I have just returned from a beautiful adventure in the
Yukon. I flew up to Whitehorse to visit Jenna, who is all grown up and teaching
high school now:
We had fantastic weather all weekend, which made the entire
experience even more magical. There is so much to do there, the lifestyle is
laidback and adventurous, and the sense of community is strong. I can’t wait to
go back.
The Yukon is like Canada’s last frontier. I fell in love
with the virtually untouched Boreal Forest of winter:
Jenna and her partner Ben are currently house sitting on
Marsh Lake. The ice is so thick you can build ice sculptures from it! Across
the lake and behind the mountains is Alaska, only 2.5 hours away:
Saturday morning we hit the road to go to Skagway, Alaska.
Unfortunately about halfway there I realized I had forgotten my passport, so
back we had to turn. At least the drive was beautiful, and we passed some caribou
on the road!
We decided to go cross-country skiing for the afternoon
instead! It was super fun, and totally kicked my butt:
…and I was very excited to ski through a stand of burned
lodgepole pine with all its regenerating babies:
Although the vast majority of the Yukon’s population lives
in Whitehorse, it is still quite a small town with a huge sense of community.
We met up with some of Jenna’s girlfriends and went downtown for “Burning Away
the Winter Blues”. We checked out some musical instruments:
…and hiked along the river to the site of a large bonfire.
Here we burned the 15-foot long golden dragon effigy and old-man-winter:
…and tossed in our own pieces of paper upon which we had
written our winter blues:
Today we had a beautiful lazy morning, and then went to the
Yukon Wilderness Preserve. This is a vast reserve where several northern
animals (thinhorn sheep, moose, caribou, elk, bison, muskox, lynx, arctic fox,
mule deer, mountain goat) reside:
Throughout the reserve there are antlers from moose, elk,
and caribou for public education:
Thank you Jenna for a beautiful and memorable weekend!
Finally, the weekend would not have been complete without
investigating the climbing potential and looking for birds. Turns out, in
addition to loads of ice climbing, the Yukon DOES have a budding expansion of
rock climbing:
And although I didn’t get all the bird species I set out
for, I did manage some “lifers”.
The list:
-spruce grouse
-bald eagle
-black-billed magpie
-common raven
-black-capped chickadee
-boreal chickadee
-pine grosbeak
-common redpoll
-hoary redpoll *99% certain*
