If you’ve never heard of Paul Chartier, it’s with good reason. History doesn’t usually remember what might have been. “If he had succeeded in what he set out to do, his name would be taught in every classroom in the nation,” said Doug Rutherford, local playwright. “But he failed, which has made him a very …
After almost nine months on the job, the Honourable Angélique Bernard is loving her new role as the Commissioner of Yukon. That time has been mostly spent meeting people and educating them on the role of the Commissioner. Bernard notes that the responsibilities of the role are unknown to many Yukoners, since she is not …
“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 …
Aurora, a Canadian company that produces and distributes medical marijuana, is putting on a national series of free concerts to celebrate cannabis culture and the imminent legalization of marijuana through music and arts.
With all due respect to the Olympics, there is no competition on Earth that captures the passion of spectators like the FIFA World Cup.
As a nurse, I have a role in challenging systemic and individual racism. I challenge you to do the same.
The sad truth was, you could not live in Syria and have a clean heart. How could you, when you live in a place where you’re randomly shot at and car bombs explode outside your home?
To end plastic pollution, we need to shift our attitudes and behaviours. Plastic pollution affects our health and the health of the animals and plants we share our planet with.
1949 History of Atlin & Tagish roads “decimated, through inanition, due wholly to the lack of adequate and vital transportation facilities.”
March 8 is International Women’s Day. On this day we take the time to appreciate one another, mark the progress made, call for change, and celebrate the determination of community members to improve the lives of individuals who identify as women.
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 …
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 …
This year’s 16 Days of Action to End Gender-Based Violence was packed with some powerful events.
As part of this year’s 16 Days to End Gender-based Violence campaign, former BC Lions player and 2011 Grey Cup Champion, J.R. LaRose will be returning to the Yukon.
With over 280,000 visitors and 1,000 authors, the Frankfurt Book Fair is the largest book fair in the world and an important event for international trade deals, with over 7 000 exhibitors from 100 nations, according to the fair website.
It’s that time of year again when the Victoria Faulkner Women’s Centre and Les EssentiElles team up with a number of community groups to deliver a series events in our community that promise to encourage dialogue, to take action and increase awareness to end violence against women and girls.
Katherine McCallum performs The Syringa Tree, Nov 8 to 26 at the Courts Theatre
During a year when there have been a lot of serious books written about our national identity, it stands to reason that a nation that loves to watch This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Rick Mercer Show and Still Standing would produce at least one book making fun of the whole business. J.C. Villamere, who …
Poking Fun at Some National Icons on Our Birthday Read More »
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 …
May is Sexualized Assault Prevention month and once again we’re talking about women. Don’t men also suffer from unwanted touching, sexual harassment and even rape? Isn’t it problematic that our society doesn’t provide safe spaces for male victims to openly share how they have been violated? Both are valid questions. Yet this doesn’t change the …
A mural festival in the Yukon will draw artists, youth, and the general public together to decorate some buildings in Whitehorse with a colourful palette. The 2-month long Yukon Heritage Mural Art Festival is kicking off on Saturday, and organizers are inviting anyone and everyone to pop by, check out what’s going on, pick up …
Sheri-D Wilson, who calls herself The Mama of Dada, is an award-winning spoken word poet, educator, speaker and activist, who has performed in literary, film and folk music festivals in Canada, USA, England, France, Mexico, Belgium, and South Africa. She is the author of nine collections of poetry. Her most recent – ninth poetry collection, …
Our identities are multifaceted and complex, in order to address gender-based inequality and violence we need to find ways to hear each other in order to effectively create social change that benefits everyone in the end. No one should be left behind. In keeping with this spirit Les EssentElles, the Victoria Faulkner Women’s Centre, Yukon …
International Women’s Day Poster Contest Winners Read More »
Stories are invaluable teachers, says B.C. author Caroline Woodward, they have the ability to “give us whole worlds.” Old stories, too, are relevant artefacts that help us gain perspective on how much, or how little, progress we have made. Fictional stories, the writer continues, are able to relate emotive experiences in a way that nonfiction …
Trekking around the vast wilderness behind my grandparents home, I remember my grandma taking me through the wilderness teaching me about traditional medicines. I loved learning what the medicines could be used for, when to use them, their benefits and the importance of respect and dignity for all life around me. She would discuss survival …
My roots are in the east – specifically, a small coastal town in Newfoundland. My roots as an advocate are there too, buried amongst many memories of feeling like an outsider. I was “different.” A lot of those feelings came from subverting social expectations placed upon me as a woman. I have always been brazen, …
Il y a près d’un an, j’ai quitté le Québec pour m’établir au Yukon. À la recherche de nouveaux défis, j’ai pris les rênes des EssentiElles, un groupe de défense des droits des femmes francophones du territoire. Bien que je me sois toujours considérée comme une citoyenne engagée et progressiste, cette expérience de militantisme est …
You may have heard my voice on the radio or through a megaphone leading cheers in the spirit of ending gender-based violence, ending systemic injustice and demanding human rights be respected. More often than not I have something to say or a have a question that adds complexity to the issue at hand. I have …
The mayor of Chicago is mad as a hatter, but the trains run on time. Having been mayor for a couple of decades, Tom Kane is the ultimate power player; he has a lot to say about which councillors get elected and he wields that power like a mace to get them on board with …
Vurt (Jeff Noon, 1993) A mad romp through a Trainspotting-like drug culture, Vurt features virtual-reality ‘feathers’ that take you to bizarre and forbidden worlds, shadow-creatures that exist in between this world and the virtual who can slip in and out of your mind at will, slobbering man-dog hybrids and cybernetic implants that can render a …
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 »
Mark Rutledge, a father of three, and John Glynn-Morris, a father of two are raising their sons and daughters to be feminists. With one in four women experiencing physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, and both men realize the importance of their role as fathers and parents. We all hope that the kids in …
British artist David Hockney displayed his latest piece here: a complete collection of his artwork in a huge book. The book costs about 2,500 Euro and contains 62 years of Hockney’s work. It was set up on a stand so visitors could browse through it. The Arts+ exhibition shows that books are not only about …
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 …
Aristotle famously noted that humans are political animals. As I see it, human behaviour can be viewed in its most primal and pure state whilst observing children. Rotary Park, specifically the yellow triple slide, is a toddler cultural melting pot which, when observed from a political perspective, is a microcosm of the much larger political …
From her cabin on her parents’ farm near Fort St. John, B.C., Jody Peck can see the broad, meandering Peace River, not far from where her family first settled in 1924. On a recent Friday afternoon, Peck was about to start assembling the merchandise she and her band, Miss Quincy and the Showdown, hope to …
Saturday in Dawson’s Waterfront Park means it’s time for a couple of markets to open for business. The Farmers’ Market has been running for many years. While it began with growers selling produce, vegetables, garden plants and bushes, it has expanded in offerings to the point where the name might be better rendered as a …
Just when you think Yukon Pride is all about the party, the world reminds you that it’s not. Though the cheery posters and advertisements for 24+ Hours of Funky Gaylight promise a party not to be missed, they were created months before the shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando reiterated there are still many …
Love, Honour, and Equality Under the Midnight Sun Read More »
Identifying as a transgender person in any community presents risks and challenges, which is partly why the transgender man interviewed for this article chose to remain anonymous. He lives and works as a man, and is only open about being transgender with a few people because, he says, prejudice against transgender people is real. “I …
Saturn is somewhere in its grand orbit when you’re born. When it comes round again, 29.5 years later, astrologers say it can mean big changes in your life. For Whitehorse musician Jona Barr, it was during his own period of Saturn returning that he wrote the songs for the new Old Cabin EP, Saturn Return. …
Last Friday I returned from a run to find The Frenchman shovelling snow. The end result is like an iced cake: smooth, precise and clean. It’s peculiar how one can go from being wrapped in one’s tiny world to having a sudden connection with things beyond comprehension. Upon reaching the cabin we found texts from …
In a community as small as the Yukon, when people begin to stand together, change is a very real possibility. The 2015 annual 12 Days to End Violence Against Women campaign launches on Nov. 25. During these 12 days Whitehorse residents will come together in support of women in our community and take a stand …
The systems of the Earth are inextricably interwoven – be they environmental, social, or economic. Naomi Klein, bestselling author of This Changes Everything, The Shock Doctrine, and No Logo, believes that the capitalist model of economics is at odds with the healthy functioning of all other systems on Earth. Klein says that capitalism is a …
It took a king, a pope and a former prime minister to make me rethink my scepticism about extrasensory perception. Let me set the scene. August 16, 1977 was a stinking hot Tuesday in southern British Columbia. I was on Highway 3, mid-way between Hope and Princeton, when CBC Radio announced that the King, Elvis …
Sometimes Your Mind Kicks Up Things You Don’t Want to Believe Read More »
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 …
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 …
At a recent municipal candidates’ forum it was suggested that one of the solutions to Dawson’s perennial winter housing problem would be to arrange to rent out rooms in some of the establishments that only operate in the summer. It’s true that a good many places close up shop once the summer visitors slow to …
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 …
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was known for being an avid cigar smoker. Among his favourite brands were Romeo and Juliet, and Camacho. In fact, six years ago, a Camacho cigar that belonged to Churchill was estimated to be worth between $1,500- $,2200 by the auction company Christie’s. The company Camacho Cigars was founded in …
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 …
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 …
Dear Juniper and Johnny, My girlfriend and I were casually discussing the Peel Watershed Regional Land Use plan that was just released and we ended up getting into a very heated argument that ended in her never wanting to speak to me again. I am also having a tough time seeing her side of the …
What does it take to make a country? Paul Martin might say gay marriage or, maybe, a fresh scandal every six or eight months. But I think Frank Zappa had it right. Of course, according to Frank, “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline – it helps if …
Recently we noticed some of the turkeys had bloody wings and were being picked on by the others. Often if turkeys don’t have enough feed or enough protein in their feed they will pick each other. But this isn’t the case now. There are two laying hens in the turkey house to overnight, so I …
News out of Birmingham, Alabama this month has a local consumer lobby group calling for a boycott of all Anheuser-Busch products in the Birmingham/Jefferson County area due to anti-craft beer legislation in that state. Free the Hops/Alabamians for Speciality Beer’s President Stewart Carter notes that the call for the boycott comes as a response to …
As I watched Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama duke it out in the United States, I found I was getting more and more jealous of our American neighbours. Their political campaigns are much more exciting than ours. Theirs is a campaign of ideas and passion; ours is of the great struggle for the middle where …
Of the thousands of photos from the devastation of Sept. 11, photo editors around the world chose one photo that would tell the story of that day. It wasn’t of the Twin Towers burning and it wasn’t of the plane hitting the second tower. It was The Falling Man. It was a photo of a …
It is not as if I am addicted to it, rather it is just that it is sooo available. That computer, with its vast assortment of websites to choose from and lightning-fast downloads, makes it so easy to get my, well, fix. Yes, OK, I admit it: I am addicted to the American election. It …
I am loving this controversy over arts funding cuts because it is one of the few times that smart, eloquent, passionate people stand up and declare their love for art and what art does for us as a society. However, I fear that the right wing of this country – represented by Stephen Harper and …
November 4th, the world breathed a sigh of relief. No longer will we have to awkwardly avoid the United States in the UN cafeteria, picking up our trays and wandering over to the back of the room to sit with Botswana. We can hopefully go back to the good ol’ days, those halcyon days; the …
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 …
I was watching one of the Sunday-morning news shows and heard something that crystallized, in my mind, what is wrong with the financial sector. A Republican (you need to pronounce it like I do by first drawing out the “Reee” just a bit, and then spit out the “pub!” and then tack on the “lican” …
Congratulations to the Yukon government, in general, and to the Yukon Liquor Corporation, specifically, for passing regulations that put the new Liquor Act in play. It goes a long way toward normalizing alcohol consumption in our lives. We feel that a program of accepting the presence of alcohol in everyday situations, coupled with stronger disincentives …
Did you feel it? Once again, the nation shared a moment of polarization. We were all united in our disdain for the States. And it all came from a little Fox News commentary show called Red Eye. The host, Greg Gutfeld, and his panel spent their time insulting Canada and, in particular, our Armed Forces. …
It is an occupational hazard of being an editor that you sometimes get paralysed over the meaning of one word. This week, the word was “power”. By definition, it means “the storing of energy”. The stored energy is a force that, when unleashed, gets things done. This leads to the secondary definition: “capability of producing …
In Philadelphia to attend a science-fiction convention, I received an email telling me that a young gay teen, Jorge Lopez Mercado had been dismembered, partially burned and decapitated in Puerto Rico. It was also only three weeks after American President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard Act, the new Hate Crimes Legislation. The man charged with …
Friday at 4:30 p.m. It is a time that belongs to the working man and the working woman. It is a time when the boss — “the man” — has no influence and the workers can freely enjoy good company, good beer and good talk. In Whitehorse, the workers have a place, too. It is …
This past September, I was privileged to attend the seventh annual Circumpolar Agricultural Conference in Alta, Norway. Alta lies just below the 70°N latitude, which makes it a bit farther north than Old Crow. The Circumpolar Agricultural Association (CAA) was founded in 1995 in response to the ideas created at the first Circumpolar Agricultural Conference, …
Well, talk about putting the civil back into civil disobedience. Most of you have probably heard the recent hoopla out of Parliament Hill. During the particularly ceremony-heavy Throne Speech, a page walked out into the middle of the floor and, in full view of the cameras and stunned costumed oldsters, she produced a red octagonal …
Jessica Yee doesn’t mince her words. “As young people, our rights to our own bodies and spaces are fundamental to our own existence. They are our birthright,” the 25-year-old activist declares. Yee speaks about seeing people her own age experiencing violence and unwanted pregnancy and how that contributed to her work in sexual reproductive rights …
Once again the internets were all abuzz last month about the rise of “Fox News North”. My Facebook feed was riddled with urgent cries to take action against the rise of, and I quote: “American-style hate media onto our airwaves.” This has already come ’round before, but maybe with Hockey Day in Canada and the …
Ione Christensen, Yukon writer, mother, pioneer and politician, is writing an autobiography spanning three generations. The daughter of RCMP corporal G. I. Cameron and lay nurse Martha, Ione was raised in Fort Selkirk, a once quiet riverside community transformed each summer into a bustling paddlewheel stop where the Pelly and Yukon rivers meet. Ione credits …
