On to Whitehorse, Yukon

Day 13, Wednesday, August 5th

Up early in Watson Lake and ready to drive another good day on the highway. The sky was so blue and the temperature quite comfortable. We were clearly in an area with few people. We would see only the little collections of a gas station with a restaurant and possibly lodging. There were almost no cross roads, just miles and miles of trees with a road cutting through them. At times we could see mountains in the distance on one or the other side. At others, the sea of trees just seemed to rolled to the horizon in every direction. Often there were beautiful streams, little ponds and, occasionally, a larger lake.

One of the sites today was Teslin, a small village located in the Yukon Territory. Until the turn of the century this was the summer camp or meeting place of the Tlingit tribe from southern Alaska. During the Gold Rush of 1898 the Teslin campsite boomed briefly as a stopover on the Canadian route to the Klondike. For the first time Teslin had permanent residents. The Hudson Bay Co. established a trading post for the villagers and those traveling the Klondike trail. A beautiful stop was at Tlingit Heritage Center where we had the chance to see some outstanding carving, including some traditional totem poles. We also saw a wonderful 30-foot dugout canoe. It was gorgeous. These Indian (or First Nations people) are related to a group on the Pacific coast. You can see a lot of similarities between the art. Very cool cultural exhibit.

We arrived in Whitehorse in the afternoon. Whitehorse is located on the Yukon River and is the largest city in all of the Yukon, with 3/4 of all of the residents in the territory living in the city of about 20,000. One of their claims to fame is the world’s largest weathervane: a DC3 that is out of commission after being used by a number of Yukon airlines before it crashed. It was rebuilt and then mounted as a working weather vane at the airport. Now that’s recycling!

We had a rather impromptu guided tour at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, a formerly privately own reserve, now owned by the Yukon government and run by a non-profit educational group. We got a chance to see some of the animals that we had been seeing in the wild, they also have a lot of musk oxen, a really interesting animal. Dick finally got his chance to see Wood Bison. And the mule deer baby fawns were soooo cute! The tour was us, another couple, and the guide. One of our favorite things is to get private or semi-private tours, and we manage this quite often. Cool

Then for the evening we drove just up the road to the campgrounds where Patti arranged to tell stories in exchange for swimming and a campsite for the night. This is a privately own campground resort at another hot springs. This one had another lovely hot springs swimming pool. This one, we were interested in knowing, gets emptied and scrubbed out every night. Then, the water runs so strongly that by morning, it is filled up with hot water ready for another day.

The owners of the resort, Gary and Carla, were a delight. They both loved stories and storytelling and we delighted to exchange stories for a stay at their place. It seems that there were for many years a huge Yukon Storytelling Festival that they always attended. The festival included not only professional “famous” storytellers, but also First Nation tellers. They drew storytellers from around the globe from those areas along the Arctic Circle. This usually included stories from Iceland, Siberia, Great Britain, Greenland. They had such fine storytelling experiences that this family was really converted to the blessings of storytelling.

Patti did a storytelling circle (it was supposed to be around a campfire, but there is a severe burn ban on due to massive fires happening…) so we sat in comfortable chairs on the back patio of the resort retreat center. A lovely group of nearly all adults gathered to hear personal stories, folk tales and literary takes told by Patti. She appreciated the interested and enthusiastic audience. Even though we finished at 10:40pm, it was still light out, although the temperature had dropped. The hot chocolate that Carla supplied was greatly appreciated. How much fun to share stories with people in another country!