Tourism

Managing avalanche terrain

Eirik Sharp, owner and operator of The Sharp End: Mountain Adventures, with his extensive avalanche background, is bringing change to how the Yukon manages avalanche terrain.

Keeping the trains on track

The famous White Pass & Yukon Route (WP&YR) Railway is a busy and beautiful journey through the White Pass of Alaska and the Yukon. Every year, as Alaska and the Yukon emerge from winter, so does the work to make sure these trains can carry tourists safely through avalanche paths and safely along the railway. …

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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 …

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Yukon See It Here – By Matt Cook

I took these photos while out kayaking on Fox Lake and enjoyed a beautiful sunset from the middle of the lake.

Yukon See It Here: Shawn Pollard

I took these with a drone on a hike into the Samuel Glacier last weekend, this hike is off the Haines Road.

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 …

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Cuba Impressions

Passion – that’s the word that comes to mind when I reflect on my recent Cuban holiday in January. The passion of our tour guides throughout our travels. Their devotion to sharing their love of Cuba and how Cubans are working to build a more equitable country.

Helping the community climb to new heights

Chris Gishler, owner and operator of Equinox Adventures, has spent the last 15 years building and developing his outdoor adventure and education company as the Yukon has continued to grow. Back in 1999, Gishler arrived to Whitehorse in preparation for a Mount Logan trip in Kluane National Park, only to discover plane issues, which led …

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From passion to success

It’s been 20 years since Thomas de Jager first discovered the Yukon. Today, he runs his successful business Yukon Wide Adventures that gives locals and tourists the opportunity to enjoy the Yukon’s outdoors. Thomas, originally from Monheim, Germany first came as a tourist through Alaska and the Yukon in 1996. His parents were avid kayakers …

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Debaters Bound

Whitehorse comedian Jenny Hamilton will be performing live on the CBC Radio One show The Debaters in North Vancouver on Nov. 22

It’s over: Dawson Winter

It’s September, and as the leaves start to turn and the streets become empty of tourists, transient workers who have lived in Dawson City for the summer are hitting the road out of town. Being a seasonal community, Dawson has seen its fair share of young people coming up for summer work. Some are old …

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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 …

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TIAY Picks Dawson to Showcase Sustainable Tourism

Every few years the Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon brings either its spring or fall conference to Dawson City. TIA Yukon Executive Director Blake Rogers says that it makes even more sense than usual this year. “This year is a special year, the Year of International Sustainable Tourism for Development, as declared by the …

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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 …

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Celebrate First Nations Culture

The Adäka Cultural Festival was nominated by the Tourism Industry Association of Canada for a 2015 Cultural Tourism Award.

Northern Lights

Already Six Weeks

Forty-five days ago, I placed my feet on Canadian soil, with the goal of changing my life completely. Things are going pretty well!

A Swiss Tradition in the North

Of course, you have noticed that many people from Switzerland visit the Yukon in summer. Did you ever ask yourself what they do in wintertime? Here is the answer: They enjoy a relatively mild winter in Switzerland and every now and then they eat a Swiss cheese fondue. Fondue has a long tradition in Switzerland …

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Adventure and Great Powder

Interest in backcountry skiing in the Yukon has taken off, especially among tourists, says backcountry ski expert and guide Claude Vallier. Vallier recently published a backcountry guide book to the Haines Pass, to accompany the guide book he produced in 2007 about the White Pass. The books, Haines Pass Backcountry Skiing and White Pass Backcountry …

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The Trekkers Will Soon be Here

The Trekkers are coming again, and this year’s Trek Over the Top from Tok Alaska to Dawson City, will have a substantial increase in numbers over the last two years. Paul Robitaille, marketing and events manager with the Klondike Visitors Association (KVA), reports that the Tok Chamber of Commerce has taken over the promotion and …

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A Home Away From Home

Stepping into Johnson’s Crossing Lodge nestled off the Alaska Highway at historic Mile 836 feels more like walking into your mom’s living room than a highway lodge. Vintage tins and rusted relics line the shelves overtop a cozy room with tables and chairs. A table top is scattered with hundreds of puzzle pieces waiting to …

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What’s fake is real

“I found it ironic that in Toronto, I could play hockey year round” said Dowhal, but in Dawson “hockey season runs from December to March,”

(Hot) Water Water Everywhere (Iceland Age part 1)

Although Iceland has been getting a lot of press lately as a hot – metaphorically and geologically speaking – tourist destination, it hardly seems a likely go-to spot for an agricultural experience. That however is exactly what landed me in the middle of the blustery North Atlantic in October along with seven other Yukoners. We …

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A Local Getaway

We also enjoyed petting the many friendly animals that live with the host family. Eight dogs, a horse, a donkey and several chickens can keep adults and kids busy during their stay. Looking inside the guestbook we realized just how many guests have already had a great time in this cabin since 2008. Phrases like …

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The Lure of the Aurora Borealis

Tourists visit the Yukon to see the aurora; it’s the heart of the winter tourism industry. Visitors who have done their research will also have other activities in mind. People arrive from around the world – including Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Korea, and of course the United States and other parts of …

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Mining Upward

Space, science and sci-fi is one of the strongest current trends in popular media, from the rebooted version of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and the new Star Trek movies to galaxy-print everything, and the I F***ing Love Science Facebook page. While it’s fantastic to see the general public become more interested in the world of science and …

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Yukon Visitors

Everyone has a list of family and close friends that they feel the need to make an effort to visit every decade or so.  If you’re like me and your entire extended family lives outside the Yukon, they may be making an extra effort to come and see you, because (though geographically cumbersome) the Yukon …

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Building Tourism From the Ground Up

The Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre, a cultural hub of our capital city, will see national delegates focused on aboriginal economic development arrive on Monday, October 3 for the CANDO 23rd annual conference: Partnerships for Prosperity, Change Collaboration and Opportunity. CANDO (Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers) is a federally registered, non-profit society that …

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Healing Through Art

Dennis Shorty created his first sculpture when he was eight years old. It was a moose carved out of poplar with a burbot fish skull for antlers and a bit of “fish glue” to hold them in place. He was proud of the sculpture and showed his father, Alec Shorty. Alec told the young carver …

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K – Come See Why People Line Up

Klondike Rib & Salmon is only open in the summer. Both tourists and locals alike flocking to the restaurant. It’s a welcoming place, from the steps up onto the cozy front deck and its patio tables, through the entrance foyer to the dining room, which was originally opened as a tent frame bakery, called MacMillan’s …

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A portal to the world

Yukon artist Lawrie Crawford imagined a gallery, an airy space with high ceilings and big beautiful windows. She could picture Suzanne Paleczny’s sculpture of Icarus hanging there. With that vision an idea was born. Crawford and her colleagues in the Southern Lakes Artists Collective were inspired to create a gallery space filled with a wide …

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The Tagish Kwan Photo Parlour

Another new initiative has sprung up on the Carcross Commons. Near the totem pole stands an off-white canvas wall tent. Inside, it’s set up as a photography studio. There are lights and high quality cameras with multiple flashes. There is a printer, and a tickle trunk. It’s the second place in the territory to offer …

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Vestmannaeyjar Voyage

The road that encircles Iceland, called Highway 1 or the Ring Road, offers access to many of the sights on the tourist track, called the Golden Circle. We explored the usual postcard sights; geysers, rift valleys, craggy ocean shores, and flat, glacier-formed black alluvial plains. However, there is one place in particular, our first overnight …

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More than Just Coffee

I catch Heike Graf between the lunch rush hour at the Caribou Crossing Coffee and picking up her five year old daughter from school. “It was busy today,” Graf, the owner of the coffee shop in Carcross, says while wiping the counter and putting a tray of fresh pizza on the display. The smell of …

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Germans love Jack London

Why is Robert Service so much better known here than Jack London? This question comes from Wolfgang Robert Greiner, one of five German journalists I was invited to meet for breakfast at the Aurora Inn in late February. Their primary literary interest is in Jack London, whose Yukon themed short stories were standard fare in …

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What’s on at Rendezvous

It’s that time of year again, when it’s totally normal to see girls walking around in period costume, when men compete in beauty pageants, when that guy with the really long beard who comes into the restaurant you work at starts talking about the medal he hopes to win.   And this year is no …

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Hostel Hostility, Part 2

Before coming to Nicaragua’s beach mecca of San Juan del Sur, I had undergone  a hostel scare in Granada – a polite-seeming colonial city with awe-inspiring architecture, nouveau cuisine and two sports bars. I had returned from dinner and was enjoying a rare private moment in my empty eight-person hostel room. Before long, an athletic …

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Winning Awards with Husky Bus

Last month Jesse Cooke was the recipient of the Parks Canada Youth Tourism Entrepreneur Award, at a ceremony held in Ottawa on Dec. 2. Cooke arrived in the Yukon for the first time 10 years ago, studying glaciology at Kluane Lake as part of his University of Ottawa degree program. He says it was the …

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Mush It Forward

Marathon runners spend a lot of time and dedication working towards being the best runner they can be. Countless hours are spent in the gym, running on a track, doing specific exercises designed to enhance their performance. With sled dogs who race it’s no different. The Yukon Quest is a very long race and as …

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A Walk in the Park

Whenever I travel to cities I seek out green space for the familiarity of trees and the relative quiet. While Day 1 in Delhi was a lesson on how it’s true, everyone is trying to scam us, and the best artists make you feel like they’ve done you a favour, on Day 2 we gamely …

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Invitation for an Authentic Experience

Yukon First Nations are planning ways to offer authentic cultural experiences for visitors. The plan to bolster cultural tourism among the Yukon First Nations has been in the works for a while, but this week people from across the Yukon Territory are getting together for a conference in Whitehorse to discuss ways to strengthen this …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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kiteboarder

Carcross: Hiking, biking and … Kiteboarding

Carcross has always been known for hiking. Lately, with Montana Mountain right next door, it has become a favoured destination for biking, too. Now, word is filtering out to the world that Lake Bennett is offering up some world-class opportunities for kiting. You’ve seen it before: whenever a soft-drink company wants a commercial to show …

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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 …

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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 …

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Bus, stop!

They come for a pee, a snack, and a knick-knack. After spending 45 minutes in the first Canadian community that many will ever experience, cruise ship passengers are back on the buses to see Emerald Lake or have a chicken dinner at Caribou Crossing Trading Post. Such are the challenges, and opportunities, for shopkeepers in …

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Selling ‘cool’ … one bottle at a time

Let’s talk about beer. OK, not specifically about beer. Rather about the significant contribution a brewery like the Yukon Brewing Company can make to promote the destination it was born in. Mark Beese, the brewery’s enthusiastic sales manager who could talk beer any day any time (and does), put it this way, “Beer is what …

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Tis the season to raise tally: Tourists give Yukoners a bad name

Now that the days are longer than the nights again (although sometime in January at –54 we thought that this might never happen this year) our thoughts at the brewery turn to Beer Season. We don’t think of the seasons here like “winter” and “summer”, as much as we think of “Beer Season” and “Not …

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A Terd of Hurtles

There was a time when the Great Klondike International Outhouse race featured 12 to 17 teams and was quite a bit more of an extreme sport than it is now. It had a course that began in front of the museum, ran north on Fifth Avenue, up the hill on Church to Eighth Avenue, over …

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Gay-Friendly Countries Get Gay Tourist Dollars

Vacation planning has been on my mind lately; mainly how to escape from the Yukon this winter to warmer climes. I have been inspired by the stories from friends who are abroad. One in particular is the filmmaker I profiled recently who is travelling all over Europe and attending the many Pride celebrations there. Vacation …

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Week of a Lifetime

You’ve just stepped off the plane in Whitehorse from your home in the Circumpolar North. You’re excited and proud to represent your region at the Arctic Winter Games (maybe a bit nervous as well), and you’re looking forward to everything the week has to offer. Once you’ve had a chance to strut your stuff at …

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From Down Under to Northern Night Sky Wonders

For most astronomers there is always the memory of that first, jaw-dropping, eye-popping, “I don’t believe this is real” experience at the eyepiece of a telescope. You even get the chance to hear the occasional, “Holy Smokes!” every once in a while at a star party, or a Saturday night at the local observing site. …

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