Paddle On For Yvonne
The Yvonne Harris Memorial Race will start at 6 p.m. Aug. 13 at Rotary Park. Stories and tributes will be shared at the Takhini River Bridge
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Craving Connection And Taking ‘The Jump’
Louise and Neil heard about a property for sale downriver and nearly 11 years later they’re finding their rhythm.
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Yukon River Quest Celebrates 25th Anniversary
The 2025 edition of the Yukon River Quest runs June 25 – 28, starting in Whitehorse and ends 715 kilometres up the Yukon River in Dawson City
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A Walk Along The River
It’s a warm Yukon summer afternoon and thirty or more people are gathered outside of the Visitor Information Centre in Whitehorse.
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Coming Back To The Yukon (Part 2)
“I cannot cross the river,” I told my friends as they were about to move on. (The truth was I didn’t want to cross the river.) We were a group of seven people hiking … two of us were staying behind on the beautiful sandy beach at Kusawa Lake, as the others went farther. I felt like sitting back and relaxing. My other friend was feeling the same. We are queens, we said. We don’t like to cross rivers.
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The Ice pool Contest is a go for 2021
The Ice Pool Lottery, officially known these days as the Dawson IODE Ice Guessing Contest, has been around in various forms since 1896. The Dawson Chapter of the IODE officially took over running the event in 1940 and has managed to keep it going in spite of pandemics and other natural disasters.
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What’s in a name?
Chishti’s Then and Now: Water and a Name is the second in a series of stories featuring the Chu Niikwän artists and their work.
The Klondike Gold Rush Steamers
In these days of highways and 1000-year level flood dikes, it’s easy to forget that the best way to get to Dawson used to be by sternwheelers. While most of the stampeders made their way here in small boats and rafts in 1898, a sizeable number cruised to the fledgling town from St. Michael’s, Alaska, in riverboats and steamers and, once the White Pass chugged into Whitehorse, still more hopped on boats from there.
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Back to the land
On an evening in early November, Teri-Lee Isaac and her family butchered a caribou that was given to them by family in Fort McPherson. While the practice gives the family a freezer full of wild meat for the upcoming winter, it also connects them to the land, and to Northern Tutchone cultural practices that have been passed down through the generations.
Yukon See It Here – Steve Wilson
This is what a sunrise over the Yukon River looks like. The open water creates this steam when temperatures hit -30o. These photos were taken
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The ballad of “Buck” Choquette
Buck Choquette spent his last days and hours in Dawson telling Jack London true stories of his long pioneering life in the Northwest. Is it just coincidence, then, that the main character in his most successful novel, The Call of the Wild, is also named Buck?
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For more than 30 years Doug Davidge has helped solve Yukon’s historic mysteries, both hidden and exposed
Doug Davidge finds lost things. Over the course of more than three decades in the Yukon, Davidge has been known to find things that people
Just keep paddling
Carmen Gustafson is gearing up for her fourth Yukon River Quest. For those who are fond of stats, that means that by this year’s Canada
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Watching the River Thaw
Members of the Yukon Order of Pioneers (YOOP) have placed the Ice Pool Tripod on the ice of the Yukon River and the tickets for
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Yukon See It Here – Murray Martin
Scenic Whitehorse was a “Winter Wonderland” as we walked along the shore of the Yukon River towards the S.S. Klondike. [box] We invite you to
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Yukon See It Here – Murray Martin
It was a frosty day for the SS Klondike, as it lay in hibernation along the Millennium Trail. [box] We invite you to share your
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The fastest lady in the Klondike Gold Rush
She was not only the first female river pilot on the Upper Yukon, she was also the fastest. No, her name wasn’t Klondike Kate, the
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What’s on the river? – A winter warm-up to the Christmas Bird Count
It’s snowy and cold outside, and most of the Yukon’s migratory birds, such as swans, pretty yellow warblers, ducks and shorebirds, have long fled the
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Doomsday camping on Top of the World – Part 5 of 6
Grandpa, if a giant asteroid was on target to collide with Earth and everyone knew the exact day and time of the explosion to blow up the planet, where would you want to go camping for the last night?
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Pride and joy … 24 Hours of Gaylight
This month, Yukon Pride: 24 Hours of Gaylight is happening for the sixth year in a row—and it just gets bigger every year.
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Going from Whitehorse to Dawson on the Yukon River? You better believe that’s a paddlin’
The world’s longest annual paddling race is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year with the largest slate of international teams and racers ever.
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The ecological web: A story of salmon caught in the middle
“Nature is not something else, isolated, out there; it is as much a part of us as we are of it, and neither can be
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Fishing with Children
The first rule of fishing with children is that it has to be fun or it will fail.
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Carmacks agate
Quartz is everywhere; it is the second most common mineral making up the Earth’s crust, just behind feldspar. Quartz is composed of the two elements silicon and oxygen. It has many different forms.
It’s ice pool time
The ice pool tripod is in the river, anchored by a cable to the boxed clock on the Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre, ready for when
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Yukon See It Here: Marc and Mar Rodriguez
Even in winter you can see different colours in the Yukon River. We love it! Photo: Marc and Mar Rodriguez [box] We invite you to
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Happy 20th anniversary to everyone’s favourite river race
Sixteen teams competed in the inaugural Yukon River Quest (YRQ) 20 years ago – that’s a fraction of the numbers anticipated by race organizers in 2018.
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Who’s still here?
Fall migration is over, but you can still see some pretty cool birds around if you know where to look.
A Year of Firsts for Yukon River Quest
At this year’s Yukon River Quest, stand up paddleboarders will be competing for prize money for the first time. The 2016 race introduced the stand
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Telling the untold stories of the Yukon
The first days in the creation of the play Map of the Land, Map of the Stars took place in the summer of 2015 along
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The Tripod Stands to Mark the River’s Breakup
Given the odd behavior of the Yukon River this year, it’s not at all certain just how and when spring breakup will occur, but however
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Flowing Water and the Daily Light Show
It’s been a truly odd winter here in the Klondike. On the one hand it’s been colder, and colder for longer stretches than it has
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The Yukon’s Winter Mermaid: The American Dipper
A happy melodic song rings along the Yukon River below the dam, and you imagine it’s a pretty little bird singing in a tree. But it’s
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As the River Slowly Freezes
Living across the Yukon River from Dawson City in the communities of West Dawson or Sunnydale has its perks. You’re near town, but not in
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Hepburn Tramway Historic Walk
“There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken
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Strange things make a great story
Inspired by the Yukon winter and the road closures that lead to a feeling of isolation, Elle Wild wrote her first crime novel and set
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A Celebration of Tradition and Culture
From July 28 to 31 the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation will welcome everyone to their traditional territory. The First Nation is hosting the 13th biennial
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PFDs are Only Good if You’re Wearing Them
I have often wondered just how I would feel if after falling out, I was 30 feet away from my drifting boat where my life
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In praise of Whistle Bend
As I turn from Mountain View Drive and toward our Whistle Bend home, I am yet again gobsmacked by the sudden and looming sight of
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Musings on Ice: A Changing Yukon Winter Story
Ice is important. It allows people and wildlife to use or cross lakes, ponds and rivers. Ice also provides access to what’s below: fish, muskrats
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West Dawson Time
I’m not sure where the second week of freeze up has gone. After the protracted nature of my preparations, the flurry of activity upon arrival,
Jewels on the Water
The ice is coming down in a rush this year. While there was not a sign of the stuff in the river on the day
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Freeze Up: A First Timer’s Experience on the Other Side of the River
I jumped at the prospect of adventure and isolation in the little off-grid community while it waits for the Yukon River to freeze
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Ramble in T.O.
My dance practice is rooted in uncultivated, wild, outdoor spaces. I often perform site-specific dances outdoors for audiences and/or camera. However, my latest collaborative
Doing the Squirrel-paddle
I couldn’t sleep the night before. Was it the roughly 10 night-shifts in a row I had pulled just prior to leaving, or was it
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Creative Getaway
Perhaps your partner is sick of navigating around that massive quilting frame to get to the living room couch. Perhaps you’re tired of moving that
One River, Many Maps
At the beginning of his noon hour public lecture David Neufeld said he was working on his book but didn’t want to finish it because
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The Dedicated Volunteers of the Yukon Quest
Judy Beaumont talks about the early days volunteering in the Yukon Quest office. The cramped space was shared with the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous in the
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Here Comes the Sun
At the request of some Facebook friends I spent about a week in late December taking a series of pictures showing the retreating daylight hours.
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Northern Exposure
My first time skinny-dip comes among a swirl of firsts. It happens in Atlin, my first time in that pretty town, in my first month
Not Content with Watching the River Flow
Some people are just not content to watch the river flow.They have to get in it and, as Ratty said to Mole in The Wind
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Why does Dawson Need a Dike?
The Yukon Gold Panning Championships were held on the well-used greensward between Front Street and the dike. The greensward wouldn’t be here if the dike
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Rendezvous In the Old Days
Rendezvous – it’s always been our mid-winter break. A chance to unwind. It’s competition, and horseplay, and fun.
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I’m Just Saying … An editorial
It has been brought to my attention that the term, “Mount Ernie” is derogatory. Let me go on the record to say I have used
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A Season in the Mist
Freeze-up on the Yukon River is not proceeding according to custom this year. Despite the lack of ice at the regular crossing down by the
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Klondike History Is Alive and Well
On Phyllis (LePage) Simpson’s coffee table is a stack of books on the history of the Yukon River. When she reads them, it is not
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Caramel Cliffs on the Yukon River
I had anticipated the kayak trip for a full year. The four days I had spent the previous year on the Yukon River, with my
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River Walk Columns appear out of nowhere overnight
How many times had I passed by the columns without seeing them? Joyce Majiski swears she put the columns up two years ago, and yet,
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When will the Ferry Be In?
Write about things that are going to happen about 10 days after you write them, the editor says. Oh, to be a Nostradamus at such
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Choosing sides for the Klondike winter
Twice a year in Dawson City, lives are disrupted, homes are abandoned and the big question is, “What side will you be on?” Is Dawson
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(Ex)changing Paddling Gear
Perhaps you believe, as Kenneth Grahame suggests in his classic novel, The Wind in the Willows, that “there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing
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Flash freeze-up: Speculation and rumours
There is excitement in the air, at least for those of us living on the west side of the Yukon River in Dawson City. Freeze-up
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Remembering Tent City
As we get closer to the time when Dawson sees an influx of summer workers, I thought I would take this week to reflect on
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The Artful Orchestration of Ferry Extraction
In Dawson we usually get 24-hours notice before the George Black ferry gets pulled for the winter. That’s time enough for one last big haul
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Dawson’s Got Culture
Things generally slow down at the Dänojà Zho (Hän for Long Ago House) Cultural Centre once the summer season is over and the tourists are
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A Look at Dawson’s Dike
It will have been obvious from my last column that I was truly expecting breakup to have occurred before I got around to writing the
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Artrepreneur: A Voice for the River
David Neufeld strings a tarp between spruce trees. No tree in the right spot? He guys out his boat pole as a support. He sets
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Driving Depends on Icy Conditions
It’s hard to think of an icy road as being anything but dangerous, but that’s not always the case. In Dawson City it can go
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Walking Away from Disaster
On May 8, Darren Bullen woke up on a small gravel island, upside-down in a single engine Cessna, with the weight of a man on
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Steely Determination: Racing the Yukon River Quest
There is a strong current heading north towards Dawson and it is not just that of the Yukon River. Sixty-nine teams are registered in this
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The “True” Tale of Diamond Lil
There are, as Robert Service noted, strange things done ‘neath the Midnight Sun. There have also been some strange things written, not the least of
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Hero for a day
On a sunny, chilly Saturday this winter, local trapper and wildfire fighter Guy Couture didn’t realize he was about to become a hero. He was
The River’s History, Is Cyr History
BY ALICE CYR, Tagish OHMIGOD!! This river is seriously running downhill! I am the front paddler in the lead canoe poised on the brink of
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