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:
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.
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