Breathing New Life Into A 1950s Mystery
It could be a military dog tag, a cut of metal or a twist of fabric. Uncovering even the smallest thing from a plane that disappeared…
history
Let There Be Light
The longest night, the shortest day. Either way you measure, if you celebrate during or near midwinter, or Winter Solstice…
New Adventures, Old Heirlooms
About eight or nine years ago, my dad’s cousin’s widow called out of the blue to berate me (in her high-toned British accent) because I didn’t let her know about my mom’s passing. I didn’t want to explain that I didn’t even know this relative was still alive or that she was still in touch …
Jan Ogilvy’s interest in a maligned monarch
A particular hobby has been occupying historians for hundreds of years, including long-time Yukoner and history enthusiast Jan Ogilvy. The pastime she shares with thousands of people around the world is unraveling the truth about Richard III, former King of England, now dead some 535 years.
Early geological mapping – Part 2
One project was to traverse and map the Mackenzie Mountains near the Yukon-NWT border by Joseph Keele who spent an entire year in 1907-08.
The Klondike Gold Rush Steamers
In these days of highways and 1000-year level flood dikes, it’s easy to forget that the best way to get to Dawson used to be by sternwheelers. While most of the stampeders made their way here in small boats and rafts in 1898, a sizeable number cruised to the fledgling town from St. Michael’s, Alaska, in riverboats and steamers and, once the White Pass chugged into Whitehorse, still more hopped on boats from there.
The lost camel of an ancient Persian fairy tale
In Persia, there once was a wise king with three sons. He mock-banished the young princes from his kingdom so they could go out and test themselves against the dangers of the real world. Their journey became a fairy tale known as “The Three Princes of Serendip.”
Three letters that could save your life…
SOS. Many of us know (or think we know) what these familiar letters stand for. We may have even sent out an SOS, a time or two, when life or limb warranted it. Some (myself included) think that the trio means “save our souls.” Others say it means “save our ship.” Well, it’s neither. Yukoners may have …
Yukon See It Here – Jonny Wilkie
Jonny Wilkie shares some 1930s-era Fords that are still kicking around the Klondike. Jonny Wilkie (Lost Klondike Photography) [box] We invite you to share your photos of Yukon life. Email your high-resolution images with a description of what’s going on and what camera equipment you used to [email protected][/box]
Main Street or bust
Rolf Hougen stands with Harreson Tanner beside the bust of Sam Steele that he commissioned Chuck Buchanan to sculpt as part of the centennial RCMP celebration in 1992 What do Jack London, Martha Black, Pierre Berton and Ted Harrison have in common? They’ve all been commissioned by Rolf Hougen to be sculpted by Harreson Tanner …
Can you get to Canyon from here?
Are you into history and/or walking? Maybe you prefer history and exploring beautiful places, but not walking? Either way, I’ve got you covered. If you’ve never been, Canyon City is a must. Nestled within Whitehorse city limits, this ghost town is not only a beautiful place to explore, but also a Yukon Heritage Site. The …
Yukon See It Here: Jonny Wilkie
A vintage Yukon licence plate collection Submitted by Klondike Lost Photography (Jonny Wilkie) [box] We invite you to share your photos of Yukon life. Email your high-resolution images with a description of what’s going on and what camera equipment you used to [email protected][/box]
A Commemoration of the Yukon’s WWI Fallen Soldiers
This slender volume contains brief biographies and photographs of the men from the Yukon who fought and died for Canada between 1914 and 1918. Seven of the enlisted died in 1919, but are recorded as still being in active service. Many of their names are recorded on cenotaphs or memorial plaques in Dawson City or …
A Commemoration of the Yukon’s WWI Fallen Soldiers Read More »
The fastest lady in the Klondike Gold Rush
She was not only the first female river pilot on the Upper Yukon, she was also the fastest. No, her name wasn’t Klondike Kate, the Oregon Mare, Bombay Peggy or the (immortalized by Robert W. Service) “Lady that’s known as Lou.” She and her husband Albert were in the fabrication and construction business in Seattle. …
Yukon See It Here – Jonny Wilkie
Jonny Wilkie submitted a collection of different photos, including these with early 20th century relics. Classic Yukon cabin walls familiar to those with cabin fever [box] We invite you to share your photos of Yukon life. Email your high-resolution images with a description of what’s going on and what camera equipment you used to [email protected][/box]
The usual suspects
Rendezvous made Marj Eschak move to the Yukon. It was 1977. She’d only come up for the weekend, but was so impressed, she decided to stay.
The greatest living history in the North
I was walking through downtown Edmonton, the other day, when an old-timer in curled-up cowboy boots saddled up to me and bummed six bits off of me for a glass of draught. I was so happy to hear that particular vernacular that I almost gave him a hug.
At least I’m not a giraffe’s backside this time
The time-honoured English tradition of the Christmas pantomime (known affectionately as just “panto”) was not part of my childhood. For the benefit of those of us who weren’t weaned on this particular theatrical fare, it’s important to bear in mind various traditions, tropes, and stereotypes of an English-style panto.
Yukon See It Here: Jon Wilkie
The Thistle Creek Dredge in fog. This dredge was operated by Yukon Gold Placers and ran from 1949 to 1952.
Fifty years of meat, sausage and community
The Deli, as it is fondly nicknamed by so many, is a local icon to most Yukoners (not just those in Whitehorse), as well as to many travellers from around the world. (This tribute was written to help celebrate its 50th Anniversary on December 14, 2018.)
Searching for a way out
Genevieve Fleming is counting on Whitehorse audiences to take in the upcoming Guild Theatre production, even if just to indulge in some cold-weather Schadenfreude. In one sense, the Vancouver-based director suggested in an interview, staging French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play, No Exit, is like holding a mirror up to our own society. “We, the …
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.
We will remember them
It’s important to reflect each November 11th and remember those young men and women who gave their lives on behalf of their country.
Honouring and remembering sacrifice
The Battle of Vimy Ridge was a great victory for Canada, but it came at a price. In this battle, there were more than 10,500 casualties and about 3,600 killed. To our knowledge, Herbert Lawless was the only known Yukoner to fall in this battle.
Rope wreaths and Yukon steamers
Ruth Treskatis, volunteer and Janna Swales, executive director, proudly display their creations in front of the popsicle stick model of the SS Klondike at the Yukon Transportation Museum on Oct 15/18 What a history-packed day November 3, 2018, will be at our local Yukon Transportation Museum (YTM). The special activities start at 3 p.m. with …
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 …
Old-fashioned breads, old-fashioned taste from the 1920s
Bread recipes from the 1920s. Home-baked bread from Grandmother was a natural thing and you always knew what the ingredients were.
For those who answered the call …
“Yukon soldiers are buried in more than 50 cemeteries on four continents.” –Michael Gates Lest we forget … This is why Michael Gates (Yukon historian and Yukon News columnist) and D. Blair Neatby (military historian, Yellowknife) have co-authored the memorial book, Yukon Fallen of World War I, a collection of more than 100 biographies that …
Turn up the amp …
For a two-night gig this past July in Beaver Creek, Larry Berrio and his band shut the town down! Berrio, from Sudbury, Ontario, travelled 5,000 kilometres with his bandmates to the most westerly community in Canada. With open arms, the town of Beaver Creek welcomed the band.
Ross River coal: Transforming plants to carbon
The widespread use of coal was one of the major factors in fueling the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s and early 1800s. In recent decades, however, coal has received a bad reputation as a major source of acid rain and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Then there has always been the proverbial threat of …
Where the Trump family fortune got started
“I’m a fifty-pager,” says Whitehorse writer Pat Ellis, commenting on her preference for producing short history booklets. Her latest, Financial Sourdough Starter Stories—“The Trump Family, from Whitehorse to White House,” the “Klondike Gold Rush” and “Harry Truman and the A-Bomb”—tops out at 64 pages, but the concept remains the same. “I’ve done a squatter book …
To ‘Looks Like a Caribou’ and back – Part 6 of 6
Driving the Dempster Highway to Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T. (located on Kugmallit Bay of the Beaufort Sea of the Arctic Ocean), is no big deal..
How an email exchange became a 15-year blog project
Now that the Moccasin Telegraph has run its course after 15 years of providing an opportunity for folks to share history and reconnect, we have stopped preparing more editions.
The Yukon’s greatest love story
Yukon icons Otto and Kate Partridge lived in the beautiful southern lakes region of the territory.
Art meets nature and history
Miles Canyon holds a special place in the story of Whitehorse. Each summer, the Yukon Conservation Society invites Yukon artists to participate in a two-day workshop to create pieces inspired by this special place.
The White River Ash, the mega eruption next door – Part 4
Past volcanic eruptions in Alaska have resulted in massive displacement of peoples and widespread environmental damage in the Yukon.
Kathleen & Kokanee in Kluane – Part 3 of 6
Kathleen Lake, which is the only place in Kluane National Park you can sleep (legally) if you have rubber wheels for your mode of transportation (rather than flying machines, skis, hiking boots or birchbark).
George Arcand has been hitting home runs for over 30 years
For decades, George Arcand has been an institution for softball in the Yukon, getting his start as a volunteer in the mid-1970s.
White wolves of summer
Have you ever been seized by the sudden urge to don a suit of plate armour and bludgeon other armoured people with a mace? Perhaps your answer is a hearty “Yes!” but it certainly wasn’t for Land Pearson, at least not before he strapped on the armour.
Atlin: Boom town to burnt down … to boom, burn, bust and boom again – Part 2 of 6
Of all the cities, towns and villages in northwestern Canada, Atlin’s journey through the turbulent 20th century was more dramatic than most.
From the California gold rush to the history of the Yukon
Josh Winkler combines traditional media with print media and sculpture. Reaching for the Sun is the title of his recent project. It references natural growth, but also the growth of humanity, the accumulation of products, and the fragility of the planet.
A Kenai kickoff to a new series – Part 1 of 6
Homer, on the west side of the Kenai Peninsula, is the farthest south you can drive and became my favourite place to RV camp in Alaska because of this surprise: it felt like California.
Cartridges over 100 years old and still kicking
Even shooters in their 20s have had cartridges invented, failed to catch on, and disappeared in their lifetimes. Not so with the six I’ll mention in this short article.
Enjoying a ‘Skagway Quickie’
Enjoy one of the brothel tours with the lovely and knowledgeable Madam Toler Skagway holds its quirky charms with its Klondike-themed buildings and summer staff dressed similar to the time period. It’s no different as you step inside the Red Onion Saloon. The blood-red walls, wooden furniture and old-time music gives the feeling of stepping …
The Yukon’s Magnificent 11 – Part 6 of 6
It almost appears as if one of the great tourism RV destinations, Haines Road & Alaska Highway, happened by design—but it didn’t.
The Ravenmaster: My life with the ravens at the Tower of London
“Christopher Skaife is both a raven master and a master storyteller. Compulsively readable, I devoured the book in a single sitting!”—Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering So did I! From 4 p.m. to midnight on the very day I found the last hard copy of The Ravenmaster for sale in Whitehorse. I bought it as …
The Ravenmaster: My life with the ravens at the Tower of London Read More »
Carmacks agate
Quartz is everywhere; it is the second most common mineral making up the Earth’s crust, just behind feldspar. Quartz is composed of the two elements silicon and oxygen. It has many different forms.
The Yukon’s Magnificent 11 – Part 5 of 6
The Top of the World Highway is neither on top of the world nor is it a highway, but rivals the Dempster for dramatic scenery while it lasts.
The Yukon’s Magnificent 11 – Part 4 of 6
1949 History of Atlin & Tagish roads “decimated, through inanition, due wholly to the lack of adequate and vital transportation facilities.”
Didee & Didoo: Times are Changing
We don’t pack water anymore. We don’t vote with our hands anymore. They don’t sign their names with an “X” anymore. We don’t buy from the Trading Post anymore. We don’t use dog packs anymore. We don’t need an interpreter anymore. We don’t start school in July anymore. Planes don’t land on sandbars anymore. We …
The awe of quartzite beneath you
Rock, not the genre of music, that guy on the radio or your friend from Newfoundland referring to “The Rock” as home, but rocks and the minerals they are made of, are integral to our existence. We interact with them in many ways every day. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher and writer, wrote in …
I Hate Springing Forward
Spring. Daylight. Forward. Change. These words all individually invoke positivity and renewal.
From the field to the lab
Yukon College archaeologist Norm Easton has been unearthing the secrets of the area around the Yukon-Alaska border for more than 25 years. This year, for the first time, he is leaving the field to focus on doing research in the laboratory.
The Yukon’s Magnificent 11 – Part 3 of 6
Sitting at Watson Lake you may wonder if you should take Robert Campbell #4 to the Klondike, afterall, it is shorter. The answer is NO!
What’s up with foot reflexology
Foot reflexology is an accessible touch therapy where a practitioner uses both light touch and deeper pressure techniques to stimulate points or reflex zones of the foot and lower limb. Reflexologists from all influences base their practice on the belief that our feet and lower limbs contain reflex points that share – or mirror – …
Whatever happened to the artful riposte?
In days past, we had people like Sir Winston Churchill, a world-class orator and master of the insult We all know nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. My concern is that the noble art of the insult is also on the skids these days. When I was a kid, one of the worst taunts you …
A new narrative on gold rush history
“To most people, the pack ice looked like a cold, endless wasteland that spread across one’s entire field of vision. But, if one watched it more carefully, one could see it come to life.” — excerpt from No Time to Bury Them by Mark C. Eddy On the surface of national history, the Yukon is …
Oil lamps
In modern times oil or kerosene burning lamps are used more as part of décor than to throw light on a situation. People nowadays run electric lights – either battery powered or using electricity – from the grid or a small generator. Propane lights are also used, but to a lesser degree than 20 years …
Human migrations changed hunting
The discovery of Gold in the Klondike region in 1896, brought huge numbers of people to the Yukon. All these people had to be fed.
A tale of Arctic exploration
Yukon author Eva Holland has taken advantage of Amazon’s Kindle Singles format to produce what might have been a 45-page volume about the early history of Arctic exploration.
The Yukon’s Magnificent 11- Part 2 of 6
The Klondike Highway wasn’t done for tourism reasons. The Silver Trail Highway, on the other hand, is a highway geared towards tourists.
‘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 …
Welcome 2018, farewell Commissioner Phillips
According to the Yukon Commissioner’s office, the New Year’s Levee is an old tradition that dates back to King Louis XIV of France and was first introduced in Canada when fur traders would pay respect to their government representatives on New Year’s Day. The annual event has evolved from these beginnings and the levee this …
Festivus For The Rest Of Us
Christmas is in the air and for many Yukoners that means either a chance to reconnect with family and friends, deepen their faith in Christianity or a combination of the two. For people from all denominations and belief systems it’s a civic holiday that can mean an extra day or two off work or 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.
Small but beautiful
Our experience at the Mount Sima ski hill in Whitehorse and some facts about skiing
The Yukon’s Magnificent 11 – Part 1 of 6
The Canol Road is easily the nastiest numbered road in the Yukon and why we opened with it. The worst shall be first and the fast shall be last.
Homemade Treats
Having grown up in the 1930 and 40s, I was used to homemade food such as pancakes, bread and fresh-from-the-garden homemade soups. Nothing was prepared in cans from the grocery store that had sat on the shelves for months. The only thing spread on the garden was cow manure as a fertilizer. So here are some …
Drifting Home covers 3 generations of Bertons
In the summer of 1972 Pierre Berton decided to recreate a trip he had taken with his mother, father and sister back in the 1930s and take his family rafting from Bennett Lake to Dawson City.
Not Just a Dog, But a Best Friend
My dog, who I called The Barron, had an all brown head and a brown patch on his shoulders, but otherwise, was all white and, shall we say, not really accepted by the rich and mighty of the bird dog organizations.
The Power of ‘the camino’
It’s a walk, it’s a pilgrimage. It’s called “the camino” and it has the power to make people feel called to do it, the power to make people talk about it, the power to draw people back to do it again.
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.
Lest we forget
Remembrance Day is now as much an opportunity to recognize all those men and women who have served and returned home. We owe them thanks. That’s why we wear our poppies and hold our ceremonies, to support and remember.
Stonecliff brings together a remarkable team of artists (Part 2 of 2)
The new musical drama Stonecliff tells the story of Michael J. Heney, the son of poor Irish immigrants in the Ottawa Valley who went on to build one of the world’s most spectacular railways – the White Pass and Yukon Route – to serve the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898.
Bringing Up a Family the Old Fashioned Way
What has bringing up children in outdoor experiences and enjoying the life of camping, fishing and hunting done for the children?
Hunting in the Yukon – Part 1
An excerpt of Manfred Hoefs’ recently released book Yukon’s Hunting History. Yukon’s history, time scale & events are unique.
Jack ‘n Sack
This is part four of a four-part series. In part three, the writer had been invited to caddy for Jack Nicklaus for the second time in his life, via their mutual friend, Vancouver entrepreneur Caleb Chan.
’50s Diner!
The first snow has settled in the border town of Beaver Creek, Yukon. Sid is preparing his house and museum for a long cold winter.
From Bonanza to Bucharest
With the exception of sports figures, Max Fraser contends, Canadian heroes seldom get the respect they deserve. The Whitehorse filmmaker and military history buff wants to help change that, especially when it comes to a larger-than-life former Yukoner, Joseph Whiteside Boyle. “I’m still trying to figure out this character, Joe Boyle, because I’ve never met, …
Canada’s first superheroine saved from obscurity
There’s no need to be a closet comic nerd anymore. The genre has exploded into accepted popularity over the last 10 years and it’s definitely something worth openly celebrating. If you’re like me, however, and relatively new to the scene, you might be surprised to find the roots of Canadian comic artists went mainstream more …
Canada’s first superheroine saved from obscurity Read More »
Symposium to discuss activating history
Every two years the Yukon Historical & Museums Association holds a meeting for the entire Yukon heritage community. It moves around the territory, but executive director Lianne Maitland says that one of the places they like to come back to is Dawson City. The 2017 Heritage Symposium, called Activating Our Communities, will take place on …
Bringing the White Pass story to musical life
Any of the millions of passengers who have ridden the White Pass and Yukon Route – “the scenic railway of the world” – in the 117 years since its completion, would immediately recognize it as a marvellous technological achievement. Indeed, the White Pass and Yukon Route is recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers …
Flying High
To hear Hugh Kitchen tell it, operating a Northern aviation business seems a lot like trying to romance a porcupine. Besides needing opportunity, courage and excellent timing, “you have to be flexible and fast on your feet.” Kitchen ought to know. He’s been involved with Whitehorse-based Alkan Air for the past 35 years, both as …
Plastic, plastic, everywhere
It is 2017 and plastic is all around us — in our toothbrushes, phones, and children’s toys. We use it to store our food and bottle our water. We put our plastic purchases in plastic bags to bring home. Many plastic bags will get used only once. They might get recycled. They might get thrown …
The Wisdom of Yogi the Berra
Other than Samuel Clemens, who wrote as Mark Twain, few historical Americans are more oft-quoted than former New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra, who died in 2015 at the age of 90, but will live forever for the things he said while he was alive. His only real competition as the best American malapropist was …
At Home at Sea
“Ship’s logs, myths, stories of quiet exaltation and wrenching lamentations can all become poetry when the experience resonates deeply with the rhythm of the human heart…”— Anita Hadley in the introduction to Spindrift: A Canadian Book of the Sea. The sea, in Anita Hadley’s view, may not be a tangible part of your everyday, but …
A Tale of the Klondike Tailings
Despite the romantic image of the grizzled miner panning by the creek side in search of gold, that phase of the Klondike’s mineral saga was relatively short. Entrepreneurial minds knew of more efficient and less-labour intensive ways of getting gold from the ground, and it wasn’t long before the arrival of the dredges in the …
It’ll be Hip
Special Olympics Yukon will introduce an event of the season and it’s looking hip! Two hours of Tragically Hip by cover band The Hip Show.
An Unkindness of Ravens
It is easy to laugh at the antics of ravens. They are quirky, curious and yes, funny. A well-known title they carry among First Nations people is that of Trickster, known for their pranks and intelligence. They also carry darker histories, in literature and folklore: wise, feared, revered, portents of death. wreathed in mystery. I …
Very Old, Very New
Not many art forms can trace their origins back to a single year. But according to Toshi Aoyagi, program officer for the Japan Foundation, Toronto, the popular theatre genre known as Kabuki started in exactly 1603. And it’s still going strong. Aoyagi will be in Whitehorse this week to introduce Yukon Arts Centre audiences to …
Glück Auf! A Mini-Mining Tour of Germany
I’m not a miner, but on a recent visit to Germany my friends took me on impromptu mining tours of their regions. First Clemens and I drove 100 kilometres west of Leipzig to Wangen and the Arc of Nebra (Arche Nebra) museum, where the Himmelsscheibe (Star Chart) of Nebra was discovered in 1999. Dating back …
Gertie’s Begins with a Losing Streak
If anyone ever tries to tell you the first legal casino in Canadian history – Dawson City’s fabled Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall – was a raging success from the moment the doors first opened in June, 1972, perhaps you should clip and save this article to correct that historical distortion of the truth. In …
On Market Day, Everything Old is New Again
The way some people talk, you’d think farmers’ markets were a recent invention by eco-conscious millennials spurred to action by reading a book about the 100-mile diet. Nothing could be further from the truth. People have been hauling their goods to communal selling and trading places ever since humankind began the transition from hunting and …
Jack ‘n Sack
Although I can’t absolutely verify the factual accuracy of the following “claim to fame,” if I’m not the only person who had the unique opportunity to caddy for Jack Nicklaus both before he won his first professional major (1962 U.S. Open) and after his last (1986 Masters), I’m certainly one of the very few fortunate …
Hiking Miles Canyon to Canyon City: A Landscape with a Past
One of the most visited attractions in Whitehorse, the Miles Canyon Suspension Bridge, is a great launching point for interesting half-day hikes. Located about 10 minutes from downtown by road, the historic 95-year-old suspension bridge (which has been recently repaired) is connected to a well-established network of trails east of the Yukon River, in Chadburn …
Hiking Miles Canyon to Canyon City: A Landscape with a Past Read More »
Discovery Days: Yukon’s Moveable Holiday
The Yukon’s Discovery Day Holiday is kind of hard to pin down. Likely the Monday closest to the day gold was discovered on Bonanza Creek.
Giving That Room Props for Its Good Vibe
When the Westmark Hotel in Beaver Creek closed its doors in 2013, it brought an end to the dinner and show extravaganza called Beaver Creek Rendezvous, a tradition that had taken place every year for 22 years. The closure of the Westmark was prompted by Holland-America tours’ decision to cease travel to Beaver Creek. Westmark …
Ghost-Hunting in the Whitehorse Copperbelt
You wouldn’t think a person could go ghost hunting in the middle of the day in the middle of summer, but MacBride Museum offers six to 12-year-olds a chance to do just that from August 14 to 18. “To hunt ghosts, and tell Yukon ghost stories, you need the historical perspective,” says Angela Drainville, manager …
From the East to the Beautiful South
Keen on history? The Castle Wartburg in Wittenberg in Eastern Germany offers an opportunity to learn about the 500th Anniversary of Martin Luther’s Reformation. The castle is the place where Luther translated the bible and lived with his family. The castle’s origins date back to 1067. The castle is hosting an exhibition until November called …
Visiting Fort Selkirk
As someone who has always been very interested in Yukon history the Fort Selkirk Historic Site was definitely on the list of places we wanted the visit during the year we lived in the Yukon. But how to get there since there is no road access? Located near the confluence of the Yukon and the …
Celebrating Sausages
The Germans are known by the nickname “The Krauts,” which comes from sauerkraut, a famous German dish comprised of fermented cabbage. Maybe Germans should be nicknamed “The Sausages” instead, because we have 1,500 kinds of different sausages in Germany – according to the Deutscher Fleischer Verband (German Meat Association). There is a sausage for every …
An Inspiring Book, Found in a Unique Bookstore
MacLeod’s Books in Vancouver is a book lover’s dream. Books are piled up from floor to ceiling. Fortunately, the friendly staff helps you to navigate through the wide selection of books – some of them quite old and rare. When my partner and I visited this unique store last year, I found a book in …
Remembering Canada’s Centennial Year
I was in Grade 10 in 1967. For some reason my school provided high school students with tree saplings to take home and plant. Why they were willow trees instead of maple trees I have no idea. Mine has been growing ever since, and it was a monster of a thing when I drove past …
Gertie’s First Season
Once upon a time, long ago, a young truck driver in Whitehorse found himself with five days off work to celebrate the May long weekend and decided to finally visit Dawson City for the first time. It was either 1971 or ’72, and he had been listening to his coworkers talk about it all winter. …
Horses of the Yukon
Sid van der Meer, the history buff of Beaver Creek, Yukon, has a little part of the horse history displayed at Sid’s Treasures.
Canadian Red
Ever since I was a child I would see the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers and think, “Wow! Our national police force is beyond cool!” Today, I still think that. The Mounties definitely know how put on a good horse show and parade. Located throughout every province and territory, the RCMP are there to “stand …
Tout en musique pour la Fête de la Saint-Jean
La Saint-Jean, qu’est-ce que ? À l’origine, une fête païenne célébrée, le 24 juin, depuis quelques siècles, qui a, par la suite, été christianisée. On y faisait des feux de joie, on chantait et on dansait, le tout pour célébrer l’arrivée de l’été et le jour le plus long de l’année! Depuis une cinquantaine d’années, …
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 …
How Times Have Changed
Times have changed since 1933. Monopoly was invented, Joan Collins; Joan Rivers; and Willie Nelson were born. So was this columns author.
The Legacy of the Klondike Cancan
The cancan that began as an 1830s dance craze in Paris was a direct revolt against the rules imposed by men, society, press, clergy and narrow-minded citizens. From the beginning the cancan was a statement, and it became a symbolic statement through the various revolutions and movements from that point forward. As the great cancan …
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
The history of how we move is full of wild and wondrous stories about survival, romance, perseverance and everyday life. It’s also a great lens through which we can explore science and technology. Two new summer programs at the Yukon Transportation Museum will explore stories and science with kids and seniors to celebrate Canada 150 …
Double-barreled day of action in Dawson City
June 10 will be a double-barreled day of action in Dawson City, as it always is during what could be called Commissioner’s Day. The two events on this day – the Commissioner’s Tea and the Ball – are always held on the Saturday closest to June 13, which was the date in 1898 when the …
Keepers of the Faith at the 98
You’ll either be told to avoid the 98 or it is a must go for an authentic Yukon experience. The 98 has the most colourful people in town.
Beatle Stations
The first volume of Lewisohn’s trilogy The Beatles: All These Years. The main drawback is that at only about 800 pages, it’s over too soon.
Yukon History Maker
Sid Van der Meer received the History Maker Award , it is presented for outstanding contributions to Yukon heritage.
Jack ‘n Sack
Although I can’t absolutely verify the factual accuracy of the following “claim to fame,” if I’m not the only person who had the unique opportunity to caddy for Jack Nicklaus both before he won his first professional major (1962 U.S. Open) and after his last (1986 Masters), I’m certainly one of the very few fortunate …
Shake Out Those Memories and Shine ’em Up
Until fairly recently, I had no interest whatever in the idea of writing a book of memoirs. Like most people, I assumed nobody would care to read about the life journey of a nobody-in-particular. After all, autobiography is the purview of politicians, movie stars, generals and other colourful scoundrels. If I ever had the hubris …
The Cancan Arrives at the Klondike Gold Rush
On November 28, 1891, the New York Sun dedicated a full page to the cancan. Titled “Eccentric Paris Dance,” the article highlights Paris cancan stars of the day who describe intricate cancan dance moves. After the two decades of being attacked in the press by misogynist newspaper editors and pious moral reformers, the Sun article …
A Stitch in Time
Anna Taylor spent this winter stitching the stories of Dawson City women. In March, the Halifax-based textile artist completed a month-long residency at the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture. There, her embroidery practice focused on Dawson’s relationship with prostitution during the gold rush, and on the lives of the individual women who traveled north …
Célébration de la francophonie yukonnaise
… et des célébrations Pour la 11ème édition, l’AFY et ses organismes partenaires, bien rôdés dans l’organisation de l’événement, ont voulu apporter de la nouveauté. Finis les longs discours de remerciements, ces derniers, raccourcis au maximum, laissent dorénavant place aux festivités : vendredi 12 mai, dès 16h15, une réelle chasse aux trésors, destinée aux familles, …
Changing Direction
John Stetch was already part of the New York City jazz scene when he first played in front of classical pianist and teacher Burton Hatheway in Fairfield, Connecticut back in 1993. Hatheway, who is still teaching at the age of 87, didn’t mince words. “Do you want to be serious?” Stetch recalls the maestro asking. …
Chronicling the Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community
I’m very jealous of what Whitehorse based Lily Gontard and Mark Kelly have managed to pull off with their delightful book, Beyond Mile Zero: The Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community (published last month, Lost Moose, 240 pages, $24.95). They’ve taken an idea that I turned into a measly two or three columns in the Whitehorse …
Chronicling the Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community Read More »
Telling the untold stories of the Yukon
The first days in the creation of the play Map of the Land, Map of the Stars took place in the summer of 2015 along the banks of the Yukon River. A group of artists gathered with stories, images, objects, and songs – items that they were drawn to and that were rooted in the …
Filling the Gaps in Our History
“Everyone talks about the Goldrush. I’m interested in the gaps in history. The points in between,” says Yukon writer Michael Gates, author of From the Klondike to Berlin. Published last month, this book is, perhaps surprisingly, the first to offer an in depth account of the Yukon’s contribution to World War I. Gates says that …
Do You Remember When?
Allow me to take you back in time to when the words of today had a great difference in meaning… Close your eyes… and go back in time… before the internet, Mac, Dreamcast, Playstation or Nintendo 64… away back, I’m talking hide and seek at dusk… hopscotch, Double Dutch, jacks, kickball, mother may I, Red …
CAUTION: Bison bison athabascae
The first time I saw this sign, I had to stop and pull over on the side of the road to make sure I had read it correctly. It was early spring in 2012 and I was travelling up the Alaska Highway for the first of what would be uncountable times. The decision to come …
Can You Do the Cancan, Kate?
During the 1890s, the United States was a melting pot of entertainment – and vaudeville became the perfect vehicle to showcase this wealth of diversity. From New York to Victoria, B.C., vaudeville reigned supreme as the most popular entertainment in every city and many small towns. The key to vaudeville’s success was that it allowed …
Look Who’s Parking in Whitehorse
Dr. Katie Aitken, an ornithology instructor at Yukon College, says it’s “unknown” if Yukon’s house sparrow population will expand to become a problem downtown or with bird lovers. She admits she has a soft spot for them. “It was the first species I identified when I started birding as a child down south,” she told …
Power Couple
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when it comes to Pride and Prejudice, once is not enough. For acolytes, Jane Austen’s best-selling novel of the early 19th century invites reading again and again – and again. The same applies to the miniseries produced by BBC in 1995 and available on DVD at Whitehorse Public Library. …
An Ice Road Adventure
When I saw the post on Facebook from local Dawsonite Sarah Lenart, asking for two people to join her and friend Jeremy Herndl on a trip to Tuktoyaktuk from Inuvik via the winter ice road, I was elated. The ice road follows the Mackenzie River delta channels, and eventually ends up on the Arctic Ocean. …
She Told Him: ‘Julie, Don’t Go’
We don’t know for certain that anyone ever warned Julius Caesar to watch his back on the Ides of March. We do know that the Greek historian, Plutarch, included a second-hand tale in his biography of Caesar about a seer warning the Roman leader to watch out during the first half of the famous month …
The Evolution of a Home
By 2001, however, that big detached deck on the front of the house was deteriorating and we decided that a verandah running across the entire front of the house would cut down on the seasonal evening sun glare and provide what amounted to a sheltered outdoor living room in the summer. This addition we were …
Yukon Pilgrims Gather
Whitehorse resident Dianne Homan knows people make the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage for many reasons. So on March 15, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., she and the Yukon chapter of the Company of Canadian Pilgrims are hosting an informal presentation about “the Camino experience” at Hidden Valley School. Located in western Europe, the Camino …
The Cancan Under Arrest
Appearing nightly in vaudeville, burlesque, ballets and operas, on tiny rustic stages of the Wild West mining camps and in the frontier theatres of the Pacific Coast, by the 1870s the cancan was in North America to stay. When the cancan first became a part of the entertainment fabric, it was celebrated in newspaper reviews …
February is Black History Month
by: Jillian Christmas Stepping off the plane in Whitehorse The last thing I expect to see is home Imagining I might roam this great black north not quite alone but close enough. Chris points out the window “That’s Antoinette’s, Caribbean food if you’re feeling in need of a pick-me-up She’s from Tobago.” And I’m not …
Farewell to the Big Top and its Big Thrills
The child’s heart that beats in my aging breast is breaking. They’re shutting down the circus. After 146 years (exactly twice my life span so far), the iconic Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is turning off the lights, packing up the Big Top and sending home the clowns. In May, the roar of …
Modern-day Cartoons for Historical Folks
How to Survive in the North is a graphic novel where three northern tales — two historical and true, one fictional and set in present-day — are woven together in an artistic cartoon arrangement. While the title suggests the book may provide guidance through an icy winter, it’s more likely to urge you to consider …
Ancient Februarys
Valentine’s Day is parallel to Disney stories, The initial holiday is more comparable to Grimm’s Fairy Tale, intertwined love with gore.
McQuesten’s Diary a Historic Treasures in a Box
I have been told the “winner writes history.” Taking this idea a bit further and you might think history is all about battles, economic or ecological, or just about power. But history is much more than that. I recently had an opportunity to touch history. To look at and study a wonderful collection given to …
That new guy next door is definitely one of a kind
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States of America. The wealthy and patrician New Yorker, whose New Deal policies helped pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression and laid the foundation for much of its existing social policy, was the guy in charge the year I was born. Roosevelt died …
That new guy next door is definitely one of a kind Read More »
Gathering Memories of Clinton Creek Proves Difficult
The original purpose of the Clinton Creek Oral History Project was to gather information about how the area around the former asbestos mine and company town had been used by locals prior to the establishment of the mine in the mid-1960s. The mine was about a decade getting off the ground from the time that …
Gathering Memories of Clinton Creek Proves Difficult Read More »
Like the Beauty of the Yukon? You’ll Love Hiking Japan
He would leave home at 6:30 a.m. and return at 10 or 11 p.m. When Japan’s economy faltered, he wanted a change. He came to Canada, trained as a mountain guide, and moved to the Yukon to set up its Yamnuska branch in 2007. Today, he still works in an office, marketing and organizing. “But …
Like the Beauty of the Yukon? You’ll Love Hiking Japan Read More »
Delightful Devilry: The Cancan Invades New York
Although the cancan made its North American debut with Offenbach’s opera Orpheus of the Underworld in 1861, it wasn’t until it appeared in the first American musical that the cancan became a true phenomenon in North America. In 1866 Henry C. Jarrett and Harry Palmer imported a large group of Parisian dancers to perform the …
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 …
It’s Beginning to Sound a Lot Like…
With December well underway, I’m finally inured to the barrage of seasonal music that assails us whenever we set foot outdoors. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a total Grinch on the subject. In fact, there is a great canon of Christmas-related music that I actually enjoy. Most of it falls under the rubric of …
Predator and Prey 14,000 Years Ago
Zhoh, the Clan of the Wolf: Fiction of the first humans to inhabit The Yukon. I knew Bob Hayes novel would be physically accurate.
The Klondike Continues to Prepare for World Heritage Status
The nomination package has been prepared under the watchful eye of a local advisory committee, including representation from Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, the City of Dawson, the Yukon Government, the Klondike Placer Miners Association and citizen reps from both Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and the Dawson community. There is also a project management team, and much of the actual …
The Klondike Continues to Prepare for World Heritage Status Read More »
A Gang of Elk, An Obstinacy of Bison
Buffalo are associated with four collective nouns. A herd, a “gang”, a troop and, our favourite, an obstinacy of buffalo.
Dawson in a Fictional Sense
About the same time as I was reading Elle Wild’s very entertaining mystery novel, Strange Things Done, I happened to watch a discussion between best selling novelists Stephen King and Lee Child. Part of the discussion was about settings, and Child noted that he had set one of his novels in New York, a city …
The Cancan as Theatrical Spectacle
On June 20, 1819 the composer who was destined to pen the cancan theme song was born. His name was Jacques Offenbach. Born in Cologne, Germany, he grew to be a virtuoso cellist. At 14 he was accepted into the Paris Conservatoire and travelled there to begin his studies. The year was 1833 and a …
Harvey Burian: Growing up Multicultural on the Stewart River
Life on the river was isolated, especially in winter when the steamboats were not running. Sometimes visitors did stop in to catch up on the news. Harvey remembers: “We had radios…and we got mostly Alaskan stations…KFRB in Fairbanks…[and] in the last few years…we had a Ham radio…and the RCMP office in Mayo had one and …
Harvey Burian: Growing up Multicultural on the Stewart River Read More »
Remembering Japanese Canadian Soldiers of WWI
Remembrance Day has taken more meaning for me lately. Recently Yukon Archives shared some information about some Japanese from Dawson City who served in the First World War. This was a complete surprise to me. I wondered, Why would they serve? The Dawson Daily News of June 21, 1918 reported that there were five Japanese …
Welcome to the Party, Pal
“The story is ridiculous – ludicrous.” That’s director John McTiernan blithely dismissing the plot of one of the most successful thrillers of the past 30 years. Reservations about the plot aside, McTiernan had something particular in mind for this movie: it should be a joyful thrill ride. The result was Die Hard, and it’s a …
Collective Nouns For Animal Groups- Near and Far
A Late Middle Ages hunting fraternity began a game of inventing animal group names. Some were collected in The Book of Saint Albans
Hepburn Tramway Historic Walk
“There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast.” Paul Scott Mowrer Whitehorse resident Peter Long is an avid walker. He has explored many trails in and around Whitehorse. …
The dance craze with a kick!
In her book “DANCING” Lilly Grove describes the invention of the chahut which evolved into the cancan. “About 1830, a stage dancer called Mazarie played the part of a monkey in the Theatre de la Porte St. Martin. He invented for the occasion a figure dance which he called ‘chahut,’ which surpassed in its …
The Dead Man’s Gold Pan: Fiction
There is a crack at the base of the Yukon River, a portal to the the underworld. It lays just above Miles Canyon at the deepest part of the mighty Yukon River and has seen ice ages come and go; the birth of mountains, the carving of canyons, the rise of man, and the death …
Long Live Print! Long Live What’s Up Yukon!
Ever since the advent of the internet, pundits of all description have been predicting the demise of print journalism. Traditional newspapers and magazines, once so prolific and influential in Canada and elsewhere, are undergoing seismic change and downsizing in an age of instant access to news, opinions and images from the most remote corners of …
500 Moments of Mindfulness
Think this whole mindfulness meditation thing is just woo-woo mumbo-jumbo that could never really do anything for you? Do you scoff at the idea and get defensive or evasive when the subject comes up? Your stress is real! Your pain is true! How dare people dismiss your complaining! How could just sitting around and doing …
Engaging Historical Fiction
I am not one who likes to read dry historical tomes. I like to absorb my history through the sugar coated pill of historical fiction, written by an author whose research is meticulous. And in this genre, Louis de Bernieres is a master. His works include books such as Birds Without Wings and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. …
How Yoga was Practiced in the Ancient Past and Today
The yoga practiced today is not at all like it was practiced in the ancient past. Faeq Biria, a well known Iyengar Yoga teacher in Europe and the director of the Iyengar Yoga Centre in Paris said that Patanjali, who wrote the ancient text The Patanjala Yoga Sutras (500-300 BC) would not recognize the yoga …
How Yoga was Practiced in the Ancient Past and Today Read More »
The Laundress and the Kick
Although women of Paris played an integral role in the French Revolution, once the dust settled they were given a stern message by the new men in power: Stay home, tend to the children and leave the important business of governing to us. By 1825, the post-revolution preoccupation of keeping women in their place was …
Those Gregorians Should Have Done the Math
Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except for stupid February. Apparently, February didn’t get the memo, or just doesn’t care. Every four years (or, to be precise, whenever the year’s number can be evenly divided by four), it even changes its mind about how long it wants to …
Gone Fishing
As a Conservation Officer in Ontario in the late 1950s through the 1960s, I patrolled the St. Lawrence River to the Quebec border. I came upon a very strange group of people between five and 90 years old. They were in search of a specific species whose ancestors date back 100 millions years ago and …
Amazonian Mythology and Western Hallucinations
Somewhere between Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the writings of Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro-Gómez lies Ciro Guerra’s film Embrace of the Serpent. Shot in stunning 35mm black and white film in the Amazon, Embrace of the Serpent is a dream-like manifestation of the psychotropic diaries of two ethno-botanists’ encounter with an Amazonian shaman. Switching …
Mushroom Confidential
I wrote this in 2013 for Dave Mossop at Yukon College as part of my course requirements for NOST 201, A natural history of the North. However, it had been rattling around in my head for some time. Please do not use this to identify a mushroom; get expert advice. I’m going to tell you …
How Two Pierres had an Adventure in the Yukon
Steve Pitt came to the Yukon in 1982 to attend his sister’s wedding. She was marrying Dal Fry, son of Art and Margie Fry. That’s part of how Art ended up as a character in Steve’s book, The Wail of the Wendigo. The book is a young adult adventure novel that brings two kids named …
Yukon Astronomical Society wants to make Whitehorse the Science-Centre of the North
Stargazing has long been part of the human psyche. For thousands of years, we – and our ancestors before us – have turned our eyes upward and wondered. With myths and legends, we have explained the sky’s magic with demons, heroes, gods and goddesses. Ancient Greek astronomers observed the heavens and began to explain the …
Yukon Astronomical Society wants to make Whitehorse the Science-Centre of the North Read More »
Stoking the Fire
Today, Sid and I are on the hunt for an unusual piece in his collection. As we sift through antiques after antiques, we come across a bellows. A bellows pumps air, and they are commonly known to be hand-held devices used to stoke small fires. However the bellows Sid possess is approximately a metre in …
The History of Jews During the Gold Rush
Once upon a time there were quite a few Jews in the Klondike. They arrived with the other gold rush stampeders. There were enough of them that they established their own graveyard. But the Jewish presence in Dawson City nearly vanished after the end of World War I. Dr. Brent Slobodin researched and wrote the …
No rest for the Wickets
Don your best Victorian era dress for the Yukon Historical & Museums Association’s (YHMA) third annual Charity Croquet Tournament.
A Big Yellow Truck with a Past
“It’s a 1942 International,” Sid tells me as we are standing by a truck whose yellow paint is slowly chipping away with age. The truck’s original grey colour has been exposed underneath the bright yellow. Its large body and tires tell us it was a truck built for working in rough terrain. “It’s a six …
Sharing Words
In 2015 Victoria-based poet Yvonne Blomer paid a visit to Whitehorse and did a reading of her poetry book, As If a Raven. In her poems she described various types of birds and also amused the audience by imitating the call of a peacock. Blomer is returning this month and will read at the Atlin …
Living Blues Legends
Director Daniel Cross visits the southern United States with his latest documentary I am The Blues (2016), highlighting living blues legends in the heart of American music origins. As it became more ingrained into the South’s economy during the antebellum years in the early to late 1800s, the cultivation of cotton brought a heavy concentration …
Stereoscopic Views
Looking through Sid’s antiquities I spot a familiar sight: stereoscopes. I had a pair of bright orange View Masters (a trademarked format of stereoscope) when I was a child in the 1990s with photos of Bugs Bunny. Sid’s stereoscopes are truly antique and rare. “These ones are from the late 1800s up to the 1910s,” …
Pioneer Agronomist
The Hidden Histories Society Yukon collects stories and research on people of Asian and Black heritage who have contributed to the Yukon. It’s been doing this for 15 years. Yoshikazu (Joe) Tsukamoto was an early pioneer in the development of northern agricultural research and practice in Yukon. Here is his story. The Early Years Yoshikazu …
Resisting and Resurging
This year the Yukon Film Society (YFS) returns to the Adäka Cultural Festival with more First Nations programming. The collaboration between Adäka and YFS allows all the screenings to be free. Screenings run July 3 and 4 at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre during the festival, which takes place July 1 to 7. Screenings begin …
Not Precisely Iceland, More Like Montreal
I would like to revoke the claim I made in my introduction about being a seasoned traveller, because I have made an embarrassingly rookie mistake. Today I write you from a vibrant cultural hotbed, as per the plan. Unfortunately, it is not Reykjavik – my expired passport has necessitated that my three-day layover in Montreal …
Gold Fever is Alive and Well
Panning for gold the old-fashioned way is an art and a science, though you don’t have to be an expert in either to take part in the annual Yukon Gold Panning Championships, held on Saturday, July 1 in Dawson City. “We’re trying to attract gold panning enthusiasts, competitive types, visitors, and first time gold panners,” …
The Joys of Reading Aloud
Jack London’s The Call of the Wild is not a particularly long book. A mere 70 pages, perhaps a few more in a version with illustrations, it is often published between the same covers as its thematic opposite, White Fang, often along with some of the better known short stories to round out the page …
Celebrating Fathers and Gay Pride
June brings summer and Father’s Day, and is also a time of special significance to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer community (LGBTQ). June was chosen as Gay Pride Month to serve as a reminder of a pivotal moment in the fight for gay rights. It was June 28, 1969 in New York City …
Banners! Banners!
“They were popular back in the 1960s,” Sid tells me as we stand in one of his many garages. Built attached to his house, his old garage holds tools, machines and different parts of Sid’s antique/vintage collection. Looking up towards the ceiling, vintage banners, t-shirts, and hats are attached to the wooden beams above us. “They’re …
I Know What You Did
In Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th century collection of novellas called The Decameron, seven young women and three young men entertain each other with stories for 10 days inside a secluded villa near Florence as they tried to escape the Black Death. More than 650 years later, Toronto playwright and multidisciplinary theatre maker Jordan Tannahill found himself …
Pickin’ on The Junction
In the pines, in the pines, the Kluane Mountain Bluegrass Music Festival will take place June 10, 11, and 12. It is held annually at the St. Elias Convention Centre and St. Christopher’s Log Church in beautiful Haines Junction, Yukon. The mostly volunteer-run festival is the first of many music festivals held throughout the Yukon …
The Little Fish With Many Names
Someone once said, “Give a man a fish, and you will teach a man where to get free fish.” If you try to give a fish to a local – in places where salmon are plentiful – many will ask what kind, before accepting. Apparently to some, sockeye is the only fish worth having. Another …
Mai Tais at the Whistle Stop Pub
Most of us who came of age in the 70s have a Tiki experience somewhere in their cocktail history. Mine was in Jasper, Alberta in the winter of 1975, when I was working at Jasper Park Lodge. My pals and I celebrated every major event – birthday, break-up, good ski day or payday – with …
An Enterprising Adventurer
The lure of the Yukon brought many enterprising people north. Togo Takamatsu was one of them. He was born in Chojumura, Japan on February 10, 1875 and immigrated to Vancouver in 1907. In the spring of 1920 he arrived in Carcross becoming one of 20 Asian people living in the Yukon according to the census. He …
Mrs. Black Goes to War
During the Great War of 1914-1918, nearly a thousand Yukoners enlisted for service in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, or fought for Britain, France and other Allied countries. Of these only a small handful were women. One woman who did not formally enlist to serve in the armed forces, but played an extremely important role in …
Surviving a Grizzly Attack and the Great War
Jim Christie was born in Scotland in 1867. He emigrated to Manitoba and then came to the Klondike in 1898. The short, wiry Scotsman took to living in the north like a duck to water. He prospected in the summers and trapped in the winters, learning everything about the isolated regions of the northland. He …
The Old Fashioned
The Old Fashioned takes us right back to the beginning of the history of cocktails. In 1806 a reader wrote to the editor of The Balance and Columbian Repository, a newspaper published in Hudson, New York from 1801-1807, asking about the meaning of a new word: “cocktail.” The editor replied, “Cocktail is a stimulating liquor, …
A Candide Account of Voltaire
For years I have heard the name Voltaire and have not had a chance to locate any of his works. Then the fateful day came when I went into Well Read Books and came across Candide. As I flew through the first couple of chapters at the Gold Pan, I found the charm of …
Joe Boyle: The Klondike King Who Became a War Hero
Joe Boyle came to the Klondike with the first wave of gold-seekers in the early summer of 1897, but soon left with a dream of becoming rich. He was successful in obtaining a large mining concession in the Klondike Valley from the federal government in 1909, and within a decade had gained control of one …
Joe Boyle: The Klondike King Who Became a War Hero Read More »
Dawson and the Harrison Effect
I’ve been enjoying a couple of relatively new books about the work of the latecTed Harrison. They are Ted Harrison Collected (Douglas & McIntyre) and A Brush full of Colour (Pajama Press). The first one is a trade paperback collection of the 91 serigraph posters he created and sold. The second is a hardcover children’s …
Flat Feet and Brave Hearts: The Yukon at War
Canada was part of the British Empire, so when war was declared by Great Britain on August 4, 1914, Canada, too, joined the the conflict. There was a tremendous upswing of patriotic fervour. The vast American influx during of the Klondike gold rush had been largely replaced by a more settled British population, eager to …
Everything But the Sake
Japan is a country that is rich in history and has made quite the presence within popular Western culture. Think ninjas, samurai warriors, cherry blossoms, sushi, anime – the list goes on. On April 2 you can experience many of the wonderful things Japan has to offer at the festival hosted by the Japanese Canadian …
The Danish Girl Attracts Controversy on Several Fronts
At some point, perhaps, acting credentials and not gender identity, will dictate who gets what role. Until then, high profile films like The Danish Girl and Dallas Buyers Club will continue to raise hackles in the transgender community for having cisgender (a term coined in the 1990s to denote a person whose self-identity matches their …
The Danish Girl Attracts Controversy on Several Fronts Read More »
Fish
It will not surprise many that this little planet called Earth is covered by seventy percent water. What may surprise many is that the water on this planet holds close to an estimated 17,000 different species of fish. Fish have been found in waters in altitudes of 15,000 feet and in waters 35,000 feet in …
Muzzle-Loaders
Until the mid to late 1800s, all firearms were muzzle-loaders, which, as the name implies, had to be loaded singly by pushing the components – powder, patch and projectile – down the barrel from the muzzle. This loading process made them slow to get ready to shoot again, compared to how the process was accelerated …
Newspaper-Making in Namibia
Murder, betrayal or New Year celebrations – these are the topics on the list. It is December 30 and we have to decide which story will be on the cover of tomorrow’s newspaper. Unfortunately, there will be blood leaking from the newspaper on New Year’s Day. The murder of a German-Namibian farmer is breaking news. …
Wonder Dog
In 1918, a young American soldier emerged from the ruins of a military kennel with a frantic, famished German Shepherd and her five newborn pups. Their survival on the battlefield in France was almost miraculous; Lee Duncan, their saviour, kept two of the puppies and named them after dolls worn as lucky talismans – Nanette …
Next Stop, Serab
I love to travel; seeing new places, meeting new people. Experience, after all is priceless. I also love to knit. Imagine my delight when I purchased Silk Road Socks by Hunter Hammersen, with 93 pages of history and knitting. The book is published by Cooperative Press, Cleveland, Ohio, 2010. Hunter Hammersen has designed 14 sock …
Barb McInerney
Barb McInerney came up to the Yukon in the 1970s to work in a camp kitchen. Though she worked in mining before starting at Kaushee’s Place in 2000, she says that no matter what job she had, she was always trying to advance the most vulnerable of her communities. “I feel like I’ve been doing …
Yukon Hidden History: Extraordinary Endurance
Lucile Hunter was an intrepid Yukon pioneer. Just 35 years after slavery was abolished in 1863 in the United States, she and her husband, Charles, joined the stampede to the Klondike from the US in 1897. As black Americans, they hoped to trade the cruelties of their homeland for a frontier that promised equality and …
What You Might Not Know About Ducks
Back in the early 1960s, I spent a couple of years banding waterfowl in one of the newly-created marshes of the hydro project in Lake St. Lawrence, just west of Cornwall, Ontario. This is when I really got the opportunity to know the many features of waterfowl (duck, geese and swans). The flooding of the …
Examining the Quest to Understand the Aurora Borealis
The most recent exhibition at Dawson’s ODD Gallery is nothing if not seasonal for its subject is the northern lights, also called aurora borealis, the light display named jointly after the Roman god of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek god of the north wind, Boreas. Nicole Liao’s installation is called Against the Day, which …
Examining the Quest to Understand the Aurora Borealis Read More »
Jarvis Street Saloon hosts a Bowie Party
Everyone from your mom to your niece’s best friend was/is probably a fan of Bowie. When he died a few weeks ago, my Facebook feed was just a stream of David Bowie songs, remembrances and YouTube links from such a varied group of people that it didn’t take long to realize his reach. While Bowie …
Bison: From the Edge of Extinction
People driving down the highway may see a few bison, and never realize that this animal was at one time on the very edge of extinction. The bison made some people extremely wealthy, others kept some people from starvation, some were shot for sport from a traveling railway cars, herds were driven over cliffs simply for …
Winter Solstice
Winter solstice is the shortest day and, officially, the start of winter. But it also triggers the sun’s journey back, bringing us spring. This year, for us in the northern hemisphere, winter solstice occurred on Dec. 21. That was when the sun was directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, a line of latitude that encircles Earth …
Explore, Dance, and Learn
February is known as Black History Month, March is known as Women’s History Month. In the Yukon, January could be known as Yukon History Month. The MacBride Museum in Whitehorse is launching a new event called Night at the Museum, set to start on Jan. 27. Contrary to the name, this event is not screening …
The Story of Eagles Paradise
Every November up to 3,600 eagles gather in one place: the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve in Haines, Alaska. It is the largest gathering of eagles on earth. The Preserve holds unique conditions for these magnificent birds: Sections of the Chilkat River remain ice-free and an unusually late run of salmon from November until January provides …
Punch
A familiar sight at many a gathering during the holiday season is the punch bowl, ranging in formality from fine, etched crystal to battered salad bowl, filled to the brim with a fruity, bubbly concoction, set on a tablecloth stained here and there by the berries that slipped ‘twixt cup and lip and surrounded by …
The Good Ol’ Days of Squatting
Pat Ellis first arrived in Whitehorse in the early 1950s. She was a 19 year-old art student from Winnipeg and Whitehorse was a much different city then. Ramshackle cabins and tiny derelict homes made up the downtown waterfront replacing today’s S.S. Klondike and Rotary Peace Park. The downtown riverside areas went by names like Whiskey …
A farewell from the 2015 Rendezvous Queen
As the year 2015 is coming to an end, so does my reign as the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Queen 2015. This article will be my last article in the Queen’s Corner. Last February I was interviewed for the CBC about the reasons why I signed up for the Rendezvous Queen Competition. Honestly, I did not …
Soldiering on in the Cold War
No gadgets, guns or trophy girl in sight – John le Carré’s spy universe is stripped of glamour, but all the more fascinating for his intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the inner circle that fought for nebulous ground in the Cold War. The film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, released in 2011 and available …
The Twelfth Night, Lumbersexualized
Attention all lovers, poets and dreamers: this holiday season The Bard is returning to the Whitehorse stage. The Guild Hall will launch its second show of the season on Nov. 26 with Shakespeare’s classic comedy Twelfth Night, Or What You Will. The play was first performed in 1602 and takes a comedic spin on mistaken …
The Chilkoot Pass: The Challenge Of My Summer
This summer my family and I hiked the Chilkoot Pass. When we kids learned we were actually going, the first response was “Why?” and “I don’t want to!” We got over it and realized that we were, in fact, going to go no matter what our opinion was. Eventually, when we were actually hiking, we …
Back on Bourbon Street
James Danderfer didn’t intend to be a clarinet player. In Grade 6 he selected the drums as his preferred musical vehicle, but the band director overruled him. “He looked at my choice, then he asked to look at my hands, and then he asked to look at my teeth,” the Vancouver musician says. The verdict: …
Getting into the Game
Audrey McLaughlin moved to the Yukon in the 1970’s with “no man, no job” because she thought it would be an interesting place to live. As she became the first woman to lead a major Canadian political party in 1989 and the first female federal party leader to represent a portion of the territories in …
Marching in remembrance of things past
Mark Zuehlke was a writer-in-residence at Berton House in 2003. At the time he had just finished several books on the history of the Canadian Forces actions in Italy during World War II and had brought along copious file boxes full of material for his work on the D-Day offensive on the other side of …
Still is Still Moving: Portrait of a Genius
In the 1870s and ‘80s English photographer Eadweard Muybridge was feverishly photographing animals, people in the nude, and people with physical deformities. He is famous for successfully producing a stop-motion sequence of still photographs demonstrating that all four legs of a horse are off the ground at a gallop. Sallie Gardner at a Gallop, as …
The Secret to Russian Hockey Power
Wayne Gretzky once stated that Viacheslav Fetisov was the greatest defenseman he had ever played against. Fetisov (nicknamed Slava) was known to be the “Bobby Orr of Russia.” Winner of three Winter Olympics (2 Gold, 1 Silver), seven World Championships, one Canada Cup, three World Junior Championships and two back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Detroit …
A dispatch from the Frankfurt Book Fair
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the biggest book fair in the literary world. Publishers, agents, authors and readers from all over the world come to the five day event. It is a place for business, readings, culture and discussion. This year 300,000 visitors came to the book fair. During the event there are many literature …
A goldmine of history
I have an idea that would really put the Yukon on the world map: let’s build a True North Queen School. Tourists and Yukon students could spend few weeks at the Queen School, named after the wealth of history Rendezvous Queens study in order to be ambassadors to the Yukon. If we built a True …
Party like it’s 1955
Dig out your poodle skirt and put on your saddle shoes. The Open Pit Theatre is hosting a 1950s Sock Hop Film Night in Whitehorse on Saturday. The evening features five films with an on-the-spot, improvised soundtrack by live actors and musicians. “The movies are the main entertainment,” says Geneviève Doyon, co-artistic director of Open …
Chance of a Ghost
Claude Turcotte was the father of my two younger kids, Josh and Sophie Turcotte, also Dad to then-toddlers Geordie MacInnis and Lee Robitaille. He was my partner, lover and frenemy from 1979 to 1988, when his shenanigans became too much for me. Claude came to Yukon in 1973 to work in Clinton Creek, and stayed …
Alaska Haunting
Wherever your travels take you, there is bound to be a place that has a ghost living in the shadows. England has the ghastly Tower of London, Romania has the mysterious Hoia Baciu forest, Japan has the eerie Hanging Ruins… Just over the border in Alaksa, our American neighbours have their fair share of haunting. …
Freestyle Beading in Dawson
Dawson City resident Debbie Winston has a love of making art with beads – including antique glass and china chickens. A child of the sixties, Debbie first arrived in Whitehorse on July 1, 1967. She was traveling with her boyfriend. His father had paid her way – traveling in style on CP Air, Debbie remembers …
Keeping the Memory Alive
In 1943 Operation Husky was put into motion. Canadian Soldiers travelled deep into the Sicilian countryside to fight against the Nazi presence that had been established there. More than 500 Canadian Soldiers lost their lives during the campaign in Sicily. The cemetery in Agira, Sicily is not a well-known place to be visited in the …
Mrs. Gideon’s Ghost
They didn’t know the Caribou Hotel in Carcross was haunted when they bought it. “We’re pretty aware of it now, though,”
Crazy ’bout a Mercury
Local musician Ryan McNally really does have himself a Mercury, which he definitely does cruise up and down the road.
Deep Ecology
The year was 1971. Three Dog Nights’ “Joy to the World” became RPM’s top chart hit alongside The Stampeders’ “Sweet City Woman”. Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister and James Smith was Commissioner of the Yukon. Smith was instrumental in creating the Kluane National Park and Reserves and designating the Chilkoot Trail as a National Historic …
Two Exciting Yukon Lives
“I was ready to live here permanently the day I got here – the land just drew (me) in,” says Velma Hull. The day she is speaking of was 57 years ago, when she and her husband – well-known local handyman and one-time bike shop owner Red Hull – came up the Alaska Highway. Velma …
Double knots on a thread
My sister Marion Dale and I share many wonderful childhood memories. One of our favourites is the summers we spent with our Great Auntie Kate. In her 70’s when we visited she raised sheep on a family farm near Renfrew, Ontario. No inside plumbing, no electricity, our days were spent exploring the sheep pasture and …
Swordplay and Flaming Arrows
Winter is coming. You might say that’s our motto above the 60th parallel, but they’re also words to live by in Winterfell, the northernmost kingdom of imaginary Westeros. The Game of Thrones saga has unexpectedly surpassed cult status, but its mythology may have special appeal for northerners and not just for its keen sense of …
Planning ahead for a bounty of sunflowers
September always makes me think of apple picking, hay barrels, corn, and sunflowers. This summer I decided to try and grow sunflowers and even though I have never gardened before, I liked the thought of having my own sunflowers in September to enjoy. Before picking the specific type of sunflower I wanted to grow, I …
Bringing New Life into Old Buildings
I have written a number of columns about Dawson’s habit of recycling building for other purposes. The Old Territorial Courthouse, which has to be passed by everyone entering the town on Front Street, is a prime example of this practice. Right after the Gold Rush, the federal government was anxious to prove to the world …
Curing without killing
Nitrates, nitrites, nitrous… makes me think of big industrial fertiliser companies, laughing gas, and that wheee sound the cars in videogames used to make when you gave them an extra burst of speed. They also raise a flag as something to be consumed in moderation, or not at all, because of various reports over the …
Honouring a hero
George Maratos was just three years old when Terry Fox was becoming a household name across Canada and elsewhere. Still, he claims to have a “kind of” memory of the young B.C. runner’s heroic 1980 odyssey known as the Marathon of Hope. “My parents were gripped by it, and I have a feeling that kind …
Exploring Atlin and the nearby volcanic field
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. …
Folk Art in the Forest
A chance meeting a long time ago started a friendship and a quilting group that has been meeting now for three decades. As it happened, Yukoners Dorothy Smith and Karen McIver enrolled in an embroidery class at the public library in the early 1980’s. Upon leaving they began to chat. The course was great, …
History is being re-written
Over the last few months, I have been sharing how I became involved in this queen title and what I have been doing. And while doing more research to better educate myself on the Yukon and its history, I have found some great information that I hope will also interest and educate you! During my …
Submit to Me
Themed-art shows are popping up in galleries these days. Gallery 1988, in Los Angeles, just wrapped a show dedicated to the 1985 movie classic, Clue, and Vancouver’s Hot Art Wet City gallery recently held We’re All Pretty Bizarre, dedicated to the work of John Hughes, complete with paintings of a young Macaulay Culkin and an …
That Guy with the Sax
Howard Chymyshyn (aka Chymy) was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta in 1946 (my mom was born in the very same town 10 years later). His parents were both in the Army, and when Howard was young, the family moved to rural Manitoba. At that time, everyone was afraid of the atom bomb so they kept …
Down Highway 61
Near the end of his memoir, Chronicles, Volume I, Bob Dylan recalls the seismic effect of hearing Robert Johnson’s album, King of the Delta Blues Singers, for the first time, in the early 1960s. “From the first note, the vibrations from the loudspeaker made my hair stand up. The stabbing sounds from the guitar could …
Revisiting the Klondike Big Inch
Each year during the Riverside Arts Festival, the ODD Gallery sponsors a paired set of exhibitions called The Natural and the Manufactured, each dealing with some way in which people and their plans have had an impact on the environment around them. This year one of those exhibits, the one indoors at the gallery itself, …
Reminders of Time Past
A few years ago, my brother found an ancient tool that had migrated upward through the soil in the middle of his wheat field in Southern Alberta. It was a sure sign of human life on the prairies long before Europeans came to “settle” the land. The tool, it turned out, was a unique find. …
Cave In
Sid van der Meer’s stories as dictated to his granddaughter Teresa. The tree leaves are rapidly changing and the temperature is beginning to drop. Autumn is about to arrive in Beaver Creek, Yukon and the tourism season is nearly complete. Like many residents of the small border town, Sid van der Meer is starting to …
Mine, All Mine!
The next time you travel north on the Alaska Highway between the Fish Lake Road and the Porter Creek Super A, ask yourself why the canyon there is called Rabbit Foot Canyon. Why not Anaconda? In 1899, the White Pass Railway was wondering whether it would be worthwhile extending its track all the way to …
Water under Moss
My favourite childhood memories are when Mom would take us to Fish Lake, just a few miles out of Whitehorse. We spent our summers there along with several other families during the 1950s. Though the summers at Fish Lake were my favourite times, there were always chores to do before playtime. Our mother, Carrie, was …
Folk Art in the Forest
From the northwest to the farthest eastern point, I have seen Canada. Last month, Roger and I travelled to Newfoundland. We left our cozy forest home and set off for St. John’s on July 14. On the northernmost tip of the province’s Northern Peninsula we visited the historic village of L’Anse aux Meadows, a tiny …
Dressing Up
Yukoners have a hidden talent. Last August, over 800 people flocked to the territory’s first-ever comic convention, and many of them came in elaborate costumes they made themselves. Vickybunnangel, professional cosplayer and judge of YukomiCon 2014’s cosplay contests, remarked on the diversity and talent of our local cosplayers. So what exactly is cosplay? It stands …
The Survivor Tree
Germany: a land of farms and old cities, and the destination of my travels every two years. It is a land with a past. Most towns here still hold scars of war in the form of bunkers that are sprawled throughout the country. A reminder of what once was. One such reminder is a tree. …
A word or two about memory, memoirs and waterfowl
The kaleidoscope of memory is a wondrous thing. A quarter twist, and tiny fragments tumble themselves into a startling pattern of perception. Another twist, another vista of the past, another “aha” about the present, or the future; perhaps an insight into an unknown temporal dimension. And, like the river into which you cannot step twice, …
A word or two about memory, memoirs and waterfowl Read More »
Sharing the Past
Out on the old Alaska Highway, halfway to Haines Junction and only a few kilometres from Champagne, an observant traveller may spot Kwaday Dan Kenji, or Long Ago People’s Place. The privately-owned camp, the only one of its kind in the Yukon, represents two decades of Harold Johnson’s dedication to preserving and sharing Champagne and …
A Northern Diary
Carolyn Vincent taught in the Yukon in the 1970s and also cooked for an outfitter for a few months in 1976. She typed out a diary of what her life was like during that time. We are reprinting it here with minimal editorial tampering. Last time we left her, hunting season was just starting. Here …
Black Bengal: the land of milk and honey
Yes, the promised land was intended for Moses and the Hebrews. But that was in the BC era. In the AD era, CAO, a Nashvillebased cigar house, gave way to Black, a promised land in itself. CAO started out in 1968 as a pipe making factory. In 1995 it went into the cigar business, and …
College is easier than logging
My dad figures it’s more common for adults to go back to school these days. This is compared to when he went to college for the first time when he was 33. In the ‘90s. He says, “These days, people don’t stay in the same career.” He had a wife (my mom), four kids (a …
Porter for Your Stout?
The year is 1720. If you just touched down in London town, you would see a bustling city with ships docked at each port. If you were a male looking for work, you might have considered the popular porter trade. With London being on the banks of the Thames River, ships would come and go …
Street Party
Nadine Landry describes Louisiana’s Cajun culture as a ‘holy trinity’ of food, music and dancing. “People invite you over to dinner, so there is food, and that’s hugely important in Cajun culture. And it takes so long for the food to get ready, you start playing tunes, and then people start dancing,” she says. “So …
When local voices made a difference
In 1976 I was a young teacher just starting out in Beaver Creek, fresh from Nova Scotia and learning about the North. Regular stories about the Berger Inquiry (or Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry) were part of my education, as was the report itself when it came out, as well as the Lysyk Inquiry (or Alaska …
Promethean Influence
How good is your knowledge of Greek mythology? Yes, we all know about the heavy hitters such as Zeus and his Olympian brothers, Poseidon and Hades. We may know about Gaia and Demeter and others whose names have landed a place in popular culture. But what about Prometheus, the god of forethought, who created mankind …
Wicked Wickets: YHMA pegs its hoop dreams on croquet
Nancy Oakley has a cool story about the likely origins of croquet. (As the executive director of the Yukon Historical Museums Association and convener of Saturday’s second annual Charity Croquet Tournament, of course she does.) It goes like this: “Some shepherds were hanging out, watching their flocks, and they needed something to do with their …
Wicked Wickets: YHMA pegs its hoop dreams on croquet Read More »
General Store
Sid van der Meer’s Bordertown Garage & Museum is composed up of numerous themed rooms. One room is themed as an old general store and post office. “I made the General Store because I had all this stuff pertaining to an old store. Those stores had everything, canned goods, tobacco products, lamps, shot gun shells …
Creative Getaway
Perhaps your partner is sick of navigating around that massive quilting frame to get to the living room couch. Perhaps you’re tired of moving that big felting project off the kitchen table day after day, so the family can have supper. If so, a month of free studio space in a delightful location, with very …
Laurel Parry – Loud and Proud
On her first day as a government arts consultant in 1987, Laurel Parry was ushered to a desk that held a typewriter, a large black ceramic ashtray, and an in-box loaded with letters and materials from Yukon artists. “The job had been vacant for quite awhile and the sport consultant had been pinch-hitting, so I …
Two Tones
Today, Sid sits outside the Beaver Creek Visitor Information Centre basking in the warm summer sun. As he waits for visitors to arrive, he admires the bodywork of his 1956 Pontiac in the sunlight. “I bought the ’56 in Whitehorse a few years ago. I just put a brand new motor in it and new …
Song Crafting at Historic Fort Selkirk
“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 …
You are a Winner
One of the many remarks I got when I was selling queen raffle tickets during Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous (YSR) events was, “I have never won a prize”. My usual reply was, “You are already a winner by purchasing the raffle tickets, because you have made a contribution to the community”. My dear friends, by purchasing …
Fight Like a Knight
If you have a passion for history and fighting to the death — without the death — there’s a new activity in the Yukon that is just right for you. Medieval combat is a martial art based on historically accurate medieval equipment and rules. You can get a taste of it at Yukon’s first medieval …
Speak Easy, Drink Well
In New York, speakeasy-style bars are all the rage. Dark, guarded by doormen or hidden behind a “front” establishment like a hot dog stand or a drugstore, these modern shrines to the cocktail recall the thrill of illicit drinking during Prohibition. On a recent tour through Harlem, home to hundreds of speakeasies in its heyday, …
Twice A Day the Whistle Blows
It’s 5:00 and I’m sitting at the table in my summer office which, whenever possible, is our veranda. Seven blocks west and about two north the whistle mounted on the S.S. Keno lets loose with a blast that I can hear very clearly from here. It’s a tourist season feature, which Parks Canada arranges to …
Folk art in the forest
The forest is my palette. The flora, the fauna — they inspire me. I am so lucky to have an acreage at my disposal. I’ve created walking paths and gardens. Over the last few years I’ve enjoyed yarn bombing the forest paths I’ve created. It is a great way to create pattern swatches and use …
The Ultimate Guide to Yukon Sport
John Firth’s massive Yukon Sport: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, published in November 2014 by Sport Yukon, is a heavy book. It must weigh 14 pounds. If you’re brain isn’t strong enough to read all of it, mine wasn’t, you can throw out your old barbells and dumbbells and incorporate it into a new fitness program. Little …
Henry Ford’s Lady
Parked in front of Sid’s museum in Beaver Creek, Yukon sits a 1928 Ford Model A. “I bought it at a swap meet in Lethbridge about three or four years ago,” he says. “I put a new roof on it with new wood, canvas, and chicken wire.” I ask Sid what he meant by chicken …
Bonding in the Ballpark
This past summer I had the unique opportunity to meet former New York Times columnist Richard Kinzer in Leon, Nicaragua. During my time there I inhaled his account of the slings and arrows of the Sandinista revolution and made sure I was within handshaking distance when I attended one of his speaking events. Flanked by …
Piper at the Gates of Dawn
When “The Pink Floyd” released their 1967 experimental psychedelic classic, Piper At the Gates of Dawn, the term “Swinging London” had just been coined by Time magazine. Art school dropouts and all manner of urban Anglos were exploring music and film and staging mixed-genre “happenings”. At the centre of the aural maelstrom for a brief …
Ancestral Ways
Juanita Growing Thunder-Fogarty lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in the tiny community of North San Juan, on the same property her paternal ancestors settled during the California Gold Rush of 1849. But her heart is inextricably linked to the Great Plains territory of her Sioux and Assiniboine forebears, and the beading …
Cocktail Hour on the Tsirku Glacier
I first encountered Campari in 1980 at a hotel bar on Alonissos, a small island in the North Sporades group of islands in the Aegean sea, halfway between Athens and Thessaloniki. Camparisoda was the favourite beverage of a group of northern Italians who returned to the island year after year, and it soon caught on …
Freddie Osson
If you haven’t met Saxophone Freddie up in Dawson City, you should. He is, after all, the first face you see when you fly into Whitehorse — if you enter through the new side of the airport. There is a huge photo of him playing… you’ve got it, the saxophone. When Fred was in Grade …
“Domingo! Domingo!” Baseball in Nicaragua
In his classic account of Sandinista era Nicaragua, Blood of Brothers, Richard Kinzer notes, “With the sole exception of Roman Catholicism, no institution is as deeply rooted in Nicaragua as baseball. More than simply a pastime, it has for generations been a way for Nicaraguans to define themselves and hold themselves together as a nation. …
RVing in the YT
Earlier this year, at the Toronto Interior Design show, the Cubitat was introduced. This lifestyle cube is 10’ x 10’ and features a bed, bathroom, kitchen and television. All you need to do is hook up water and power and you have yourself a compact living space. Smaller living spaces have become increasingly popular. Now …
A Northern Diary
About 11:00 p.m. I finally got a glimpse of McClure when our trail passed near the deep ravine the river made. I had been vainly looking for it for the last few hours, but it was hidden in the canyon. The lake is about three miles long and is a skinny one. It’s sort of …
The Emperor and Me
Peep this — the word cigar comes from the Latin word cicala, which means “large insect”. When the Spanish started discovering cigars in the 1700s, they turned cicala into cigarra, since cigars resembled the shape of a cicala. The French put their spin on it and called it cigare, and by the 1800s the English …
Three French Guys and a Moose, Part Four
The following excerpt is based on true events that took place around 1980. What’s Up Yukon’s editorial staff would like to remind you that there are laws in the Yukon against wasting meat. Part One was published on Jan. 29, 2015; Part Two on Feb. 26, 2015; Part Three on April 30. This is the …
Ironing it Out
No matter how often you visit Sid van der Meer’s Bordertown Garage and Museum in Beaver Creek, there is always more to see. Many people visit Sid more than once to hear his stories and discover additional objects in his collection. Sid’s collection is in constant change as he trades, sells, barters, and buys antiques. …
A Swing Through Jazz History
Jazz has come a long way over the decades. What started as a call-and-response song though the cotton fields of the south, has now become an uptempo beat familiar to most. In edition to its evolution, it has sparked the creation of many sub-genres: Latin jazz, classical jazz, funk, b-bob, acid jazz, and vocal jazz, …
Dawson’s Community Dance
Tiss Clark, a local artist and music teacher, is the organizer of the Community Jigging Square Dance Project in Dawson City. She decided to start the project after hearing an elder in Fort MacPherson recount dance history in the North. “Dances used to be for meeting, talking, and socializing with the community,” says Clark. “There’s …
Colour and a Straight Edge
Whitehorse is a town of natural beauty and diverse niches, and quite the opposite of global hub, New York City. Not everyone is caught up in high fashion comas, there are no large bright billboards in the centre of town, and financial institutions are housed in small banks instead of blocks of skyscrapers. When it …
Diner Lights
Sid van der Meer recently travelled from the gold rush fields of Arizona back to Canada’s most westerly community — Beaver Creek, Yukon. Sid has strong family ties to the White River First Nation, on whose lands he resides. He built his own home and museum behind Beaver Creek’s baseball diamond. His museum has become …
Gerties is now a Municipal Heritage Site
Diamond Tooth Gerties is an iconic Dawson building. It’s the cash cow that finances most of the operations of the Klondike Visitors Association. As of January 27, 2015, it’s even more than that; it’s a Municipal Heritage Site. In the somewhat stuffy language that seems to define municipal bylaws, city council determined that “The building …
Vivian vs. Vivian
On September 20, 1993 The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air aired episode one of season four. The show documented the comedic hijinks of Will Smith (played by Will Smith), a street-savvy kid from Philadelphia who went to live in a Los Angeles mansion with his aunt and uncle (Vivian and Phillip Banks), and their children (Hilary, Carlton, and Ashley). Season three ended with …
The Beauty and Tragedy of Elliott Smith
My van died the day that I learned that Elliott Smith had put a knife through his chest. “Maybe it’s time to lighten up,” I mused. Some songwriters of that generation, and those who came slightly before, couldn’t muster the wherewithal to cope with the slings and arrows of life. Is there a genre for …
A Northern Diary
I have been in the wilderness of the Mackenzie Mountains for six weeks, and have decided to begin a diary. It’s maybe not the right time to start one, but now that I’m not quite as busy and not nearly as tired at the end of the day, I’ll begin one anyway so that I …
Formerly Tools, Now Artifacts on Display
The Kwanlin Dün First Nation recorded elders’ stories in 1993. This turned into about seven boxes of transcripts, which sat in an office. Elders gathered several more times, and their stories of camp locations and trail locations were again recorded, transcribed, and combed. Archaeologists compiled and compressed the information-as-stories, and honed in on one geographic …
The Encounter
The following story was my submission for the 1994 Yukon Young Authors’ Conference. There, I got to work with acclaimed Canadian playwright Guillermo Verdeccia, who first sparked my interest in dramatic writing. Happily, 21 years later, this important conference is still going strong. The 35th annual version is being held from April 23-24 at F.H. …
Homage to a Yukon Birder
Yukon birds, and its birding community, have lost a true friend. When he died last month, at 75, Helmut Grünberg had spent over 40 years promoting the enjoyment, study, and conservation of Yukon’s bird life. He found his way to Whitehorse in the early ‘70s when, en route to climb Denali in Alaska, he was …
DIY, If You Dare
They have a saying in the Dixie States — or maybe it’s the military: “When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember your mission was to drain the swamp.” Unfortunately, I hadn’t heard this truism before launching my career as a DIY homereno star. Winnipeg, 1971. The summer of peace and …
One River, Many Maps
At the beginning of his noon hour public lecture David Neufeld said he was working on his book but didn’t want to finish it because then he would lose his excuse to spend so much time on the Yukon River. He said when you say you’re working on a book, you get away with things. …
The Yukon Transportation Museum is 25
A quarter century is a long time; however, 25 years ago the building the Yukon Transportation Museum (YTM) calls home was already old. The structure was originally built during World War II as a recreation centre for the Royal Canadian Air Force. After the war it was turned over to the territorial government. From the …
The Call of Fastnacht
I am not a homesick person, but I can hear the Black Forest calling me home during Fastnacht, which means carnival. For many people in southern Germany, Fastnacht is a far more important holiday then Christmas. Families gather and celebrate ancient traditions. It is the best time to travel to the Black Forest and to …
Court Comes to the OTAB
The Yukon Supreme Court returned to the Old Territorial Administration Building (OTAB in local slang) late in January. It will continue to occupy space there until March, at the rate things are moving. The subject of the trial is not fodder for this column, but I’ve been spending so much time in the building lately …
Enzo and his Masterpiece
Enzo Ferrari emerged from World War II with a bold plan to design and build automobiles under his own name. At first, he favoured the construction of racecars and had little interest building street-legal sports cars, but economic realities necessitated he pitch his products to a somewhat wider demographic. So he compromised; he built cars …
How The Double Bob Bash Came To Be
Despite claims of memoirists galore, who say they walked the Chilkoot Pass with Robert Service, the man now known as the bard of the Yukon arrived in Whitehorse via the White Pass and Yukon Route train in 1904. The shine was well off the Gold Rush at this time. Born in Preston, Lancashire, England, Service …
A Piece of Alaska-Yukon History
On a cold and cloudy February day in 1899 a group of eleven men boarded the City of Seattle, a ship bounded for Skagway, Alaska. Some were former gold miners who had been North before, and could not stay away; others were entrepreneurs and businessmen. In the ship saloon they found themselves telling tales from …
Tracking down grandmother by land and water
Nadia White, great-granddaughter of Elmer (Stroller) and Alice Josephine (Josie) Keys White is on a quest to find out all she can about the life of her great- grandmother. Klondike newsman Stroller White is a fairly well known historical figure, having worked at the Skagway News during Soapy Smith’s heyday. He moved on to Dawson …
Front Street’s Elegant Showcase
The Commissioner’s Residence sits on Front Street, just past St. Paul’s Anglican Church, in Dawson City. It is one of six buildings in town designed by Thomas Fuller II, who eventually followed in his father’s footsteps to become the Chief Dominion Architect of Canada. Five of these buildings — the Old Post Office, the Court …
Growing Up Gwich’in
Editor’s Note: When Jason Westover visited Elizabeth Kaye recently, he suggested he would love to know more about her life besides her passion for moccasin-making. This inspired her to write the following article at the family camp down-river of Old Crow. As a Gwich’in child I lived a nomadic lifestyle in the Northwest Territories since …
Talking Points about “Klondike” for our summer visitors
There’s all sorts of misinformation about the Klondike Gold Rush out there. One of the most obvious is that a lot of Americans, other than the ones who live in the big state next door to us, still think the Klondike is in Alaska. Granted that the vast majority of the stampeders came from the …
Talking Points about “Klondike” for our summer visitors Read More »
Freedom
As my big red beard attests, I’ve got Scottish heritage in my DNA. On my mother’s side of the family, I’m derived from Clan Donnachaidh, also known as Clan Robertson. My mom’s maiden name is Robertson, which also happens to be my middle name. Peter Robertson Jickling. The clan’s first leader was a fellow by the name of Stout Duncan, a fireeyed warrior who displayed fierce allegiance to Robert the Bruce during …
Love and War
How do you relate to someone after you discover they’ve committed monstrous acts? The generation born in Germany after World War II – who Berthold Brecht called “those who came after” (Nachgeborenen) – faced that question every day. The 2008 German-American film The Reader, available on DVD at Whitehorse Public Library, explores the effect of …
Rendezvous In the Old Days
Rendezvous – it’s always been our mid-winter break. A chance to unwind. It’s competition, and horseplay, and fun.
How Pure is Your Beer?
There are the purists who believe beer should be simple. The Bavarian Purity of Law of 1516, the famous Reinheitsgebot, stated that beer could only be made with water, malt (malted barley or malted wheat) and hops. Louis Pasteur wouldn’t discover yeast for a few hundred years. Some suggest the Reinheitsgebot was just designed to …
Making something illegal that used to be legal is a tricky road to manoeuvre.
Making something illegal that used to be legal is a tricky road to manoeuvre. Opium? Sure, I understand. DDT? Makes sense. But making booze illegal after being freely produced and imbibed for hundreds of years in North America — what idiot dreamed that one up? Prohibition was heavily supported by the women of Canada and …
Making something illegal that used to be legal is a tricky road to manoeuvre. Read More »
USA Hops to the Lead
Humulus Lupulus = Hops. They aren’t involved in the fermentation of beer. They aren’t even a major component. You might have 6 kg of malt in a homebrew batch but only 30 g hops. They don’t get roasted. And they occur in virtually every commercial beer. Hops are preservatives, they have sedative properties and give …
Old Films Provide New Attractions in Dawson
Back when Dawson City was at the end of the road, some of the consumer goods that arrived here stayed here because it wasn’t worth anyone’s time and money to haul them away. Such was the case with a treasure trove of 500 nitrate-based reels of silent movies, newsreels, shorts and primitive cartoons that were …
Beer Bottles Make Beautiful Music
The year was 1798 and the place was Helgoland. Helgoland is located in the North Sea, 70 kilometres off of the coast of Germany. This is important, since it is the remote location that made Helgoland, in 1798, the birthplace of the beer bottle organ. The church that was located on Helgoland in 1798 had …
It’s the International Year of Astronomy
Four hundred years ago (actually in 1609), Galileo gazed up into the night sky with a new invention called the telescope. He was the first person do this and to record his observations. Now, by today’s standards, it really was not much of a telescope. All the same, he observed and recorded an amazing amount …
Kissing Underneath the Mistletoe
Long been a symbol of the holiday season, the infamous mistletoe — or modern-day kissing ball — has been placed in doorways and arches the world around. Kissing underneath the mistletoe is a sign of love, romance and prosperity. Christmas has a wide range of customs and traditions from many cultures and the meaning of …
A Home Run Malbec from Cahors, France
We are familiar with names of great French Bordeaux wines like Château Lafite Rothschild, that sell out immediately, year after year, and command prices that average, for the 2009 vintage, $1500 a bottle. When it comes to Roll Royce wines, the French have never lost their touch. The problem is, I haven’t seen any Roll …
Political Posturing
Our wacky pals to the south have a new man at the helm. Barack Obama’s inauguration surpassed any ordinary bureaucratic ceremony, to become one of the grandest events in United States history. There were likely thousands of Obama parties across Canada, just wanting to be part of this huge moment in history. Having recently spent …
Calling all Yukon Amateur Astronomers!
Welcome to 2009, the International Year of Astronomy. This event celebrates Galileo’s first look at the night sky with a telescope, over 400 years ago. Imagine the rush of excitement and discovery he must have experienced seeing, for the first time, the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter and an endless bounty of lunar …
IPAs explained
I’m an unapologetic hophead, and consider no beer too hoppy to drink. I love the constricting bitterness. I love the resiny, citrusy, nostril-doping snort of a good, hop-filled American-style India Pale Ale (IPA). I wasn’t always this way. If you handed me an Ice Fog IPA 20 years ago I would have pawned it off …
North Star Provides Direction, Hope
Author R. Bruce Macdonald at the edge of his boat on the Beaufort Sea near Tuktoyuktuk, NWT. “Literally, the first day we had the ship a guy knocked on the door,” says Bruce Macdonald, owner and inhabitant of the North Star of Herschel Island. “And since then, we’ve had people knock on the boat almost …
A Journey That Began With Press and Politics
Flo Whyard was born in 1917, in London, Ontario, and grew up in a family of newspapermen and political junkies. Her father sat in the Press Gallery, inside the House of Commons, and wrote his articles at night while Whyard fell asleep. “I was still small enough to fit in a crib, and banging away …
Opening That Bottle Again
I have a confession. After encouraging friends and readers to participate in Open that Bottle Night, I remembered I had committed to attend the Rotary Club banquet where I found myself sipping the only red offered, a Jackson Triggs Merlot ($8.75). It’s a passable food wine and I will admit to it being infinitely more …
A Marathon and a Quick Tour
As March begins, there is excitement in the Yukon Night Sky. It is time for the Messier Marathon. This is an event that most amateur astronomers anxiously await, and the time is just about upon us. So what is a Messier Marathon and what is all this curious excitement about? you ask. Here is a …
Klondike History Is Alive and Well
On Phyllis (LePage) Simpson’s coffee table is a stack of books on the history of the Yukon River. When she reads them, it is not unusual for her to find a glaring error or omission. “They make me so mad,” she says. “They sometimes get things wrong.” It’s easy to wonder if perhaps it is …
The Mad Trapper Didn’t Wear Tubbs
A friend of mine turned 30 on the weekend and to celebrate, about a dozen of us hiked into Rainbow Lake, 20 kilometres south of Haines Junction. Those with snowshoes fared better on the hike then those without, but I was somewhat disappointed to find that there was not a traditional pair of snowshoes to …
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 …
Beer Packaging
Ah, sturdy and stout stubbies. Macro beer dribbling down your chin because of the bottle’s bad ergonomic design. I remember photos from the 1970s of my uncles with mo’s, long hairs, adidas shorts and Molson Canadian in stubby form. Cut to the 1980s where stubbies were essentially a third character in the Bob and Doug …
Discovering a Rich Cultural Heritage
Colleen Potter has an infectious smile that can put even the most-guarded person at ease. It’s a smile that doesn’t fade when she begins to talk about her ancestry. Potter is Métis. We often think such a fact should be pushed to the side, that ethnicity should not be discussed in polite company. Because of …
Hops Across the Pond
Back in March, we sent one of our brewers on a jaunt to jolly old England. Alan went there to participate in a beerfest put on by a group of pubs, J.D. Wetherspoon (JDW). At each beerfest, JDW features 50 different beers in their pubs, most of which come from around England, but some of …
Yukon Past and Present
Bold strokes of the present, intriguing photographs of the past: two new shows at Arts Underground offer you the Yukon in stereo. Simon Gilpin displays After the Fire at Arts Underground until Feb. 23, and The Andover-Harvard Yukon Expedition, 1948, which will remain in place until early April. After the Fire Gilpin, who moved to …
The Plant of the King’s Fragrance
Not everyone grows the standard tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in the greenhouse … There are gardeners who love to grow exotic flowers, and orchids are one of many plants that fall into this category. Your greenhouse is an ideal place to grow orchids because of the special conditions of temperature, humidity and light that can …
What’s ‘Fun’ in ‘Funky’
It’s full-on summer. Kids are out of school; Canada Day is past and every weekend from now until the end of August will be packed with the warm-weather activities we all love but have such a short time to enjoy. Seems I’m grilling every second or third evening (not that I mind) and looking for …
What’s in a Name?
In The Yukon, certain family names loom large in our post-gold-rush era: “Van Bibber” is one such handle. Geraldine Van Bibber is one of the family’s new recruits. She took the last name upon marrying her husband, Pat, and has since become a student of the family’s history. “The three Van Bibber brothers came up …
An Icon in Yukon History
If it’s true that artists force a culture to come to terms with itself, then few people have helped define the Yukon more than Jim Robb. We all know his work: the billowing drifts of snow, the wispy chimney smoke, the happy huskies and, of course, the cabins – canting outward from their base. Robb …
Pairing the Sweet with the Sweet
I had some friends out to my cabin this past weekend for a great fall dinner with pasta and several good Oregon pinot noirs to try with the main course. For dessert, one of my guests brought a wonderful, home-made Tiramisu. I recently read an article that called it “heaven in your mouth!” All those …
What Beer May or May Not Do – for You
During World War II, the brewing-trade industry known as the United Brewers Industrial Foundation worked with the U.S. government to create a series of ads designed to boost morale and highlight the positive aspects of beer. In Life magazine’s Aug. 4, 1941 edition is an amazing ad. Most of the body of the ad is …
A Yukon Galileo Moment
As the International Year of Astronomy winds down, I am often asked, “What was it all about?” and “Was there anything to come out of it that the average person in the street could benefit from?” The answer to that last one is a resounding, “Yes!” Let’s take one question at a time. The International …
Two Chilean Reds and One Surprise Ending
Sometimes you set out to explore one thing, and end up discovering something completely different. Such was the case, recently, and I wanted to share what I found. I had been thinking that I have not devoted enough time to getting to know South American wines, and felt that an article on those might be …
Wine Ephemera
Our copyeditor for What’s Up Yukon recently sent an e-mail to me, where she related that she had stumbled across an alternate definition for the word “Methuselah”. She cited the online dictionary where it said: Methuselah PRONUNCIATION: (meh-THOO-zuh-luh) MEANING: noun: 1. An extremely old man. 2. An over-sized wine bottle holding approximately six litres. ETYMOLOGY: …
Yeast Wheat (But way cooler if you call it Hefeweizen)
Hefeweizens are fantastic for a number of reasons, but we would like to start off with what Rachel thinks is the most important: they are riddled with scandal and intrigue. That’s right folks. Remember when we talked about the Bavarian Purity Law maintaining that beer must be made with only hops, barley and water? Well, …
Yeast Wheat (But way cooler if you call it Hefeweizen) Read More »
Know Your Tomato
Did you know that banana peels and eggshells help to make your tomatoes grow? When buried in the bottom of a planter or spread around the roots of your tomato plants as you transplant them into the greenhouse, fresh banana peels act as slow-release fertilizer providing potassium and trace elements. The peels should be cut …
When Plaque is a Good Thing
Plaque is the subject of this week’s visit to A Klondike Korner. I’ve visited this subject before, but another one of our buildings is due to be plaqued on June 5, so it seems time to bring it up to date. Buildings, places or people that are plaqued by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board …
A Teller of Tall Tales Ended his Journey in Dawson City
There are many gravesites marked on the downhill side of Mary McLeod Road, but the only one with a beaten path to it belongs to Jan Welzl, a man for whom Thomas Wolf’s famous phase, “You can’t go home again,” might have been written. Welzl was born in Zábreh, Moravia, in 1868, at a time …
A Teller of Tall Tales Ended his Journey in Dawson City Read More »
Taking Note of Good Peas
If you like peas, and many Yukon gardeners must for they can be found in most gardens, you’ve had lots of company throughout history. Dried peas found at an archeological site near Thailand have been carbon-dated to 9750 BC according to the Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development Information pamphlet regarding fresh produce. Eating fresh peas …
Not the New Kid on the Block
Nobody likes a beer snob. Even beer snobs don’t like beer snobs. So, when someone wrinkles their nose at a Bud Light and then reaches for a Chimay Rouge, it’s hard not to get your back up as they start talking about yeast strains and overtones of cinnamon and ripe apricot. To clarify immediately and …
Shootin’ the Brews: Skagway Edition
Last weekend, Beer Cache had the amazing opportunity to spend the better part of a day with Trevor Clifford, head brewer at Skagway Brewing Co., Skagway, Alaska. Spring-boarding from an established ribbon-winning homebrewer to the head brewer at a brew pub takes some ingenuity. Clifford has made the most of an incredibly small space and …
Where there’s smoke, there’s porter
Full disclosure: we really wanted to compare two smoked porters for this article, but quite frankly there is so much to say about our first contestant that we don’t have time to talk about what’s behind Door No. 2. Don’t get us wrong, we drank them both, but only one made the word limit. Before …
Your Greenhouse is 2,000 Years Old
If you are like many people trying to grow tomatoes in pots on the patio, the windy conditions we’ve been having hasn’t helped the growth rate of even the hardiest tomato varieties. Carrying the plants into the confines of a warm house for the night is a chore, but it will help your plants revive …
Chronicling Life With a Touch of Mischief
More than six decades later, Ellen Davignon vividly recalls her first trip to Whitehorse. In was 1943 when six-year-old Ellen and her three siblings embarked on a steamboat in Dawson for the long up-river trek to the family’s new home. “It took us a whole week to make it from Dawson to Whitehorse, but it …
Sausage. Bier. Men in Knee-High Socks. It’s Oktoberfest!
”O’ zapft is!” cries the mayor of Munich. Translation: It’s tapped! What is tapped, where it’s tapped, and why it’s tapped is this week’s story. So dig out your lederhosen, dust off that beer stein and ready your arteries for a few links of bratwurst: it’s Oktoberfest! So … what the heck is Oktoberfest, anyway? …
Sausage. Bier. Men in Knee-High Socks. It’s Oktoberfest! Read More »
Caring for That Christmas Poinsettia
The poinsettia, or Christmas Star as it is known throughout Europe, is one of the very few plants that bloom during winter and the holiday season. The poinsettia has a rich and unique history that dates back to the Aztecs. The plant is native to Central America, specifically southern Mexico and is known there as …
Tasting France’s Most Famous Wine
Now that the Yukon snows have finally arrived and the all-too-brief weeks of skating the magically bare icy surface of my lake are done, I am looking forward to short, early twilights leading into our the long winter nights. For me this is the time of year to reconnect with friends, sit over long dinners …
When the Fire Hall Got Hauled
Back in Column #2 of this series, I promised you a couple of moving stories about Dawson buildings. My last column should certainly have made it clear that I was thinking about actual physical relocation rather than a tug at the heart stings. When I moved to Dawson in 1985, there was a clunky complex …