Look At You Now!

Darrell Hookey was What’s Up Yukon’s first editor, from February 2005 to September 2010.

Yukon Denture Clinic is still advertising on the front page of What’s Up Yukon.

Incredible.

It still fills my heart with joy, every week, when I see this.

But, 20 years ago, it meant something entirely different: faith. Faith when we needed it most.

You see, when Tammy Beese first launched this magazine, it was something no one had done successfully in the territory for 50 years.

She hired a graphic designer and me, her first editor. The office was a one-room cabin in front of the Log Skyscraper. So I had a front-row seat to her 80-hour work weeks filled with crushing responsibility, endless work and all of the stresses of running a new business AND caring for a young family.

On other magazines, difficult decisions were made by the publisher, executive editor, various department heads and the board of directors. At What’s Up Yukon, it was just Tammy.

That is why the sight of Yukon Denture Clinic’s ad can bring a tear to my eye (and I only ever cry at the ending of The Iron Giant).

That ad on the front page was a sign of faith that the Yukon’s business community would welcome a new magazine. And Tammy. It was the cornerstone that proved that her dream was possible. It made the disappointments endurable; it made the hard work worth it.

What does that say about Yukon Denture Clinic’s owner, Chris Von Kafka? Yes, he is infused with grace. But it doesn’t necessarily mean he knew What’s Up Yukon would be a success.

Neither Tammy nor I knew. Heck, we had a rack that would only hold 24 piles of past issues in that little office.

But what does this say about Tammy? She could have waited for a couple of years and then auctioned off that valuable real estate on the front page for a lot more money.

But she hasn’t.

Loyalty is a two-way street in the Yukon.

Alas, I moved on after five years to Ontario to be closer to family. But my wife, Daisy Lemphers, and I only lasted three years there. We came back to our beloved Yukon.

I tried my hand at freelance writing again, but it just felt like homework. I had been spoiled by the weekly rush of putting out a magazine that was “All Northern. All Fun.”

I helped write that, you know. It is still on the masthead. (Full disclosure: I lifted it from Tammy’s business plan.)

And I chose the typeface that is still used today: Trebuchet. (Times New Roman was too stuffy; Ariel was too airy.)

But that is all that is left of my contributions. In its stead, there are new writers and new columns.

And don’t you just love the energy that Gary Atkins has brought to the paper? I do. It all makes me glad that I left. The magazine can grow organically as it should.

I am watching the 20th birthday of What’s Up Yukon from our new home on Vancouver Island. Daisy was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and we found that Whitehorse is just one huge uneven slippery surface half of the year. For someone whose balance is compromised, it was too dangerous for her.

She had to stop working on her PhD, because of the associated memory difficulties, but she is otherwise happy and healthy and hitting the gym hard.

I took early retirement and we traded in our 2,800-square-foot Whistle Bend home for a 1,100-square-foot condo … but with a 400-square-foot covered balcony overlooking Florence Lake. And no shovelling!

Meanwhile, I got myself a part-time job in a hardware store to satisfy my need for puttering. I volunteer at Daisy’s Parkinson’s program, and we are loving this new life.

But I will never forget that What’s Up Yukon gave me the chance to meet over a 100 new writers, learn the stories of so many passionate artists and performers, and offer my unfiltered thoughts long before social media came along.

And it gave me the first line in my obituary.

This is the first missive I have written in eight years. But I will end it with the sentiments of Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer: What’s Up Yukon, “you must’ve been a beautiful baby, ‘cause baby look at you now.”