The Olympic Flame

The Olympic torch came through Whitehorse this week. It was landing by plane, to be run throughout town and was scheduled to go by the S.S. Klondike at 5:30 to arrive at Shipyards Park for 6pm with a party until 7pm.

Like so many other things, we were about to miss out on it. It's easy with life as busy as it is. But around 4 or so I called Mike and said we're going and so we both rushed home.

To set the stage, there are 2 main streets in Whitehorse - 4th Avenue and 2nd Avenue. First, I got stopped on 4th Avenue by...the torch! All traffic was stopped as the torch changed hands not far from me (ironically in front of McDonald's).

We grabbed Maui and headed up to Shipyards Park for the party and, alas, nearly missed the official arrival (again) as we got stopped on 2nd Avenue for quite awhile by the torch exchange!

There was quite a party when we eventually got to the park and it was a lot of fun. There were food vendors, bon fires, and sponsors handing out cow bells, flags, lights and free cokes. There were singers, dancers, artists, techno music and some speeches by dignitaries and others. It's pretty cool, apparently there is an artist traveling from city to city creating art, I didn't see close up and we were a bit late, but it appears to be variations of the women found on the torch flags and banners. The stage photo we've uploaded shows the painting underway and the banner to the left. It was presented immediately to the our mayor.

The mascots were on hand for photos, as were several torch bearers who were very happy to pose for pictures. There were also lots of dogs for Maui to sniff - which was great because she was not so sure about the mascots and not a huge fan of her cow bell. She did, however, love the gazillions of people loving her.

A definite highlight was getting to hold the torch, which are beautiful and surprisingly light. A little known fact, or perhaps just something not really thought about, it is the flame that is passed from person to person, not the torch. Most runners actually get to keep their torch.

It turns out, most runners have a corporate sponsor, often their employer, and that sponsor buys them their torch as a souvenir. Whitehorse being as small as it is, there were quite a few runners, most of whom were walking around with their torches post-run. We met a couple, including the final carrier, and posed for photos. The final torch bearer, Ramesh Ferris, is an inspirational soul who recently crossed Canada to raise awareness of polio. He was kind enough to pose with us.