Leaving the U.K.
From Wimbledon to Whitehorse; it’s the story of A.J. Smith’s travels from one side of the pond to the other and making a go of it North of 60.
OMG: That’s Old!
In this internet era of quick and dirty information, I’m harbouring a Microfiche Reader. When was the last time you had to…
Was It Fluke Or Fate? Part 2 of 3
Find out the joys and trials of moving to the Yukon, including life in a charming dry cabin surrounded by nature.
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‘Yes Day’ (How I Learned To Enjoy Christmas Again)
Rediscover joy during the holiday season. Learn to enjoy Christmas again with meaningful traditions and family moments.
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Love Shack Lakeside
Gabrielle shares her conversation with Peter Heebink who built log homes and cabins down the Carcross Road all the way to Marsh Lake
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Was It Fluke or Fate? Part 1 of 3
Gary tells us the story of moving Pam up to the Yukon in a $500 Ford F-150 and the gremlin that chased them the entire way up the Alcan
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Light In A Dark Room
For us in the Yukon and across the North, the lack of winter sunlight has an impact on our lives. A ‘depression party’ might be just what you need!
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Taagish Méné (Tagish Lake)
In her final 50 Lakes column for the season, Wendy takes us through the spectacular fall colours and views of Taagish Méné (Tagish Lake)
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Łʼèx Hîni Shâk Âyi (Rose Lake)
There is a small gravel parking area, but otherwise no other services—nothing but the lake’s own loveliness
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Chu Cho (‘Big Water’) — Little Salmon Lake
Within the Traditional Territory of the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation and the Kaska Dena Council lies Little Salmon Lake
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Welcome To (The) Yukon
For as long as there have been highways into the Yukon, there have been roadside signs welcoming visitors to the territory
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Our Furry Little Feathered Friends
We have a very unique place here, with a free show all summer—every summer—from our resident feathered friends, right off our deck
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Dòon Chúu — Fisheye Lake
Lying within the Traditional Territory of the Kaska Dena, Fisheye Lake is a local watering hole that packs in a lot of fabulousness
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A Lake With A Big Sky Vibe
Simpson Lake is a medium-sized body of water known for its beautiful ombre colours, shallow shorelines and wide-open sky
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Äshèyi Mǟn
Äshèyi Mǟn (Aishihik Lake) lies within the traditional territory of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations (CAFN).
Our Old Truck
One day, as we were heading from the camper to the lodge for the show, this gorgeous rig pulled in with for-sale signs all over it
In The Same Boat
We are pilgrims on a journey and, from time to time, the lives of complete strangers may intersect with ours in surprising ways.
Nekhų Män/ Kùsawu.â (Kusawa Lake): The Locals’ Favourite
Kùsawu.â is a Tlingit name meaning “narrow lake.” Nekhᶙ Män (Southern Tutchone) means “rafting across lake,” speaking to the narrowest point at the north end where people crossed.
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Wind, Sun & Sangria
Miche Genest walks us through her harrowing experience on Atlin Lake, followed by a sunny afternoon on the deck at home drinking Sangria
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A Mendenhaller In A Brothel?
Gary tells us the tale of how he was introduced to Skaguay by Haywire Harry and ultimately the reunion of his 40 year old t-shirt to the ROS
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Grocery Shopping / Saving Money …
Here, Larry Leigh shows us some great tips and tricks to plan out you shopping in order to maximize your time and save some money as well.
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One Pixel At A Time
Leighann Chaylykoff walks us through Peter Dawson’s efforts to record and preserve the history of Qikiqtaruk—Herschel Island.
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Really – Don’t Be A Litterbug!
Every May, as soon as the roadside snow is gone and the mud has mostly dried, my husband and I clean up the sides of the road on our route.
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Dawson Moments
It was quite exciting to have our town make The National news two nights in the same week. Dawson has many moments that are worth noticing.
Doorstep Politics
A stand-up comic and anti-culture vulture welcomes (?) the coming territorial election and contemplates voting with his head not his heart.
Here’s To Leaves …
What do you see when you turn over a new leaf? My first thought is Veins! … the source of life for any living being.
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Fast Forward 50 Years
A 50 year class reunion and reflections on how did I get from there to here with seven unexpected takeaways.
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Turning 40?
What do you do when you’re about to turn 40 and you’re feeling “flat,” Josh Schroeder wondered. It’s a decade too early for a mid-life crisis.
Our Neighbours
Next time you’re up for a nice drive, head north on the Alcan and you might be lucky enough to see our neighbours!
The Little Wired Cabin Out In The Bush
My younger self couldn’t even imagine what my current self is living We have a sign that our dear friend gave us years ago. It
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Venus Mill Project
Venus mill documentation project aims to illuminate and educate using digital technology “Complicated yet simple, it is a wonderful combination of mechanism, perfection and utility,”
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Not Your Average Pilot
After four decades with Air North, Joe Sparling still loves what he does Joe says that one of the best cards of compliment he’s ever
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World’s Biggest Weathervane
The Douglas DC-3, first built in 1939 and still flying all over the world. You can see this one by the Yukon Transportation Museum near
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Tales Of A Persistent Ghost And A Saucy Parrot
Dan Davidson reviews John Firth’s book: The Caribou Hotel In spite of the main title and the fact that the chapters keep circling back to
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Legacy Humans
I found the perfect phrase to describe this particular phase of my particular life. We are not human doings – we are human beings. Last
The Kindness of Yukoners – Part 3
Heartfelt anecdotes and memorable lessons, this piece celebrates the generosity and humor of The Yukon’s incredible community.
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Life’s Time Frames
How do we experience time throughout life? Dianne Homan’s thoughtful essay explores the shifting pace from childhood to senior years
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A Yukon Cabin Christmas
Celebrate the peaceful beauty of a Yukon cabin Christmas. The season’s quiet joys, from cozy moments by the fire to acts of kindness.
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The Kindness of Yukoners – Part 2
Helping families in need to offering unforgettable hospitality. A touching celebration of the community spirit that makes The Yukon special.
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You Can Always Depend on the Kindness of Yukoners – Part 1
Gary Atkins reflects on Yukoners’ welcoming spirit and the life-changing friendships that make leaving The Yukon so hard.
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Blessings In Blue
Josephine Holmes explores Blue Christmas services, offering comfort and peace to those facing loneliness and grief during the holiday season.
Edna Eldorado
In “Edna Eldorado,” Sam Holloway shares a heartwarming Klondike Christmas story of miners, a baby, and the true spirit of community
A Tradition of Holiday Décor
Hand-blown glass in 16th-century Germany to today’s dazzling designs, Angela Szymczuk celebrates the history and joy of Christmas ornaments
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What’s That?
Carl Maguire explores the humor and mystery of Woodhenge, a quirky Yukon creation. What does it mean? You decide!
The Post-It Note And The Greenhouse
A Post-it note inspired a plan that blossomed into a greenhouse. Creating a sanctuary, filled with fresh produce and future dreams,.
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Troubleshootin’ Tom: Part 2
Meet Tom, a problem-solver who turned a prison sentence into opportunity. Carey Marshall shares his clever story of resilience.
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CHS and CRSE “Speak up will ya?”
Carl Maguire’s relatable and humerous take on hearing loss and modern technology. Amplified nature sounds to awkward Bluetooth moments.
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Let Everyone Skin Their Own Skunk
“Everybody’s calling me asshole. Do you tink I’m asshole?” he asked in his usual broken English. (That was Junkyard Jim’s greeting…
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If Music Were Cooked Beef
It imitated a bully and pushed the English recordings aside as it headed up the charts. I don’t know about you but I usually…
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Troubleshootin’ Tom: Part 1
It took off like a missile on a trajectory aimed at the upper forehead of a young construction worker. He had the perfect cadence…
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Barf Bag Ballad
For the past 20 years or so, I have made it a habit to try to find out the details about where certain songwriters get their initial idea…
Cat-astrophic!
“It was a brand-new century when Robert Service wrote in one of his poems about the Arctic trails (that had their secret tales)…
Brawn Versus The Old Buzzard
Every muscle sprang into action, and without a single ounce of energy left for cursing, he hoisted the tranny into place.
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The Unexpected Joys of Fishing
I never thought that I would like fishing. In fact, as with many things our minds convince us of, I went through the better part of my life certain that I was very happy having nothing to do with piscine pursuits. I didn’t particularly like eating fish and I felt no need to try to catch one. And then I fell in love with a man who loves fishing.
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The Battle at the Mad Trapper Bar
Northerners; we tell stories. Our northern stories are our wealth & our identity. They are about independent, hardy people full of character.
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Misfits versus City Hall – Part 3
Contrary to the adage “You can’t fight City Hall,” we had – and we’d won. A 25c raise sounds like peanuts. The fact is we received a 33% raise
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Misfits versus City Hall – Part 2
How to put a system in place that all of the companies could trust. First eliminate the bad blood between the companies.
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Misfits versus City Hall – Part 1
Driving taxis in Inuvik in 1972, The minimum fare in other towns was $1. In high-cost Inuvik, the taxi fare minimum was 75c.
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King of the Medevacs – Part 2
I argue that if Laserich had been American, I would not be telling you this story. You would have already seen it on the big screen.
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King of the Medevacs – Part 1
Inducted into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame with more than 45,000 hours, 5,000 medical trips a perfect safety record
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Chain of demand
I arrived in Inuvik for the first time in early July 1972. What first struck me as I toured the town was A) the 24
No blues for this bootlegger
One afternoon, in the mid-70s in Inuvik, I was looking for some oddball thing for my vehicle. I looked almost everywhere and then I decided
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Co-pilot for a day
One morning in the mid 1980s, a pilot named Fred came to my house. Since I had only met him on a few occasions at
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I concur: contrition may be consolatory
It’s confession time in Geezerville. I recently spent my allotted 450 words in this space musing about some of the beguiling delights to be found
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Let be whatever may befall
To be, or not to be. For advocates of plain writing, Shakespeare’s most famous monologue is a touchstone. Its opening sentence consists of nine one-syllable
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Sometimes language smacks you in the microphone
I’ve already mentioned how easy it was to provoke calls on my radio open-line show in Charlottetown in the 1970s, by inviting listeners to share
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Advice to the unwise: I have the questions, if you have the answers
One of the more interesting jobs I’ve ever held was hosting an open-line show (we secretly called it “open-mouth”) on a private radio station in
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One night, one stage, one amazing group of people…
As I was growing up in northern Canada, music was as much a staple as frying pan bannock.
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Watching for things that go snap in the night
The first week of September, the mice fled the fields and snuck indoors, as mice are wont to do. It happened in the quiet hours
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It seems we can’t always tell what comes first
It’s the age-old debate about the chicken and the egg. Sometimes, we simply don’t know what is cause and what is effect. This is especially
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Thoughts of Hitchhiking Sometimes Follow Strange Trails
One of my favourite pastimes is exploring the origins and meanings of common English words and expressions. Our language is such a hodge-podge (dare one
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There’s No Escaping: Family Is as Family Does
As family reunions go, the event I attended in Ontario’s Georgian Bay district on a recent weekend was a fairly small-scale affair. At its peak,
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Every Dog Has Its Day, Apparently
It was a strange encounter that still has my brain abuzz. I was walking home from the grocery store in my current city of residence
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My name is Chris. I am an Ontarian
I suffer jokes and insults & many others suffer the same fate, but we persevere. We understand that we are different. We are from Ontario.
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Lonely Nights in an Old House
If you live all by yourself downtown Whitehorse, the last thing you want is somebody knocking at your door in the middle of the night
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Basking in the virtue of boiling-water baths
The smugness attack hit a few weeks back, while my wife was visiting an out-of-town friend. Perhaps it was boredom or the way the pre-autumn
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Ode to Bread
I have become bread-obsessed. There is a fine layer of all-purpose flour on surfaces in rooms nowhere near the kitchen. A person suffering from
That Wasn’t the Plan
I always forget the way this works, how fast things change here. In the hot, hot days of summer, I think it will last forever
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Of lavender and squashed fly biscuits
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, we’ll have to make do with 500, since that’s all this space allows.
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An Open Letter to the Owner Of Twenty Rusted Nails
Dear Sir/Madame; It has come to my attention that you may have lost these (see photo). They were left in a fire pit sometime over
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Tannenbaum
Historians agree that our modern Christmas tree tradition originated in the German Renaissance period (circa 1500). Martin Luther added candles as decoration. Prior to candles,
A farewell from the 2015 Rendezvous Queen
As the year 2015 is coming to an end, so does my reign as the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous Queen 2015. This article will be my
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Putting an End to Picky Eating
If you have a picky eater at home, you are not alone. For many parents, dinner time can be a battle. Between changing tastes and
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Missing the Mark
The Code is clear: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Ditto for jury rooms and papal conclaves. Double ditto for hunting trips. But sometimes a
Apocalypse When?
Call me a skeptic, a cynic, I don’t care. Heck, go the distance and call me a heretic, if you wish. Truth is, I don’t
Hardest Year Yet
On the first day of kindergarten I didn’t know what to expect; playtime was now scheduled between certain hours and, in order to sit in
It’s the Little Things
I’m blessed. Or “blessed”, depending on how you look at it. I am a part of one of the biggest families in the Yukon. I
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Authenticity on Fire
The Overland Trail was a transportation corridor between Whitehorse and Dawson City constructed by the White Pass and Yukon Route at the turn-of-the-century. Spanning 530
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Vacation’s Over, Kid
Recently my wife and I went to Mexico. Rather than bring our three-year-old daughter, Emily, we decided to fly my mother from Quebec to take care
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Claus for the Cause
Sometimes you experience things that you never would have expected. I never thought I would be living above the Arctic Circle in Old Crow dressed
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The 72 Challenge
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they
The Victims of Halloween
As Halloween draws near, let’s honour the many victims of Halloween. First, there are the 139 victims of Michael Myers, the villain of 10 Halloween
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It’s All About the Candy
Our little apartment in Old Crow is in full Halloween mode; my mom mailed up decorations, and our crib is sporting the spooky colours, orange
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Neck Deep in Nostalgia
I am, by nature, a sentimental son of a gun. I wear old shirts until they are threadbare because they remind me of certain times,
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Theo Fleury: A sequel of sorts
Here are the facts: On May 22, when my mom informed me Fleury was coming to town, I got pretty excited.Given this background information, and
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Springing into Summer
There are so many things I want to do this summer. The very first thing I’m going to do is put my school books in
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Care and Feeding of Your Skateboarder: It’s that time of year again
And the thaw continues. Its only mid-March, but the snow in Whitehorse is almost gone and the theme from the Twilight Zone goes through my
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Tis the season to raise tally: Tourists give Yukoners a bad name
Now that the days are longer than the nights again (although sometime in January at –54 we thought that this might never happen this year)
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What’s Up Yukon can kill you
(The views of this columnist do not necessarily reflect …) OK Yukon – I’m going to say it only once. What’s up? Or, as the
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Beer and the noble pursuit of nation-building
What does it take to make a country? Paul Martin might say gay marriage or, maybe, a fresh scandal every six or eight months. But
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