Welcome to the Yukon!

I’ve really enjoyed blogging for the past year on my travels, and sharing our overseas adventures with you. As you know, Whitehorse, Yukon is where I call home; and when I started this blog, in my first entry entitled Hello World, I promised to start sharing my experiences with you of living and travelling in the Yukon, Alaska, and all points north. I’m looking forward to showcasing what I think is one of the greatest places on earth, and hopefully, inspire you to check it out!

The Yukon is captivating. The awe inspiring beauty, pristine wilderness, and abundant wildlife, makes it a natural wonder, still relatively undistributed by human development.  Through my blog,  I look forward to eventually sharing all of the communities in the Yukon with you.

Before I start profiling communities and events, I think it’s important to draw your attention to the obvious…the weather.  Although there are four seasons in the Yukon, you can break that down to two important seasonal descriptors; snow or no snow. Each of the seasons have their appeals, but to truly experience the north you need to see it with and without snow.

Personally, my favourite time of year in the Yukon is late summer, early fall; right when the leaves are turning colour, the air has the faint hint of chill, and you start to see a light dusting of snow on the highest peaks. It’s also the perfect time of year to harvest low bush cranberries from the surrounding hills, and you start getting excited for winters first snowfall while somehow forgetting how much you anxiously anticipated summer during the last spring melt. You’ll find that most northerners have a healthy, yet dysfunctional, love-hate relationship with the weather.

What’s most important is that each season brings with it unique seasonal experiences; like hiking, canoeing and camping in the summer, as opposed to snowmobiling, skiing and northern lights viewing in the winter. To truly experience all the Territory has to offer, you also need to explore beyond Whitehorse; although it’s a fantastic town, there is so much to see and do the further you venture out.

Lastly, one of the most appealing aspects of the Yukon, is its people. The Yukon is a mosaic of uniqueness, and you’ll find that you are free to be who you want to be without feeling the need to conform or fit in. In fact, the Yukon has a phrase that takes pride in this fact, “The Colourful Five Percent”. Yukoner’s proudly celebrate the eccentric and eclectic, which is one of the things that makes the community so culturally diverse. I would also be remiss if I didn’t specifically mention First Nations. The Yukon is home to culturally rich and vibrant first nations groups throughout the territory. To experience their cultural and learn about their history, many communities have culture centres that contain wonderful exhibits and artifacts, that are absolutely worth the time to visit.

I am very excited to be sharing my home with you….I hope my blogging describes this wonderful place in the manner it deserves, and I hope to convince you that if there is one place on earth you need to visit, the Yukon should be on the top of that list.