Northern Exposure

April 2 - 11 was our "March Break". Spring Break typically conjures images of sandles, beaches and warm sunny weather. However, as they say when in Rome do as the Romans do and so I did as the locals did and set my sights on Whitehorse. It's a popular vacation spot for many northerners and a chance to get some more supplies. As a result, my vacation was comprised of bear spray, camping and unpredictable mountain weather.

Whitehorse is a city of approximately 23 000 and the main employers are government and mining. Many junior mining companies have been converging in recent months on a large gold discovery south of Dawson City along the Yukon river last summer.

The last two pictures offer a glimpse of the Dempster Highway between Whitehorse and Fort McPherson. The "highway" is actually a gravel road named after a Mountie callled William Dempster. In 1911, constable Dempster was assigned with task to locate the "Lost Patrol". http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/hh-ps/lost-perdus-eng.htm. In 1958 the Federal Government made the decision to build this 671 km road through the Arctic wilderness from Dawson City to Inuvik. Oil and gas exploration was booming in the Mackenzie Delta and the town of Inuvik was under construction.

At about 50 km outside of Whitehorse we noticed a place to buy some cinnamon-buns. It was called Braeburn Lodge. Just to make things interesting, we planned to stay the night in Whitehorse with people we never met. David, Kara-Lee and their 3 children and are friends of the Hanthorn's; their house is pictured below.
Braeburn Lodge presented an opportunity to purchase some tasty treats as a thank-you for our soon to be hosts.
Upon entering the establishment, there was nobody at the service counter and only a couple of locals sitting at a table slowly drinking their coffee. They motioned to me to enter the kitchen. I cautiously walked in and eventually found the cook. I asked for a dozen cinnamon-buns. He replied with a heavy German/Swiss accent that he couldn't make that many. I negotiated 6. After waiting 20 minutes the pastry chef came out with two makeshift cardboard trays of baked goods and he layed them down on the counter. He said, "that will be $51.00" and with that I could hear the two locals chuckle in the background. Although I was surprized by sheer size of the pastries, I was even more dumbfounded by the weight not to mention the cost. Heather, Ruth and almost ate one bun and found ourselves full!

The pictures of the church show where we overnighted on the return trip home. Again, we didn't know anyone from this church. Arrangements were made by the Hanthorns. We pulled into the church around 10:30 and the phone rang at 11:00. A lady from the church was looking for the pastor to find out which songs would be selected for the next morning. She was on the worship team. In the end, she offered her home for us to shower the next morning. She explained she would be sleeping in late, mentioned the 3 dogs she owned, and to just walk in because the door would be unlocked. The next morning as I pulled up to the address, Heather precariously said, "I'm not so sure about this." Then, all of a sudden, a lady dressed in her Sunday best burst out the door with a big smile and was frantically waving. Now that was a warm welcome! Heather responded, "Okay, I'll be fine." and she quickly got out.

The next three pictures are views along the Klondike highway between Whitehorse and the Dempster Hwy turn-off.

The next 16 pictures shown are from Kluane National Park and more specifically: Kathleen lake, Kathleen Lake campground and the Auriol ski Trail. I wanted to ski the 7 km loop, but since it was pooly marked I ended up doing the 15 km trail which took 5 1/2 hours to complete! I lost my bear spray skiing down and crashing on one of the many steep slopes on the return portion of the loop. Fortunately, most of the bears were still in hibernation.

The last 7 pictures are views along the Alaska Highway between Haines Junction and the Mount Logan Look-out Point as per the map I had (You can't actually see Mt. Logan. In order to do that you must fly in). Due to active tectonic uplifting, Mount Logan is still rising in elevation. Before 1992, the exact height of Mount Logan was unknown and measurements ranged from 5,959 metres (19,551 ft) to 6,050 metres (19,849 ft).

The Alaska Highway (also known as the Alaskan Highway, Alaska-Canadian Highway, or ALCAN Highway) was constructed during WWII. It runs from Dawson Creek, BC to Alaska via Whitehorse. After the Japanese invaded Pearl Habour, the US feared another attack from the same nation over the polar region. As a result, this 2200 km hwy was built by the U.S. army in 9 months and construction was completed in 1943.

Bill aka "The Fruit Man" has transported fresh produce from Vancouver to the Arctic for more than 20 years. Since he sells product close to "southern" prices, people buy with reckless abandon and don't bother to look at prices. Bill has been the subject of at least one T.V. documentary

. Legend has it that the first time Bill took his product to Tuk, nobody bought the cauliflower. He was confused at first because people there told him the cauliflower must be rotten because it was white and didn't have black spots all over it. Then it dawned on him the people of Tuk never saw fresh cauliflower and had mistaken bad cauliflower for good. Another story: the police once pulled him over and stumbled upon huge wads of cash. They didn't believe a fruit business could be so lucrative and quickly began an investigation on the assumption he was shipping drugs. However, after cracking open pineapples and coconuts for hours they only found fruit inside of fruit.