What's Up Yukon contributor Doug Sack, 71, is the former sports editor of the Yukon News and the Whistler Question and longtime columnist for Ski Canada magazine. Before that, he was young.
You should check out Doug's six-part series "The Yukon's Magnificent 11" on Yukon highways.
Issue: 2019-10-16, PHOTO: Pixabay
There are two sides to every story, sometimes more. Entry-level journalism students are taught, ad nauseum, by wizened old editors to strive to present both, or all of these sides Read more
Issue: 2019-09-18, PHOTO:courtesy of Caribou RV Park
Considering the Caribou RV Park at km 1403 of the Alaska Highway was established in 1974 and your humble correspondent lived in Atlin from 1977 to 1984, I must have driven right by it hundreds of times over the years without giving it a look or... Read more
Issue: 2019-07-31, PHOTO: Donar Reiskoffer via Wikimedia Commons
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you Odin? Read more
Issue-2019-07-10, PHOTO: courtesy of Doug Sack
Two prominent American tourism publications hit the streets recently. Neither included much of a mention of Dyea, except to list the Dyea Campground in Skagway and note that it is the start of the Chilkoot Trail to the Klondike. Read more
Issue: 2019-06-26, PHOTO: Doug Sack
I remember my first conversation with Joe Ben Raven like it happened yesterday. It was the winter construction season of 1972-73 up on the Eagle Plains of the Yukon’s half-built Dempster Highway in a borrow pit south of the Oasis in the Wilderness Read more
Issue: 2019-06-12, PHOTO: courtesy of Doug Sack
Cam Brewster’s World Famous Tattoo Studio on Centennial Drive in Porter Creek, located between a daycare centre and a pawn shop/second-hand store, plays the game by the rules. Read more
Issue: 2019-06-05, PHOTO: Pixabay
By the time the 1986 Molson’s World Cup men’s downhill and Super G, aka The White Circus, rolled into town on March 15, 1986 to close out the 85/86 racing season, I was well-established as the first-ever sports editor of The Whistler Question... Read more
Issue: 2019-05-22, PHOTO: courtesy of the Dungarees
James Murdoch is the 38-year-old namesake and only son of the co-creator of the Yukon’s famed Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue. The Revue closed its doors for good in 2017 after an incredible run of 47 years. During that time, 1.5 million tourists... Read more
Issue: 2019-05-15, PHOTO: Edwardx / Wikimedia Commons
“Christopher Skaife is both a raven master and a master storyteller. Compulsively readable, I devoured the book in a single sitting!”—Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering So did I! From 4 p.m. to midnight on the very day I found the last... Read more
Issue: 2019-04-17, PHOTO: Jubilee and Munin via Foter.com
You may have noticed the above quotation comes to you without attribution. That’s for good reason. Nobody seems to know who muttered it or even if it was ever uttered at all. The Tower ravens of London are arguably the most famous birds in history... Read more
Issue: 2019-03-20, PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons / Paul Gustave Doré
Very few writers throughout history have bonded with their subjects quite like Edgar Allan Poe and the Yukon’s territorial bird. His renowned 1845 poem, The Raven, a critical success, but financial failure, cemented man and bird into one entity to... Read more
Issue: 2019-03-06, PHOTO: Charles Horton Metcalf Photograph Collection, 1896-1899 / Wikimedia Commons
No, her name wasn’t Klondike Kate, the Oregon Mare, Bombay Peggy or the (immortalized by Robert W. Service) “Lady that’s known as Lou.” She and her husband Albert were in the fabrication and construction business in Seattle... Read more
Issue: 2019-02-27, PHOTO: Chris English via Wikimedia Commons
One of my many favourite Bill Reid carvings, Raven and the First Men, is part of a Haida creation myth which is permanently displayed in the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia... Read more
Issue: 2019-02-13, PHOTO: Alaska State Library/Alaska Territorial Governors Photograph Collection
“I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentlemen with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind them, of our Bill of Rights.” It was her Russian name that grabbed my attention as I was casually... Read more
Issue: 2019-01-16, PHOTO: courtesy of Bob Hayes
“They were down to just four humans and a wolf puppy named Zhoh.” A funny thing happened in the two years between the ending of Book 1 of the Bob Hayes’ Zhoh trilogy, The Clan of the Wolf, and the beginning of Book 2, The Spirit of the Wolf... Read more
Issue: 2018-10-17, PHOTO: MacBride Museum Collection, 1990.29.1.60
On October 23, 1918, at 10:10 p.m., over three hours later than scheduled, the CPR vessel S.S. Princess Sophia (So-PHY-Ya) piloted by Captain Leonard Locke, departed Skagway with at least 353 passengers and crew, the exact number unknown because... Read more
Issue: 2018-10-10, PHOTO: Pixabay
This quiet, reserved and thoughtful corner of the year-round Yukon has gone to the birds this week, namely Arctic terns, the all-time migratory champions, not only of the bird kingdom but also the entire non-human animal world, including bugs and... Read more
Issue: 2018-09-26, PHOTO: Adam Jones via Wikimedia Commons
Driving to Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T. (located on Kugmallit Bay of the Beaufort Sea of the Arctic Ocean), is no big deal. Canadians have been doing it for many years on the annual winter ice roads that used to run down the Mackenzie Delta, from Inuvik... Read more
Don Davis/NASA, via Wikimedia Commons
Grandpa, if a giant asteroid was on target to collide with Earth and everyone knew the exact day and time of the explosion to blow up the planet, where would you want to go camping for the last night? Read more
Primary Source: Hougen's History, a CKRW Yukon nugget by Les McLaughlin
It's a story many times told but never gets old, this tale of Kate and Otto Partridge of Ben-My-Chree, which is Manx for "Girl of my Heart" and is the greatest love story in the history of the Yukon. Read more
Issue: 2018-10-17, PHOTO: Danny Macdonald
Hello Everybody, We invite you to share your photos of Yukon life. Email your high-resolution images with a description of what’s going on to editor@WhatsUpYukon.com. Read more