The ExploreNorth Blog

Hi everyone,

A committed group of concerned Yukoners has gotten together, built a website, launched a Facebook page, and started a petition to keep the Yukon GMO-Free. We know genetically modified organisms are already in a lot of the food you buy at the supermarkets that come up from outside the territory, but as yet we in the Yukon do not have any crops or animals being grown or raised here that are genetically modified, and we would like to see that status maintained.

Towards this end we started an online petition on January 31, 2012 on our brand new website, gmofreeyukon.com (fully sponsored by ExploreNorth), which we would like to present to the Yukon government for the fall sitting of the Legislature, asking for a ban on the importation of genetically modified seeds for the purposes of raising crops, and a ban on the importation of genetically modified animals.

If you don’t know much about this topic and would like to know more, I encourage you to go online to the website and go to the Links or News pages, where you will find a lot of recent articles and information about what is happening around the world today, and also what is happening in Canada regarding this very important threat to the health of our planet and ourselves.

If you feel strongly that genetically modified organisms or technology has no place in your Yukon, please sign the petition and pass the information on to family, friends, and coworkers.

Together we have a voice that can be heard, and we can keep the Yukon free of GMOs.

With best regards,

Barbara Drury

member of Yukoners for GMO-Free Yukon

As you may have seen on the news, it was very cold in Alberta in recent weeks (though it’s warmed up now).

It was so cold, in fact, that the Government of Alberta borrowed a Norwegian Icebreaker from Minnesota to clear the North Saskatchewan River for boat traffic.

The Icebreaker started near Devon and was working its way northward. Here is a picture as the hard work of ice breaking began. Impressive!

For the past year or so, Canadian Geographic magazine has been asking people to help them choose the cover of the next issue. The image below shows the current options – click on it to share your opinion and possibly win a subscription. I chose the middle one – it’s dynamic and I like the clean, contrasting background that emphasizes the action. I also think that it better fits the Calgary Stampede theme – bronc riding by a “real cowboy” rather than barrel racing or a rider with a motorcycle helmet on.

I find life at 40 below zero to be quite invigorating and even exciting, and though it’s a bit of a challenge, I love photography at those temps. If there’s ever any doubt that the Yukon remains a unique place to live, a few days of minus 40 will verify it

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours wandering around town by car and on foot, taking pictures that I hope will give those of you in warm places an idea of what it’s like.

The first step is to get the car ready, and having a garage makes that a great deal easier. While it’s not heated, it does hold heat well, so even when it’s -40°C outside (that’s also -40°F), it seldom drops below -16°C (+3°F) in the garage. That means that the cars don’t need to be plugged in to power the engine and battery heaters, and you don’t need to scrape snow, ice and frost off the windows.

This is my Davis weather station as I waited for the car to warm up after pulling it out of the garage. The graph at the lower left shows the temperature dropping overnight. Dressing both myself and the dogs takes a few minutes – lots of layers on me, and booties on the dogs with a coat for Monty for when we go walking (Kayla grows her own ).

The forecast called for a high of -27 but it actually never got close to that.

It was sunny as we headed into town, but the heavy ice fog blanketing downtown Whitehorse could be seen as I dropped down from the Alaska Highway on Robert Service Way. This was shot at 10:30, 47 minutes after sunrise.

It was nice to see that most of the electricity for Whitehorse (and beyond) is still being produced by the hydro generators rather than the diesel generators in this building – only one of the diesel generators was running. Yukon Energy has a graph online that shows the current state of production and consumption. As well as the emissions issues of diesel generation, it costs approximately three times as much as hydro generation.

The Yukon River right at the edge of downtown Whitehorse is always beautiful, especially so in these conditions.

Within a few hundred yards, the ice fog got very thick. I love the ghost ship feeling of the S.S. Klondike in the fog.

I headed over to the power dam, and drove back into the sunshine. Although it looks from this angle like the river is completely frozen, there’s lots of water still flowing under the ice.

It’s amazing how sounds travel in the deep cold. This Air North Hawker Siddeley 748 sounded like it was taking off on the road beside me!

Schwatka Lake right above the dam, with the extinct volcano Golden Horn in the distance.

From the dam I drove around the Riverdale residential area and then up Grey Mountain Road for a look back down into the fog. This was shot at 10:57.

Another look at Riverdale and the fog.

I thought that Long Lake Road might offer some good photos but the fog below in the downtown area was so thick that the only shot I got was this one of the point where the Yukon River freezes completely.

When the ice fog is undisturbed and has a distinct top to it, the view from the Canada Games Centre can be quite impressive. The fog was quite diffused yesterday, though.

The airport was, of course, a stop on my tour, but I just missed the Jazz flight’s arrival and nothing else came along. The fellows in the control tower must do a lot of reading on days like this

There are a lot of people traveling these days – the parking lot always has hundreds of vehicles in it, and some have been there for a long time. At $1.50 per day for parking (free for the first hour), long-term parking at the airport is reasonable here.

The Transportation Musem was the next stop – this shots shows DC-3 CF-CPY and the steamboat Neecheah, with Golden Horn in the background.

The museum’s new LCC-1 LeTourneau Trackless Land Train now has wheels and tires mounted.

Finally, I went back down into the fog to do some errands and get a few shots of life on Main Street. At this point (noon), it had warmed up to -36°. Life really does go on as usual here, regardless of what the temperature is.

All of my regular readers know that cruise ships play a significant role in my life, both in professional and recreational terms. I sell cruises, I work on cruise ships and I take cruises simply for pleasure. The tragedy still unfolding in Italy is obviously on my mind a lot.

I watched this tragedy develop starting about 2 hours after the Costa Concordia was beached on the island of Giglio. The first images I saw were of the ship grounded and listing – a significant event but unlikely to be life-threatening, it seemed to all of us discussing it on cruise forums.

Stories about the initial stages of the rescue operation were brief and often contradictory. Not until photos such as this started appearing did the magnitude of the accident become much clearer. This photo shows hundreds of people on the bow – where do you go from there?

The first image of the ship toppled over was so dark that although the photographer said that’s what it showed, it was impossible to verify. The morning light produced shocking images of the ship…

…and of the shocked and stunned passengers.

It quickly became clear that one man was solely responsible for the wreck, and his actions probably played a large part in the tragedy that ensued – Captain Francesco Schettino.

If you haven’t been on, or at least very close to a cruise ship, it’s hard to imagine the scale that rescuers have to deal with.

When you add in the chaotic conditions inside the ship, it was no surprise to hear this morning that some 20 people are still missing and that rescuers have started to collapse from exhaustion.

There has been endless speculation about this wreck’s effect on Costa, on parent company Carnival Corp, and on the cruise industry in general. My feeling is that you’ll find that once all the knee-jerk reactions have subsided, there will be some impact on Costa, but none on Carnival or the industry in general. I have dozens of clients sailing in the next 3 months, and have not had a single email or phone call about cruise ship safety. The majority of the travel agents in my network are reporting the same – there are no questions resulting from the accident, but lots of new cruise bookings.

The reality is that cruising is the safest form of travel that exists today. The vast majority of people recognize that this is an incredibly rare event. Many people think that the flight to your ship is the most dangerous section of the trip, but it’s actually the drive to the airport! The tightened regulations and enforcement that will no doubt result from this accident will make cruising even safer than it has been up until now.

I’ve only booked 2 people on a Costa ship, and I encouraged them to sail with a different line. Price, however, was their main criteria and it was very cheap. The reality is that Costa just doesn’t get good reviews from North Americans who have cruised with other lines. Cathy and I sailed on the Costa Mediterranea in 2006 and it’s extremely unlikely we’ll ever be on another Costa ship. The food and service were both mediocre and the decor was described by us and many others as “gaudy” – in a Baroque cathedral sort of way.

This commentary is not a sales pitch for cruising. In fact, I gave my 30-day notice to the travel agency yesterday. It’s been fun, but I’m going back to photography, writing and house renovations. And more cruising.

My thoughts remain with the thousands of people who have been affected by this tragedy. I can only hope that it doesn’t get any worse.

I first discovered the pleasures of snowshoeing while on a 3-day mushing expedition in the Rockies in 1991. I’ve had a traditional bent-wood set of snowshoes for many years, but haven’t put very many miles on them, usually opting to use cross-country skis instead. Cathy and I have found, though, that the skis are getting less and less use – that snowshoes are better suited to the trails that we use regularly – so went out 2 weeks ago and bought some hi-tech snowshoes. I got a pair of 25-inch Tubbs Journey Snowshoes and Cathy got a pair of 25-inch Tubbs Frontier Snowshoes. Yesterday, we went out for a loop around the property, and I wore a traditional snowshoe on one foot and one of the Tubbs on the other foot, to see how each step of the process, and the overall experience, compare.

As you can see, I’m comparing snowshoes that are very different in appearance. The traditional snowshoe is 10½ inches wide and 47 inches long. The Tubbs Journey is 8½ inches wide and 25 inches long. Although I didn’t weigh them, my impression is that the weight difference is negligible.

I wear light hiking boots, with gaiters if I’m going to be breaking new trail. The binding on the traditional snowshoe is all leather and dead simple – step into the front pocket, pull a loop around the back of the boot and attach with a single buckle .

The Tubbs binding is approximately twice as much work – step into the front pocket, pull the strap tight, pull a loop around the back of the boot, attach with a single buckle, and tuck the extra loop into a holder.

While the traditional binding is easier to attach, it has no side-movement stability for the heel.

The Tubbs, on the other hand, is extremely stable.

One of the crucial tests, of course, is the flotation value – how deep do you sink into the snow? Not surprisingly, the traditional snowshoe won here – it’s tough to argue against more surface area, particularly in the extremely dry, powdery snow we have in the Yukon. The depth of sinking, though, wasn’t dramatically different – about 5 inches for the traditional, 6 inches for the hi-tech. The solution to that would be to simply buy a longer set of Tubbs, and I already wish that I would have bought 30-inchers instead of 25 (though I’m well within the weight rating for 25s). If I start putting a lot of miles on, I may even upgrade.

Kayla doesn’t worry about flotation, just bulldozes through! Actually, deep snow is as tiring for her as it is for someone with no snowshoes, or too-small snowshoes.

This is one of the biggest differences between the traditional and hi-tech snowshoes – the crampons at both toe and heel on the Tubbs. On either packed moderate hills or steep powder hills, these make a huge difference.

I expected to be able to make a clear decision about which of the snowshoes offers a better experience, but it didn’t turn out that way. For the sort of light recreational walk I did, both are excellent. For longer backcountry use, I’ll take the Tubbs, though – the side stability is enough to make that decision easy. The age helps, too – if the old leather strap on my traditional snowshoes were to break, I’d certainly need a roll of duct tape with me to fashion a new strap

This is typical of the trails around our property and other areas in Mary Lake – most are just wide enough for a snowmobile.

Here’s a short video from Tubbs about the basics of choosing the right snowshoe so you can join in the fun!

Wow, it’s the 7th of January already! Times does fly when you’re having fun

We had a very quiet New Year’s Eve as usual. The City put on an excellent fireworks display at 9:00pm, and I made it to 11:50 before going to bed. Cathy says that the next-door neighbour put on a good fireworks show at midnight, despite it being illegal. The photo below is from the City’s show, not the neighbour’s!

The weather on average is still well above the norm, but I haven’t heard a single person complaining about it. I’ve been working at the travel agency a lot lately, and it’s so nice to be able to go for a walk at lunch without wearing even a hat or gloves.

On Tuesday I took a day off from the many jobs I should be doing, and drove to Skagway. I was on the road just before 10:00am, and took this photo at 10:05, a minute before official sunrise.

Spirit Lake Lodge is still open, though I noticed that most of the motel rooms have plywood over the windows now, so it may not be for long.

I stopped for a few minutes at the Carcross Desert to run the fur-kids.

I made a loop around Carcross and let the dogs out again for a run on the beach. This view is about as close as I get to my cabin anymore – it’s probably time to sell it and move on…

The snowplow was out on Bennett Avenue in Carcross cleaning up the overnight fall of about 3-4 inches.

I passed this snowplow down by Tutshi Lake, then pulled over at a viewpoint to get this shot.

Tutshi Lake was mostly still open, but a skim of ice was forming.

The overnight snow hadn’t been cleared from the access road into our normal stop on Tutshi Lake, so I continued on.

This classic view at Km 48 often stops me, in any season.

Another of the always-impressive views, at the Alaska border.

Skagway got a few inches of snow overnight as well, but crews already had Broadway pretty well cleaned up.

The final bit of snow clearing on Broadway being done, in front of the National Park Service headquarters.

The White Pass & Yukon Route shops.

Some of the wind gusts were very strong!

I made the detour to the viewpoint on the Dyea Road, just to see the snowy, very quiet harbor.

I love watching rotary snowplows/snowblowers of any size, but the bigger the better!

The wind reduced visibility quite a bit at the summit, to the point that the video camera was having a hard time keeping focus.

The lack of snow at this point along Tutshi Lake was odd, and I can’t figure out whether it was warm weather or high winds that did it.

The ice on Windy Arm was incredibly smooth and snowfree for a couple of weeks, and there are several good videos on YouTube showing people skating on it, but the wind dropped and enough snow fell in the past 2 or 3 days to end that for the year. It’s extremely rare for skating to be possible on any of the big lakes, which is why it got such huge attention.

Almost home, at 3:49 pm. This is the Alaska Highway at the boundary of the City of Whitehorse. Though you see very few buildings for the next 10 miles or so, so there are hundreds of homes on acreages off to the side out of sight.

Although Winter Solstice has passed so we’re getting more and more light each day, January is the month that usually brings the coldest temperatures, so I’m not going to get too cocky yet about having an easy winter. The weather so far this year has been incredibly erratic, but for weeks now the temperatures have been averaging far above normal and the snowfall has backed off to more normal levels, so it’s been very easy to deal with.

This is the 5-day weather forecast as of a few minutes ago. Anything above -25°C is good news – seeing single digits day after day is wonderful! Sunrise today is at 10:11am, sunset at 3:52pm.

Every job is so much easier, every activity is so much more fun when it’s warm. Going for long walks with my camera (this is downtown Whitehorse from the trail around the airport at 09:20)…

…plowing the driveway…

…using the snowblower can get silly …

…putting up the Christmas decorations…

…and getting in firewood. I got behind in firewood because good wood is getting tough to find. When you add up the costs in gas, time and vehicle maintenance, and then factor in the poor quality (very small size) of the trees I can cut myself, buying wood became the option of choice this year. I still have a couple of cords of self-cut that I need to buck up (on the left), but we had another 3 cords of ready-to-burn wood delivered a few days ago.

This wood came from the massive spruce beetle kill area around Haines Junction, on the Alaska Highway about 140 miles west of here. There are several companies working in the Haines Junction area now, with wood available in any size and quantity you want it – we ordered 9 cords cut to length, at $240 per cord (all companies are 20-25% higher this year!). That will supply well over 90% of our heat for 2 years.

The wood was delivered late at night and by morning had a couple of inches of snow on it. I was going to tarp it as soon as it was delivered but got lazy – oh well, a couple of inches doesn’t create much of a problem.

It’s rare to get local wood that’s large enough to need splitting to a size more appropriate for the woodstove, but almost 50% of the Haines Junction wood needs to be split, sometimes into as many as 5 pieces!

The next step is to fill the wood room in the basement – it takes almost 3 cords.

While I was loading the basement, Monty was keeping an eye on me from the doghouse. Kayla was facing inside the doghouse – that’s her bum on the left

Having the wood room filled is a really nice feeling. If we had to, we could function without electricity for weeks in a warm house lit by Coleman lanterns, with meals cooked on the wood stove, the garage serving as a refrigerator and the back deck as the freezer. Not convenient, but certainly possible.

The large wood stove that heats the entire house is just a few feet from the door of the wood room, so loading it is very easy. In the middle of a normal winter (whatever “normal” means now), the stove burns 24/7, but this year we often let it cool off. Right now, 14 hours after the stove’s last “feeding”, the house is still warm, so I may not re-light it until 11:00 or so.

Christmas is a very quiet time for us – although we get together with friends, there’s no tree in the house and we don’t do gifts. The past few Christmas mornings, we go to a neighbour’s house for a brunch with champagne and crepes.

Then we have a big turkey dinner with friends. This year it was at our house, and by the end of the evening, the excitement of having company and having the air full of wonderful smells had completely worn Monty out!

The day after Xmas is Boxing Day in Canada. The tradition in Great Britain was for the wealthy to give a box containing a gift to their servants on this day. Today it’s a national holiday in Canada and a few other Commonwealth countries. In Canada it’s the shopping equivalent of Thanksgiving in the United States – the biggest sales of the year! It’s not a big deal in Whitehorse, though – our total contribution was a $29 slow cooker at Canadian Tire

The sun is coming up, so it’s time to get off the computer and get some outdoor activities planned for the day

Merry Christmas to all of my friends and readers around the world. I hope that you have a wonderful day surrounded by people you love.

It’s been just over a month since my last post and I was having a bit of a blog-withdrawal issue, so I’m back. The reason that I was away for so long was simply that I didn’t have much to say. I’ve just been working, the weather’s been blah, I’ve seen no aurora in what was supposed to be a spectacular winter – etc, etc…

There are always many things piquing my interest, though – little things, big things, things that stick in my mind and things that I forget a few seconds later. Many of those things at all levels concern travel in some form, and I love learning about destinations, even ones that I know well. I take many, many travel courses as a regular part of my work life – the best one in the past month was put on by Tourism Vancouver, and I got my “Vancouver Specialist” certification (I also lived there for 40 years). Not only is Vancouver a great long-weekend getaway for Yukoners, it’s also the best port to sail from on an Alaska cruise.

Vancouver isn’t really the trigger for this post, though, it’s the “Top 50 Ski Hotels” list in this month’s edition of Conde Nast Traveler. There are a few things about the list that I find interesting:

• The top-rated hotel, the Westin Riverfront in Avon, Colorado, is one of the least expensive hotels, at $179 per night.

• Whistler, British Columbia has 6 hotels on the list: the Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre is #9, the Four Seasons is #12, the Fairmont Chateau Whistler is #14, the Westin is #33, the Pan Pacific Whistler Mountainside is #35, and the Hilton is #41. This is a very, very different list than TripAdvisor has for Whistler, where these hotels rank 1, 3, 11, 14, 6 and 10 respectively on the list of the 56 recommended hotels in Whistler.

• The Canadian Rockies have 3 hotels on the list: the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise is #10, the Fairmont Banff Springs is #19, and the Rimrock in Banff is #37.

• Alaska has 1 hotel on the list, with the Alyeska Resort at Girdwood in 50th place.

Maybe when I win the lottery my hobby will be staying at all of the hotels on these lists. You know, just hop in the Learjet and go to Jackson Hole for a couple of weeks, staying at #2, 3, 11, 24 and 34 But so far, I’ve only checked off one on that list (the Fairmont Banff Springs – and I agree with Conde Nast readers that the rooms are the one category that drops it from a much higher ranking).

It’s almost 2:30am, and I’m sitting under my SAD light trying to get out of this mood. The Winter Solstice occurs in 51 hours, then the days start getting longer again. The forecast is for mostly sunshine today (for 5 hours and 40 minutes), so maybe it’s a good day to hit the road. It’s snowing in Skagway, though, so not that direction…