It was so remote that no one had ever heard of it. Even today, Mount Churchill is seldom seen and rarely explored. But this giant mountain in the St. Elias has certainly left its mark on the Yukon. Located 25km…
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The Carcross Desert isn’t. A desert, that is. Rather, it’s a remnant of the last Ice Age; this ‘desert’ is really a sand dune. The sand accumulated during the Pleistocene age when large glacial lakes filled the valleys in the…
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The Yukon’s official flower doesn’t have a very romantic name. But this tall, elegant symbol of the territory is much more than a pretty picture on a travel brochure.
Fireweed comes by its name honestly. It’s among the first plants…
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Fragments of a meteor, that stunned viewers when it exploded in a giant fireball over the Yukon in January of 2000, could help explain the formation of solar system and life on Earth.
A tall order for the Tagish meteorite.…
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I once owned a hamster. Well, actually it was my kids’ hamster. A family pet. He lived to the ripe old age of five years - a long time, I am told, for a hamster. The little guy had his…
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Most of us love horses, and why not. They have worked for and played with us for centuries. They are generally friendly and sometimes downright loyal, and in the Yukon, they have a history that may pre-date man.
Horses originated…
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The future of a mining town is usually guaranteed. It will become a ghost town. So it was with Cassiar, a company-owned asbestos mining town in Northern British Columbia. After 40 years of operation the mine closed in 1992.
Early…
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Glacier Bay is aptly named because it is home to many northern glaciers. Icebergs, that calve off the glaciers, float elegantly but dangerously in the frigid crystal blue water.
Many Yukon boat owners have used the ports of Skagway and…
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The Bonnet Plume is a beautiful Yukon river named for a Gwitchin Indian Chief, who all of his life, helped white trappers, traders and gold seekers, teaching them the ways of the land and, in some cases, saving their…
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The Yukon River is one of the grandest in the world. It flows almost two thousand miles from Marsh Lake to the Bering Sea. One of the gems in the entire Yukon River system - a section only…
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Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the ground squirrel is? Well, by mid-April or early May, these indicators of Yukon spring will be everywhere - along the roadsides, standing straight up watching and talking. Most people…
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My Dad used to say that this or that would happen when pigs fly. Pigs can't fly, I'd tell him. "It's just an old expression," he would say, frowning at my naiveté.
But squirrels can. Really? Yep, some can, and…
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News that glaciers in Greenland are surging from their landlocked base to the sea brings to mind a similar phenomenon that has shaped the ice fields in the St. Elias Mountains. The Steele, Hubbard and Grand Pacific are glaciers known…
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The Alsek is a mighty river, and not one to be challenged by the faint of heart. It's fed by the massive glaciers of the St. Elias Mountains in Kluane National Park. Here lies an incredible landscape of towering mountains,…
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The Yukon's official bird is certainly not only found in the Yukon. It's found all across the circumpolar world and ranges as far south as the mountains of central America. Still, if you're going to choose a emblematic bird, it…
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When Lt. Frederick Schwatka, of the US army, made his famous journey of discovery down the Yukon River in 1883, he was baffled by the many bends in the river around what is now Carmacks.
He kept expecting…
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In the spring of 1979, ice jams in the Yukon, Indian, and Klondike rivers caused the build-up of water to over-flow the make-shift sand-bag dykes on the riverfront in Dawson. Around midnight, in spite of efforts to shore up the…
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The Clinton Creek asbestos mine, near the junction of the Yukon and Fortymile Rivers, was operated by the Cassiar Asbestos Corporation from 1967 until 1978. Asbestos was hauled from the mine site down the top of the world…
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