Whitehorse. Or possibly, White Horse.

At first blush, Whitehorse looks like any other city of, say, 27,000 people. There's a Canadian Tire, 2 Tim Horton's, SuperStore, Extra Foods.... and, yes, Wal-Mart. But it has that je ne sais quoi, that little bit of something different you find when you're north of 60.

There's the Beringia Centre, for instance. Never heard of it? Neither had we until we chanced upon a brochure for it in the Carcross Visitor Centre. Apparently Beringia (think Bering Sea) was a land mass that emerged when ocean levels dropped during the last Ice Age due to water being tied up in glaciers. It is the fabled land bridge between Asia and North America that allowed various (very hardy) life forms to migrate here. Mammoths, scimitar cats, northern ground squirrels.... all the critters you know and love from the Ice Age cartoon movies. Oh, and people.

The fossils you see in the centre are a fairly recent discovery (and not all of them paid an entrance fee). They were unearthed by placer gold miners going about their daily grind. Besides the expected (see above), these include a giant beaver (photo below, with Mr. T to provide scale).

The entrance to WH Visitor Centre sports a bank of stained glass art depicting aspects of Yukon life, including the omnipresent raven:

Outside the Municipal Office, a bike stand depicting.... a White Horse:

 Whitehorse is a bike-friendly place. The town provides, for a small fee, lockup parking for people who choose to cycle to the downtown area.

And the local paper, the Whitehorse Star, sports a motto I couldn't resist:

As I recall from my revolutionary university days, Illegitimus non carborundum translates as "Don't let the bastards get you down". Gotta love it, non?




And there are Rider fans everywhere, even here. The flag flies in the prime position, flanked by the Canadian and Yukon standards. Someone has their priorities straight.

Haines Junction

Haines Junction, a thriving community of around 500, is the place to stay if you're planning to hike in Kluane National Park. The Visitor Centre (once again) is ready, willing and able to provide you with as much information as you could use in several lifetimes about the park and the area. To our dismay, we landed in HJ exactly 1 day before pretty much everything shut down for the season.

Kluane is a wilderness park, which goes a long way to explain why the hikes are either short and suitable to Uilleam and other geriatrics or multi-day efforts attractive mostly to the young, robust and distinctly non-geriatric set. We visited the Parks Canada visitor centre at Sheep Mountain (Tachal Dhal) which boasts the highest concentration of mountain sheep in the world. They're interesting beasts: both male and female have horns, albeit different styles. They live really high on the sides of the mountains where not very much grows but apparently prefer to be able to see everything over having a lot more food available. I took a photo with the longest lens I have. Those little white dots? Sheep....

You can find a lot better images at https://www.google.ca/search?q=mountain+sheep+image&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=fuEnUpLYOozbiwKv1oDQDA&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=475

The town itself boasts a fabulous bakery (cinnamon buns par excellence, great specialty breads, etc.) which is currently up for sale if anyone's contemplating a career change. There's also some interesting architecture:

The Anglican church was built by a local log builder and houses a shop in the basement which sells the work of regional artists (quilters, visual artists, etc.) Most artists donate 10% of the revenue from the shop back to the church, tho' there is no requirement to do so. One corner of the basement is a thrift shop and the money raised through this avenue goes to church maintenance and operational costs.




The Catholic church down the street was built in 1954 by Father Morriset, the first RC priest to operate in the area. Resources being scarce, he got creative and converted an old American Army quonset hut into the church you see here. It has the distinction of being the most photographed church in the Yukon.

I'm pretty sure this isn't the manse.....

...but you never know.

Reconnaissance

We've always maintained that the first trip to a new place is primarily reconnaissance, a kind of overview mode of travel whereby you can figure out where you'd like to spend more time on future trips. And learn something about how things work in that particular part of the world.

Well, we've learned at least one thing: internet access is not ubiquitous as it is in the sunny south. And when it is available, it's not necessarily up to the task of transmitting much except text. Ergo, the distinct lack of blogging for the past, what? week or more? Admittedly it's entirely possible no one has noticed. But on the off chance, I'm making my report while we have a good connection, the next several days being unlikely....

From Watson Lake, we headed west, stopping at Teslin Lake's only campground/RV park along with dozens of huge units, all from the US and all (except 1) towing an SUV or other biggish vehicle.

It was a veritable forest and we were happy to be on our way the next day, tho' Teslin Lake itself is quite beautiful, even in the rain, and we spent some time in a wonderful little place, the George Johnson Museum (http://www.gjmuseum.yk.net/), where we listened to an alternative to the standard Alaska Highway building story.






Teslin Lake








We headed to Skagway via Carcross (formerly Caribou Crossing), where yet another extremely helpful Visitor Centre person inundated us with information about what to do (actually, what we "absolutely must do") before we left. We did spend some time at the Carcross Desert which, despite its name, is not a real desert but merely a series of large sand dunes. Formed during the last ice age, new sand is added primarily by being blown in from Lake Bennett. It was a challenging climb, but worth it for the panoramic views at the top.

Follow the line of footsteps to the dot which is actually a person toiling his or her way up the dunes.


We stopped for gas before leaving Carcross, the drive to Skagway involving quite a lot of climbing and Mr. T being of the cautious persuasion. As he stepped out to pump, he was met with a hearty "Go, Riders" from across the lot. There ensued a lengthy conversation (with a former resident of Milestone) about all things Saskatchewan, the provincial religion in particular. It had to happen at some point....

Skagway turned out to be a theme park, but has some redeeming factors nonetheless. Great gardens, for one. Lots of Stellar's jays, for another. OK, they're not everyone's fave bird, but you have to admit they're pretty gorgeous.

And as luck would have it, while waiting for the ferry to take us to Haines, we saw a whale in the harbour. It surfaced twice, swam past one of the ubiquitous cruise ships and dived, not to be seen again. Or at least by us. Naturally, no camera was readily available, so you'll just have to take my word for it....

Haines, just across the inlet from Skagway, is a lovely place to land and we spent four days in a somewhat rustic (Tr: there was running water but a only about 1/3 of the toilets and showers actually worked) but beautiful campground. We managed to arrange doggy daycare so we could do the Fjordlines whale-watching cruise (http://alaskafjordlines.com/wildlife-cruise) to Juneau. Tho' we pretty much got skunked on whales and grizzlies (called brown bears on the coast), we did see a few seals, sea lions and dolphins.

The boys hanging out on the buoy










Juneau itself was interesting and reminded us a lot of Wellington, NZ in the way it's built on the steep hills. It was, however, overrun with cruise shippers despite being close to the end of the cruise season. Its population of approximately 31,000 intrepid souls hosts over 1,000,000 people via 4-6 cruise ships that stop in daily from May until late September. This despite the fact that Juneau gets rain, on average, 340 days per year.

After our walking tour of the town, we headed out to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Centre to study glaciology. Tho' we were warned about bears and coached about what to do if we encountered one on the trail, none were in evidence. IMHO, no bear in its right mind would be out on a wet day such as it was. But we did get some great views of the glacier...

 Bald eagles are (a) ubiquitous in this part of Alaska and (b) really, no, REALLY not fond of wet weather.








There's lots more to say about our adventures in that area but Mr. T has dinner almost ready and I have my priorities. Just one more photo, tho', taken as we headed north from Haines to Haines Junction. It's a typical landscape for this part of the world at this time of year, i.e., it includes mountains, clouds/incipient rain and fireweed.

And is too gorgeous for words.

Watson Lake, Gateway to the Yukon

The guide book said to watch out for caribou, Stone sheep and bison along the road. And while we saw all three, mostly we saw bison.

There were 2 caribou crossing the road not far from Toad River, the only ones we saw in the several hundred kilometres we drove that day.

Stone sheep are a sub-species of Dall sheep and are named for the area where they're found.

There were lots of bison along the road and they munched away completely ignoring us. Must needs be focussed when you're ramping up your body weight preparing for winter.

We decided to motel it for our first evening in Watson Lake and not because it was our 6th day in the confined space of the A-liner and tempers were fraying. No, there was a much more important reason than that: the Roughriders were playing and we needed TV access. 

We did manage to catch the last half of the game (which the Riders won), then headed out to explore the town. First stop: the Visitor Centre and Signpost Forest. The latter was initiated by some poor, lonely sod during the building of the Alaska Highway who, slowly expiring from homesickness and loneliness, posted a signpost identifying his home town and the exact number of miles he was away from it. To date, there are roughly 75,000 signs and counting.

The Visitor Centre staff were very knowledgeable and helpful locals who directed us to the various activities and sights the town and district offers. One particularly outstanding one was the Northern Lights Centre (http://www.northernlightscentre.ca/) which offers a couple of informative and really beautiful films on the universe and on the aurora in particular. What makes these films unique is that the theatre is in the round, as it were, and the film plays all around and over you. 

It's the only place in North America (maybe the world) to offer this particular experience but unfortunately has seen attendance steadily decline for the past few years. So, what are you waiting for? Getcher sorry butt up there and buy a ticket to the show. Just saying...

We spent our second night at Watson Lake in the government campground down the road. Peaceful. Quiet. Some interesting folks. Oh, and bears. Actually, we didn't see any but a couple of guys camped down the way from us were cycling along the highway near the campground and noticed one. Kind of puts a damper on my own cycling plans. The little folding bike I bought just for this trip has yet to set its tires to pavement. Or anything else.

Cinnamon buns, Grizzly Adams and gas @ $1.79/litre

There are no typos in the title. I double-checked... We didn't buy any gas at Tetsa River Lodge, despite the enchantment of the place and our desire to support local businesses. We stopped there, on our way from Fort Nelson where we'd spent the night to Toad River, because the lodge bills itself as offering the best cinnamon buns in the galactic cluster. Who could resist that?

Entering the wee restaurant cum gift shop cum registration desk, we were greeted by Grizzly Adams, a friendly and energetic bear of a man who traps wolves as his winter occupation and (apparently) is proud owner of a fierce wolf-dog cross. Lucky for Uilleam, said pooch wasn't in evidence at the time. The coffee was great, the cinnamon buns.... well, not so much. Which is to say, they were ok, but I had many, many much better ones in the Old Caf at UBC.

The lodge sells gas at $1.79/litre and doesn't tolerate any whining about it:

And if you're staying in the campground, a shower will run you $5.00. Okay, then, moving right along....

At Toad River, we got our first inkling that the great frozen north is actually not that frozen for at least part of the year. Gardening is not only possible but can be highly productive. Much more productive than my puny Saskatchewan garden, apparently....

Huge -- and almost perfect -- cabbages









Pretty impressive all around. The photos just don't do it justice.

The first olio of the trip

As every crossword aficianado knows, an olio is a collection of unrelated things that might be of interest to someone, somewhere. Here's the first one of this trip:

• Despite the fact that Whitecourt, Alberta, is the site of a huge -- and hugely important -- meteor impact crater, the local museum has no reference to it anywhere. The explanation? It's on private land and letting people know where it is would only result in harassment of the land owner.
• The price of gas in Alberta (or at least the part we went through) ranges from 112.9 to 116.9 per litre. As soon as you cross into B.C., it jumps to 136.9 a litre. The further north you go, the more expensive it gets. We arrived in Fort Nelson to find ... get ready for it.... gas is 156.9/litre. It's entirely possible we'll have to wait for our next pension installment before we can afford to go any further.
• Northern B.C. and Alberta consist of miles and miles of miles and miles. We're ever grateful we didn't attempt the massive round trip we'd planned. From the navigator's seat, it looks a lot like this a lot of the time:

• Along the way, we've noticed quite a few, um, unique folk. This person came prepared for a great outdoor weekend: Camper, quad, boat and.... moss-covered moose antlers.

• Fort St. John, B.C., boasts such colourfully-named companies as Redneck Oil Services and Cancor Rathole Inc. 
• Temporary oil and gas field workers live in "open camps", small villages of trailers offering them miniscule accommodation "starting at $95.25 per day". 
• Never, ever plug your electric cooler into the 30-amp power source found in many campgrounds. RIP MobiCool.
• Besides being the location of Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway, Dawson Creek, B.C. boasts a unique feature in its street plantings: Swiss chard.

• 

  Uilleam guarding Mile 0 signpost

  
  

  

  Swiss chard and other yummies
  
  
  

Testing in production

Back in the day, when I worked as a software developer, we had a catchphrase: "Testing in production". When deadlines were looming, testing the software became, shall we say, somewhat less rigorous. Mostly, it worked. Nobody died, the software limped along pretty much doing what it was supposed to do and we were on to our next adventure.

When we bought our shiny new (to us) A-liner in June, we fully intended to take it out for a test run. Or two. Or more. But (see previous post) it's been a really busy summer and somehow we just didn't get around to it. It was, after all, in good condition. Mr. T did the requisite maintenance on both it and the van to ensure we'd be vehicularly top notch once we hit the road. So, what could go majorly wrong?

There was just one little (key) thing that didn't happen. Trying out the beds by actually sleeping on them would have been a really good idea. As it turns out, there was a little tweaking required. Not a lot, but some. Enough that there was some.... um.... crankiness until we got it sorted. Which we did, pretty much.

Here's what it looks like in production:

Riding shotgun, Uilleam-style

The kitchen, nice cosy bed @ side

I'm beginning to understand how the users of our (somewhat-to-mostly) tested software felt.