Be A Conscious Traveller This Winter
The COVID-19 pandemic stopped travel, from one day to the next, in a way that was impossible to imagine before.
Tourism
The value of hunting & fishing to tourism in the Yukon
Since the early Gold Rush days, hunting and fishing have played a major and valuable role in tourism in the Yukon.
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. …
Keeping Yukon wild at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve
Yukon Wildlife Preserve offers wildlife viewing, school programs, family passes, run/ski/walk events, Yukoner Day and holiday activities.
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 …
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.
Attempting world-class status with mediocre skills – Part 4 of 5
World-class mountain biking trails on Montana Mountain are internationally famous. Riders flock to Carcross to try their hand at riding them.
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.
Old tramways and new ziplines on Windy Arm
Conrad, on Windy Arm, is just the first of a new wave of Yukon campgrounds with eyes to the future.
Get Lost! Navigating Whitehorse trails
Where do you go when mountain biking, and do it safely around Whitehorse?
An Old-fashioned public reading at Jack London Square
Of the five writers who have attracted folks to come and visit buildings and gravesites in the Klondike, that are attached to their names, Jack London was the first.
The Follies ‘Reborn’!
The Klondike Follies Cabaret shows will take place three times each week, beginning on June 26, 28 and 30.
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 …
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.
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.”
Trek Over the Top Turns 25 this Year
The 25th annual Trek Over the Top snowmobile race will arrive in Dawson City on March 8 and return to its starting point in Tok, Alaska, on March 11. The event has been organized on the Dawson end by the Klondike Visitors Association (KVA) for the last seven years, and this is the second year …
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 …
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 …
Debaters Bound
Whitehorse comedian Jenny Hamilton will be performing live on the CBC Radio One show The Debaters in North Vancouver on Nov. 22
Taking the reins at What’s Up
Fall has arrived and Yukoners have all started to settle into our winter routines. This busy time of year seems like the perfect time to take over as editor of What’s Up Yukon. I’m excited for the challenge and have already had some great ideas sent my way, so stay tuned over the coming months …
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 …
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 …
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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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 …
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 …
Finding Orchids in an Unusual Setting
Finding the entrance to Orchid Acres can be a little confusing for newcomers to West Dawson and Sunnydale. Someone will tell you it’s on the road to the Dawson City Golf Course, and that’s true, but the signs indicating that road are a little confusing. There’s a large sign with a blue arrow, indicating that …
A Little Gift Shop with a Big Heart
The DuDrop In Gift Shop offers custom license plates while you wait – a memento from the Sign Post Forest to take home…
Celebrate First Nations Culture
The Adäka Cultural Festival was nominated by the Tourism Industry Association of Canada for a 2015 Cultural Tourism Award.
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!
Tee Time in the Town of Faro, Yukon
For the first Faro Golf Tournament “we drew circles on the soccer field to serve as holes,” The Faro Golf Club incorporated in 2001.
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 …
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 …
Thaw di Gras appeals to Locals and Visitors
Dawson’s impishly named Thaw di Gras carnival is still thought of as a spring carnival, even though a good March weekend will still be in the minus teens and a bad one may be in the minus 20s with wind chill. Whatever the weather may bring, much of this March 17th to 19th weekend will …
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 …
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 …
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,”
No Farmer Left Behind (Iceland Age part 2)
A square, two-storey guest house with bare, small rooms and a simple kitchen is snugged in between the trailer-cum-farmhouse and the sheep barn. The collection of buildings looks tiny against a sweeping backdrop: a deep valley that winds away from the mouth of the fjord, hemmed in by high cliffs. A woman perhaps in her …
(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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Promoting the Klondike Experience
Not quite a year ago, Jesse Cooke was in Ottawa to receive the Parks Canada Youth Tourism Entrepreneur Award. He was being recognized for his business, Husky Bus, which he launched in the summer of 2012. Even then, as he announced at a subsequent meeting of the Dawson City Chamber of Commerce, he was already …
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 …
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 …
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 …
The Queen Bee of Klondike Rib & Salmon
The young woman is dancing like nobody is watching, lip syncing animatedly to Abba’s “Dancing Queen.” It is 2 p.m. on a Monday and Klondike Rib & Salmon is packed. Is that a server or a customer? “It could be either,” says Dona Novecosky, craning her head for a better look, a mischievous smile on …
Farewell Winter, Hello Summer
After a long Yukon winter, you look forward to packing away your warm winter coat. We all look forward to the warmer days.
The role of the KVA in the Klondike
When a group of Dawsonites dressed up in Gold Rush garb to meet a Canadian Pacific Airlines riverboat in 1962, they had no idea that this simple one-off publicity stunt would put down roots and that the fledgling Klondike Tourist Bureau would evolve into the Klondike Visitors Association (KVA) about 10 years later. Today, the …
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 …
The Distinctly Northern Signs of Spring
There are several distinctly northern signs of spring. As the long-winter winds down the Yukon people enter an obvious state of outfit confusion. As you drive through town you peer out to see an eclectic mix of people waiting to cross roadways: There is a man in shorts, and sandals next to a woman wearing a Canada …
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 …
A Place to Wander… and A Place to Stay
You can’t beat the price: $35 for a bed, $80-$95 for the private couple/family room or $25 for a place to pitch your tent, including free internet and parking, access to all the facilities, kitchen, shower, piano, and guitars. The a piano and guitars are not usually part of the deal at most hostels, but …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Winter: We Shutter to Feel it Coming
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Tis the season to raise tally: Tourists give Yukoners a bad name Read More »
Give your small business a big face
Canadian Tourism Human Resource Council indicates a decline in our overall labour force from a growth rate of 1.4 percent in 2005 to 0.4 percent in 2016. Technology is a tool that helps fill the gap, allowing industry operators to allocate human resources where they are most needed. Think automated checkout or bank machine and …
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 …
No folly to come up to the Yukon
Five guys are sitting, standing or dressing in this small makeshift room. I’m on the floor, my legs on steps leading back down to my corner, where I store every costume I’ll need for the Frantic Follies, the Yukon vaudeville show. Lyall Murdoch sits on a chair next to the mirror and make-up table wearing …
Supporting the Economy Through the Arts
Supporting the Economy Through the Arts You could expect a 10-years lifespan from mining projects, and Hakonson is well aware that placer miners have been roaming the creeks since 1898 and show no signs of stopping, but the short life of Viceroy’s Brewery Creek Mine and the short lived Clinton Creek asbestos mine tend to …
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 …
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 …
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. …
