Journey with our hearts and hands
As an Elder, I learned from my past Elders; as a Gwitchin, I live along with the season. Porcupine Caribou is our main source of food. We fry caribou meat in the morning. We eat caribou steaks, along with fried eggs and hot bannock, and then we begin our day. For lunch we add caribou …
At 3:45 a.m. we hear the local bus driver over the loudspeaker: “Good Morning. We will be arriving in Whitehorse shortly. The only restaurant open 24/7 is not…” I didn’t make arrangements to be picked up, but I am not worried. I live here. We get off the bus, an odd sort of newly made …
Yesterday I was amputating their little arms; Into a bag they went. If I worked fast, I could fill the bag in the hour. Delicate soft green nubs at the end of each branch were quickly added up in my Ziploc baggie. This micro-pruning of sorts was my first foray into spruce tip harvesting, among …
A high-school excursion to a Toronto production of Peter Shaffer’s play, Equus, is what triggered David Skelton’s fascination with theatrical design. “The set and the costumes were just so evocative, so simple, so full of meaning, and just so functional. Scene starts, scene ends, move, move, move, quickly, quickly,” Nakai Theatre’s artistic director recalls. “I …
The first Whitehorse Nuit Blanche arts festival takes starts on July 5, and runs into the wee hours of July 6. The event is modeled after the famous Nuit Blanche festivals that take place around the world. Whitehorse’s version will showcase five Yukon artists. There will be sculptures, video installations, origami, dance, music, and workshops. …
Miche Genest is up early, squeezing wild-rose-petal-infused egg whites into small twists on parchment-paper-lined baking pans. She’s making meringues in preparation for the launch of her second cookbook, The Boreal Feast: a culinary journey through the North. The meringues are dainty, pink floral-shaped cookies; she says you can smell the rose petals more than you …
We noticed a grizzly sitting on the beach when we were out on Kluane Lake in our small zodiac. The bear was far from Congden Creek campground, where we were camping at the time. We headed back to shore, and noticed the bear wandering down the beach toward us. We pulled up on shore close to …
Actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin had the soul of a poet and the heart of a clown. He lived by his own moral code and sometimes his common decency led to his downfall. He made true enemies when he refused to play quietly; and his comic genius led him to places he didn’t know existed. …
Florent Vollant’s first exposure to music was in his family’s cabin on a trapline in Labrador. After a successful caribou hunt, the family would celebrate with traditional songs and dances, in the Innu tradition of the makushan, or pow wow. “I was four or five years old the first time I remember the sound of …
Yukon photographer Peter Mather arrived in Old Crow last spring. He was here to finish a project he’d been working on for three years. For nearly 20 years Mather has been photographing the beauty and wonder of the Yukon; his photos are evidence of his love for the North. Mather was raised in the Yukon; …
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 …
First, she says, it allows artists, performers and cultural sector workers “to come together once a year to share inspiration, to share ideas, to learn new skills, to inspire each other.” Alexander is a co-founder and executive producer of the four-year-old festival, which runs this year from Friday, June 27 through Thursday, July 3 at …
STANLEY CUP SEASON When it’s Stanley cup season It’s almost like treason. Dougie never misses a playoff and his TV is never off. He turns his TV right up when he watches the Stanley cup. Dougie is glued to the screen an’ sometimes he even looks mean. When the other teams score Dougie gets really …
A few days ago I met Cam Webber for an after-work drink at the Roadhouse. Cam is a gravedigger for the City of Whitehorse, and had already set up camp with a couple of colleagues under a patio umbrella when I traipsed in. The sun shone down uninhibited by clouds, warming both our bodies and …
