The George Black Ferry splashed into the Yukon River shortly after 2:00 p.m. on May 15, bringing to life the summer time link between the two Dawsons. There’s the main town on the east side of the river and then the satellite communities of Sunnydale and West Dawson on the west side. For a few …
Perhaps citizens of every tourism-oriented economy reserve the right to gently mock the very visitors that employ them. In the Yukon, for example, tourism contributes more than $100-million to our Gross Domestic Product and helps to generate a quarter of our jobs. Nonetheless, these figures don’t prevent us from gathering amongst ourselves to coyly chuckle …
Part 1 of 6 Where is Whitehorse? Why are you going there? What’s it like? Three great questions and at first I struggled to answer any of them. So when Ed, a friend and former colleague asked me the big three, I thought I might veer from the truth. Where? I could be straight about …
Part 3 of 6 Last weekend, I dined with the venerable Irish anaesthetist, Dr. Marnus F. O’Hoolahan, at his house in Squatter’s Row. It was the first time I had met him and he was in fine spirits; sitting at the head of the table like a sage, his silver hair was shimmering in the …
Part 2 of 6 I’d been in the Yukon for less than a week when I was dragged on a trek into Kluane National Park. Old hiking hands, Denis and Marshall, were worryingly keen to test my mettle. It was early May and we were going to hike Slims River to Observation Mountain over the …
Part 5 of 6 Yukon society is a peculiar blend of the arts and the outdoors – with a healthy dose of practical knowledge thrown into the mix. Nowhere else in the world can one find so many artists in the middle of such wilderness; nowhere else in the world can one find so many …
Part 4 of 6 I was making my way down Main Street looking for a barber’s when I happened to glance into Baked Café. There, sitting in the window, was the inimitable Dr. Marnus F. O’Hoolahan. I hadn’t seen him — or my wallet — since the night of his dinner party in Squatter’s Row. …
In the summers between my years at the University of Lethbridge I would work at the Yukon Transportation Museum (YTM). I sold trinkets in the gift shop, gave tours to visitors, went disc golfing at lunch, napped underneath the train exhibit, put a tip-jar at the exhibit entrance, and generally relished my low level of …
