Clouds

The weather this past weekend was terrible. It rained and rained and rained on Saturday. It rained on Friday. It even rained a bit on Sunday. Monday, naturally, was gorgeous.

Rain through the mountains, however, leads to some pretty unbelievable clouds. I can't possibly explain, please just enjoy the photos. I hope they are big enough to do justice to just how amazing the view was.

Dawson Take Four.

I love Dawson City. I love it, I love it, I love it.

When Mike came home from the Yukon for the first time, he raved about Dawson and made it a prime focus of our trip in 2008. Of the time we spent in Yukon that year, we spent a full 5 days in Dawson.

Since then, I have been to Dawson 3 more times, most recently with my mom. One would think, with all those visits, I would have seen all this town of about 1200 people had to offer - perhaps 4 times over. But the truth is, I saw more recently then I ever did before, and there is still lots left to see and do!

Each trip to Dawson has had a different feel to it. With Mike we spent time just feeling the vibe of town. We spent hours just wandering around checking out the town and the unbelievable architecture. We had drinks, naturally, and caught some of the music scene. We checked out some sites, but spent time golfing and hiking too. Awesome.

My next trip to Dawson was for a conference, and in true tourism industry fashion, I caught very little outside of the bars (every one in Dawson) and the conference facilities.

Our trip with Mike's dad brought some of the same sites are our first trip, but other things we hadn't seen before - including the S.S. Keno, the boys trying their luck at gold panning and a video on the ladies of Dawson.

This past trip with my mom brought so many new experiences. I saw, for the first time, so many of the historic sites available through the historic walking tour (but this, I can assure you, was just the start). We learned how to play Keno, we gambled (just a little, for charity), caught some live music, closed down "the Pit" (the dive bar in Dawson) and played scrabble. We walked through the pioneer cemetery, shopped at the farmers market and picked lots and lots of high bush cranberries. Great food, great drinks, great weekend!

Funny how after all of these times, I can't wait to go back. Still, there are things I haven't seen or done. Still, there are memories to create.

NWT

In my job with Parks Canada I'm very lucky to have the chance to travel all over Canada and see some of the more amazing - if far flung - places this land has to offer. With last week's trip to NWT, I've now been to every province (minus the Labrador part of Newfoundland) and 2 of the 3 territories. Nunavut, it seems, will have to wait.

The Northwest Territories has been an enigma to me since I was a little kid. I mostly knew it as the only place "Canada" would fit on the cover those coloured Hilroy excercise books. My grade school teachers paid it about the same level of respect. At that time, NWT also included what is now Nunavut (whose creation, incidentally, made the map of Canada much more aesthetically pleasing). All my teachers really knew was that Eskimos lived up there somewhere but we were supposed to call them Inuit. That about sums up my Canadian geography education from grades 4-8.

Nevertheless, I have always been curious about NWT. I spent last week in Wood Buffalo National Park which is in the South Slave region of the territory and straddles the Alberta-NWT border. Fort Smith is the administrative centre for that region and was in fact supposed to be the capital until Yellowknife yoinked it away in the 1950s.

Fort Smith remains somewhat frozen in time. It is a small, quiet town of about 2,500 people by the rapids of the Slave River that has served as an important transportation hub since the 1850s. It is home to the only pelicans in the world that live, nest and feed on river rapids. The park itself is the largest in Canada (over 44,000 sq. km) and one of the largest in the world. It features salt plains and giant sink holes called karsts along with the Canadian lynx, wood bison, and the endangered whooping crane.

Wood bison, by the way, are big. And by big I mean huge. These 1,200 lb beasts are the largest land mammals in North America - a fact you can't really appreciate until you get up close to them. Being late August and prime rut season, I was lucky enough to see two bulls jousting in mock competition. It seemed playful and at the same time incredibly dangerous. I'm pretty sure the little 2-wheel drive Dodge Dakota I was driving wouldn't outrun one of those big boys, let alone survive a direct hit.

Wood bison are protected from hunting in the park which has allowed the population to recover to about 4,000 (there are about 10,000 in Canada). It is quite remarkable to see a free-roaming herd standing on the road, completely uninterested in your desire to pass through. It is equally remarkable to see 20-30 of these 1,000+ lb beasts slip effortlessly into the forest and simply disappear in a matter of seconds. They are as rugged, massive and beautiful as the land they inhabit.

So, after a week of being feasted on by giant prehistoric insects and nearly tearing off a couple of truck axles, I returned to Whitehorse with a new appreciation for the Northwest Territories and the people and places that make it special. I'm eager to take Krista there and explore some more - but this time in a much larger truck.

Canoeing - Maui Style

Canoeing, Maui style, is a complicated feat indeed.

Over the past couple of summers, we learned that Maui desperately wants to be in or on the water when we are, and will go to great lengths to ensure this happens. Us on the water without her, is a no-go, and causes all kinds of anxiety and crazy behaviour. I fully expect one day, being left on shore will lead to drowning in an effort to "save us"

Under these circumstances, Mike has taken her canoeing a couple of times (go Bone Island!) and we knew moving to Whitehorse we would take her again.

Not the strongest swimmer in the world, we opted for a doggy life jacket and, after FINALLY buying a canoe, took her out. By and large, Maui is pretty good in the canoe. For more than 90% of the time, she sites perfectly still and unmoving. Great, yes? Well, sort of. More often then not, that 100 lbs of perfectly still weight is entirely on one side or the other of the canoe. Imagine offsetting that kind of weight while still trying to paddle on the Maui side! It adds a certain amount of, umm intrigue, to the canoeing process. I actually think we're going to start packing stuff - any stuff so long as it is heavy and shiftable, just to make our treks a bit more balanced.

Fun as the off-setting is, that is nothing compared to when that little girl of ours moves. Even the slightest head shift can send us wobbling like crazy. On open water, with some significant headwinds, this is a little bit terrifying - especially if you are in front of her with no idea of what she is up to until the canoe has gone sideways under you!!

Thankfully, despite Maui's best efforts, we didn't tip the canoe. Especially thankfully because it was a glacier lake! It was a most beautiful couple of days on the water and I really hope we get to go again before the season ends.

Hair Cut

I am so relieved about my hair cut.

I have gotten lazy over the past several years, with a couple of great hairdressers in my rolodex. To know I can sit down, let them do whatever they might like and walk away happy is a terrific feeling. I got used to that.

Moving to Whitehorse, I was pretty nervous about the hair-cutting thing. There is a lot of good hair here - but there is also a lot of bad, bad, bad hair. Mike's first experience - a very bad, comparatively very expensive haircut - did nothing to calm my fears.

And so, I waited and waited. I got a haircut when I went back East and then I waited some more. By the time I booked an appointment, it was a desperate time.

I think my approach was a good one. I picked someone I trusted, whose hair I liked, and took her recommendation for salons and stylists. She offered three from the same salon - ironically, one I never would have chosen by appearances only. I booked my appointment and crossed my fingers.

There could, or perhaps should, have been several things to further unnerve me. For starters, my hairdresser was bald. Second, it came up fairly early in conversation that she is not yet 21. Eek!

Turns out, her head is shaved in support of a friend with leukemia, which I can totally support. It also turns out that experience is no replacement for sheer talent. And as if that wasn't enough - Whitehorse can be expensive, but it turns out my haircut was Windsor priced, not Ottawa! Hooray!

Camping

I highly recommend camping in the Yukon. We have managed to squeak in visits to two campgrounds this summer - and driven through another 6-8 and they have all been pretty amazing. More often than not they are half- to totally empty, and they seem to have developed the sites to create privacy and a sense of aloneness.

Best yet? Totally inexpensive, if not free-ish. Honest people pay $12/night, which includes firewood. Many less than honest people don't pay at all because it is totally the honour system. Even more reasonable? There is a yearly pass for $50 that allows you to camp in any territorial park anytime you want for the year. Great deal!

I would like to give a special call out to the territory. The sites are clean, the garbage is always empty, the firewood is free and the outhouses are the cleanest and least smelly I have ever seen! There are no showers and you pump the water, but honestly - so well kept.

All of the campgrounds I have been to are unbelievably beautiful! The territory is so pretty, and these camp grounds just take total advantage of that. Lots of water for Maui to get totally stinky in . Trails, trees, mountains - all so pretty.

Oh, and while bears might be around - camping without raccoons rocks!

Apologies

I suck. I have been the worst blogger in the universe. Please forgive me - but it always seems when there is a lot to blog about, there is never any time. I will do my best to "catch up" and to try and remember all of the things over this past summer I have wanted to say.

Golf

I finally dusted off my clubs this week and went golfing. It was very fortuitous that I met Nancy at Clare's wedding and it turns out Nancy golfs in the ladies league here in town. Yay! It also turns out that things are relaxed here and, because there is space, I can join now. Double yay!

Mountain View (one of two in town) was pretty nice. We played the back 9 which was fine, although I hear the other 9 are a lot prettier with views of the Yukon River. The fairways were in amazing condition since it hasn't rained here in weeks and weeks. The greens were in good condition too, although I really have to get used to all the sand (that is a lot of what constitutes dirt up here). I was grateful that they seem to do a terrific job of clearing the brush on either side of the course (it was a pretty rough first outing with a pretty low cost per stroke).

Both Nancy and Carol have a lot more skill than I do, so I have my work cut out for me, which is good I suppose. But then again, any game that begins and ends with beer can't be all that bad.