Yukon is an interesting province of Canada for a couple of reasons. First is its natural beauty. Heavily forested and mountainous, it is in the remote northwest corner of Canada abutting Alaska on its western and southwestern borders. The second reason is the Klondike Stampede, which brought some hundred thousand people into the province to make their fortune digging gold after it was discovered in a creek of Klondike River, a tributary of the mighty Yukon River. The scale of the stampede (in 1897-98) and the hardship people went through to get to Klondike creates an interesting story about human greed and endurance.
In our ten-day visit to Yukon, we tried to balance visits to historic places and those of natural beauty. Of course, the time was too short and the place too vast to do a comprehensive job at either. On the other hand, there was an unexpected bonus, which was to see and learn about how Canada deals with its indigenous folks, called people of First Nations. The short answer, quite well, at least on the surface.
The capital of Yukon is a town called Whitehorse. It house some 25,000 people, a huge percentage of the total population of the Province, which stands at 40,000. It is a cosmopolitan town with nice places to eat and a choice of places to stay. We stayed in a bed and breakfast for a couple of nights in the beginning of our trip and an Airbnb for the last four nights. The rest of the four nights were spent in four different places as we made a loop through Alaska Panhandle.
Yukon flows right next to Whitehorse. In fact the town is named after White Horse Rapids created as the river flowed through a narrow passage, Miles Canyon, on its way north. The crests of the rapids looked like manes of white horses and hence the name. The rapids disappeared once a dam was built upstream. The town name remains but White Horse has become Whitehorse.
In addition to trails around Miles Canyon,
which is a short drive from Whitehorse, one can walk on both shores of Yukon as it makes its way downstream. Between Miles Canyon and the town there is the above-mentioned dam, which generates electricity. However, it impedes the upstream voyage of Salmon and other species of fish that need to make that journey driven by nature. The solution is a fish ladder that divides one impossible jump over the dam into smaller jumps over steps of a water filled ladder.
Besides hiking and sightseeing in and around Whitehorse, we attended a music performance called Nyēn Nzhän, or Sing Your Song. This was a part of multi-day festival called Adäka celebrating the indigenous culture. The performance was conducted in Dän k’e, a language of ancestors. The host, a white person, spoke both in Dän k’e and English. The songs were all sung in the indigenous languages. Apparently, most of the songs were composed for the festival, so a lot of work had gone in preparing for the event. It was a very nice experience. The festival was conducted in a large modern building Kwalin Dün dedicated to preserving the indigenous culture.
In addition to Kwalin Dün, there are several other places worth visiting in White Horse. The McBride Museum has artifacts left by the First Nations people in addition to a whole section devoted to the Stampede. It also houses an exhibit of stuffed animals of the area and a special exhibit devoted to the building of Alaska Highway. This highway was built during WWII at a breakneck pace to make sure Alaska was protected from a Japanese invasion. President Roosevelt had reasons to worry; Japan had already attacked Aleutian Islands of Alaska. This 1390-mile highway was constructed in some eight months after construction started. An amazing feat.
A transportation museum near the airport contains exhibits of the variety of methods used to travel in this vast forested land. An old DC-3 serves as a weather vane outside the museum and is the largest one in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
A more interesting museum is dedicated to Beringia, a landmass that straddled Siberia and Alaska when the water level became so low that the Bering Strait became dry. The cause of that was the latest ice age, which locked up enormous quantities of water. Beringia allowed a whole bunch of people to come from Siberia to Alaska, about 15,000 years ago, forming the group from which the indigenous people of the continent originated. Animals came too. One thing I did not know was that camels are horses originated in North America and went westward to populate other parts of the world. It is a very good museum, worth spending some time.
Then there is SS Klondike, a steamship that used to provide transportation between Dawson and Whitehorse. It is a well-preserved monument to the memory of folks who populated this remote area. Now, of course, one can drive to Dawson or take a flight. There is no boat option.
In addition to places to see and experience in Whitehorse, there are several others that are an easy drive from the town. Yukon Wildlife Preserve is a vast area, surrounded by a fence, where several large animals live in natural surroundings. Think of it as a hybrid between a zoo and an area that has totally free animals, as in Africa. We saw bison, moose, caribous, and different types of deer and sheep. There are also large lakes to visit within an hour’s drive, such Marsh Lake, which we went to.
To get a real feel for the gold rush, one needs to go to Dawson, some six hours away by car. We decided not to make that trip because it is so long and also the visibility was obscured due to forest fires.
However, as mentioned before, we did make a loop through Alaska Panhandle, which was quite fascinating.
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