own pace, very aware of my surroundings, I was in tune for miracles. The mountain was un-named; a mountain in a range of …
A smoky pinnacle beckons in a hiker’s personal Shangri-La Read More »
It’s a cold morning. While I’m writing, the twin deer are in the yard — last year’s fawns, without their mother now. May was full of summer weather and I often had breakfast outside. Yet, a deer never walked up to me during those quiet morning times. However, on one lovely morning in May, suddenly, …
For three consecutive Sundays, my husband and I have been going to a place we both fell in love with. He found it when hunting for bison, and I knew the spot from hiking up to the tors along the Aishihik Road. We discovered the rockslide while being there. Initially we liked the spot because …
As her husband describes her, Mary Whitley is an elusive mountain creature. Mary’s favorite bird is the northern wheatear. I am proud to say that Mary is also my good friend and hiking partner. Many Yukoners may know Mary as an avid outdoors woman, and for her knowledge of birds. I was happy that she …
When the girl-gang goes hiking, we like to do as little driving as possible. The girls live in town. I don’t. So, we try to find a hike in the middle. I’d never done this hike before. But it is quite magnificent, a little comparable to the Coal Lake area, but in my opinion, even …
I always keep hiking until the snow becomes too deep. On October 18 it was snowing. The previous day I had gone for a full day hike. Was October 17 the date of my last full hike of the season, deep in the Alpine? The week previously, someone commissioned me to paint the fire lookout …
We name her Loesje (pronunciation Lousia). We do not want to leave her home alone, so she just goes with us everywhere we go. Ours is an outdoor life, especially in summer. At night she comes into the trailer with us and sleeps on my head. I teach her not to, but Alexander does not …
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 …
July 1st 2014: What a beautiful sunny day it is amidst this not-yet very warm summer. My husband Don and I are off to our neighbouring province, B.C. by way of the Haines Road to celebrate Canada Day our particular way. At Klukshu, we check to see if there are any salmon in the river …
At 3:45 a.m. we hear the local bus driver over the loudspeaker: “Good Morning. We will be arriving in Whitehorse shortly. The only restaurant open 24/7 is not…” I didn’t make arrangements to be picked up, but I am not worried. I live here. We get off the bus, an odd sort of newly made …
Meet Gabriel Rivest, a Yukoner. Last summer, Rivest and five friends spent 63 days canoeing 1,500 kilometres through the six rivers in the Peel and Yukon Watersheds. He and the team brought 220 pounds of camera equipment on the trip and they are now producing a video about the experience. On February 24 Rivest will …
I live along the Alaska Highway and when I step out of my house I am in the wilderness. Though I normally live in the wilderness, I can always find a little wilderness wherever I go. When I lived in The Hague, the North Sea and it’s beaches and dunes were within biking distance. In …
I haven’t written about Stony Creek before, even though I drink its water daily and follow its bank up to the mountains a few times each year. Once I even followed it beyond its source, overlooking Harrison Lake. The Stony Creek hike is a popular. It’s easy and close to town, about 40 km north …
The mist is seeping through the trees surrounding the house, and the sky directly overhead is starting to show blue. This would have been a beautiful morning to slide the canoe into the water through the swamp grass at Taye Lake. I long to float through the long, thick reeds of the equisetum, better known …
Last year, on a hike up Vanier Mountain nearby Kusawa Lake, my friend spotted a black and white mountain across the lake. The north side of the pyramid-shaped mountain was black and the south side white. It was mysterious to me. How could one side be black, and one side be white? I dug a …
On July 16, 2013 I saw a super big moth. I am not into moths yet, I’m just getting to know butterflies, but this Bedstraw Hawk-moth is special and it loves my garden because of the Northern Bedstraw that grows abundantly. I had not seen this moth for several years, but it is unmistakable due …
I have been on several day hikes this spring, and spring was very marginal this year. Winter just didn’t want to let go. On the day of my last hike there were flurries and cool temperatures forecast everywhere in the territory. We aimed to climb Stony Creek, but as the Johnsons, a gold mining family …
The skiing at Mount Sima was fantastic on the last weekend it was open this winter, but besides the excellent snow conditions and weather, the energy was buzzing and the hill was incredibly well prepared. Mount Sima just has to remain operational all year round. Whatever happens to Mount Sima, the hiking trail will be …
All winter I worked on a trail going due south from the house. My initial goal was to reach a little hilltop in the middle of the Takhini Valley. First, I followed the firebreak to the highway, and some days that was as far as I went. If I saw fresh elk or deer tracks, …
As I sit here looking out of my window at Mount Kelvin, a white peak above the treed hills, I dream of summer hikes past and future. A few years back on a summer day two friends and I went up Mount Kelvin. We started out following an existing trail along the grassy ridges, but …
In the summer I am forever identifying wild flowers, but in the winter it’s animal tracks. For me identifying animal tracks is a little simpler, but that’s just because I have only one reference book: Field Guide To Tracking Animals In Snow, by Louise R. Forrest. I am often puzzled trying to determine the maker …
When you drive the Alaska Highway towards Haines Junction you get glimpses of the Takhini River on your right, but it disappears from sight once you cross and it lies on the south side of the road. Being so close to the road, but out of sight makes it a good area to park a …
The meadows lie like pearls on a string along the winding, muddy Mendenhall River. I live only three kilometres from the river as the crow flies. When there is no obvious road or trail to where I want to go, I will find one. Many years ago I created a small path for the first …
The history of the Jo-Jo Lake trail goes a long way back, as the people of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations can tell you. “It’s been a horse trail for hunting forever, since way before my time,” 95-year-old Alex Van Bibber tells me. According to the highly-respected elder and outdoorsman, there is an outfitter …
This morning I heard the grouse drumming. All these signs of spring! This drumming is the mating call of the male grouse. He produces it with his wings and it carries clearly through the forest. When you live in the Yukon, the chances that you have heard a chainsaw are pretty big. It sounds a …
With all the snow now melting, it brings back memories of spring hiking, which is soon to start. The southern-exposed hillsides are starting to clear, and by the end of April our crocuses might bloom – along with a little yellow cinquefoil here and there. Some years ago at the end of May or early …
This year the skating started for me on October 22 after I woke up to -22 C. The morning before, the yard was full of deer prints. They had come and gone without us noticing. I took my bike out to investigate the tracks, with the intention of ending up were my husband was going …
I have this mountain in my backyard. Our elevation at home, somewhere along the Alaska Highway, is almost 2,500 feet. The top of my mountain is almost 3,300 feet. Its foot is about a mile from my home. In summer I can get up that mountain and back in two hours, which sometimes is exhilarating, …
I admit I will take the fullest, bushiest tree out there, like hunting for trophy. I know a friend—bless her heart—who just takes the little scrawny tree. Maybe I should do that this year, because in the Yukon a young small spruce or pine is most often scrawny. My friend’s tree always looks beautiful in …
I Iive about a 15-minute drive from Stony Creek. Stony is well known for the best drinking water ever and, of course, for the raspberries that people from all over come to pick. There are always enough, no matter how many pickers – bears, gophers, chipmunks and humans. The raspberry season in the big gravel …
Last year I found out that a certain pink flower was not the one I always thought it was. My first encounter with a pink pincushion goes back to my first hikes in the Yukon. I can still visualize that first time I came upon this pink glory, when I was walking on top of …
What I love about writing for What’s Up Yukon is that it encourages me to do a little research about the things I write about. Even if I can’t use it in my article, I always learn a lot—mostly things to watch for next time. So I will have to walk into Spirit Canyon a …
We have been enjoying an endless, beautiful fall this year. A few Fridays ago, still having lots of things on my To Do list, I knew I had to into the mountains again. As I am not much of a planner, I had not arranged to go with anyone. Now, I actually do like hiking …
Hiking into the Takhini Salt Flats used to mean parking on the narrow shoulder of the Alaska Highway. Now, thanks to road improvements around the Takhini River Bridge, there is a little pull-out. So ‘thank you’ to that construction crew. On a July day, after parking about a kilometre before the bridge, my friend and …
In most places the river is around 20 feet wide, making it a perfect thoroughfare, even for dog sleds and snow machines, although there are snags and deadfall. The people who use it have tried to cut the overhanging trees, but as the banks slowly erode, trees keep falling across and into the river. My …
A beautiful day in February – the sun was shining, and a south wind blowing. In February, the sun gains considerable strength and on days like that one can imagine spring. I grew up on the coast, and if there is one thing I miss, it’s the ocean and going for walks on the beach. …
Sunday we woke up to -40. Minus forty is the same in Fahrenheit and Celsius. To me that means everybody understands: no matter which system you use, – 40 is -40. But to really know how that feels, you have to live it. At 40 below things do change. From the usual cold it is …
Somewhere high in the mountains there is a small, deep lake in between three mountain peaks. It’s a magical place. It was a golden summer day in autumn. More golden because the poplar leaves turned very yellow this year, and more summery because this September we had an incredible amount of sunshine and 3 whooping …
Of all the mountains around the Mendenhall subdivision, I had never made it to the most prominent, Mount Vanier. I can’t see it from my house, but my neighbour Kathi had been looking at it through her living room window for seven years, longing to be on the top. Finally, in the last week of …
At 7:40, I set off on foot through the woods towards the highway. At 8:00, Mary Whitley picked me up. She had already plucked another friend from the highway. We were going on a hike following Quill Creek on the Haines Road. We had heard that part of the bush road going northeast at Quill …
There are little leaps and big leaps, little walks and big walks. I like the idea of “keep on walking”, day after day, farther away. There are people who do that, and I don’t know if it ever will be me. I haven’t even gone on overnight hikes for a few years. Not that I …
Bogs have stagnant water and swamps have some drainage. And then there are fens and marshes. A fen is a peatland, but so is a bog. The more I read, the less I understood. I don’t know if I am capable of writing the following story, because I will have to use those terms I …
In early April, I started running every morning. I felt that I was losing stamina on my hikes, and needed to do something about it. It’s amazing, now I am in the habit of it, how easy it is to keep it up. Mind you, I only run for 15-20 minutes. Besides getting fitter, it …
October, the month of change from no snow to snow, has just passed by. In the southern Yukon the year is nicely divided into two equal parts, with half a year where snow stays on the ground, and half a year where, well, there is always some snow somewhere. Last week everything dripped with melting …
