The actual customs office where I got to show my passport was a few more miles down the road. I guess it's not really a surprise that there wasn't a line at the Canadian customs - I hadn't seen another car since I left Skagway an hour earlier. This means that the customs agent was happy to chat with me, and recommended both a hotel and a restaurant in Whitehorse. Yes, I said hotel! I had decided that the Yukon in November was no place for my tent and sleeping bag. With sunrise at around 8:30am and sunset at 4:00pm the nights were just too long and too cold for my usual travel methods. Here's a picture of the sun going down as I drove towards Whitehorse:
That night I explored downtown Whitehorse. With a population of only about 20,000 people it's hard to believe that this is not only the capital of the Yukon, but also that it contains two-thirds of the territory's entire population. The remaining 10,000 people live in small towns and villages - the next biggest town has fewer than 1,500 people! This gives Whitehorse a two-fold character, both small town and the biggest city in the region. The customs agent could name the three most popular restaurants and all five hotel options, but downtown also has a walking trail, a tourism information center, and a vegan fair trade coffee shop. Here's a picture of the welcome sign, which I found the following day on my morning walk:
Here's another view from my morning walk. This is the Yukon River, famous for the gold rush days. Prospectors who climbed over the pass from Skagway wintered in Whitehorse, then used local trees to build rafts to float downstream to the site of the famous gold strikes.
Back in downtown I ran into something unexpected: a log cabin sky-scraper! This is one of the tallest buildings in Whitehorse. If you look closely at the picture, you can see that it really is an apartment building. Local residents store their bicycles on their log cabin porches!
After lunch I headed out of town and up into the hills for a little taste of adventure, Yukon style: Dog Sledding! My Aunt Catherine had heard of a group that runs dog sledding teams, and I signed up to learn how to drive a sled for an afternoon. It was a little early to be the height of dog sledding tourism season (I didn't know there WAS a dog sledding tourism season, but hey, it's true!) so I was the only person who had signed up for the day. I later found out I was the only person that whole week! But the woman in charge of the dog teams grabbed a friend who had never mushed dogs so that I would have a fellow novice along for the ride. Then she gave me a sled, attached four dogs, showed me how to operate the brakes, and sent me on my way! So much for training! Here's a picture of me and my dogs:
I didn't know much about dog mushing, and thought that I might have to yell at the dogs to make them run, and that they might be unhappily resigned to a life of pulling sleds and humans. Not at all! These dogs love to run! When my four were being attached to the sled, they were jumping and pulling and excited to be off, and all of the other dogs, the ones who weren't lucky enough to be picked for today's outing, were whining and barking out of disappointment. I stood on the foot brake until all dogs were ready, then let go and went flying down the trail after my guide and her sled team. Here's a picture I took once the dogs had calmed down a little and we were gliding along at a more even pace:
I was surprised at how quiet the dogs and sled were. I heard birds calling from the trees as we went by, the swish of the sled runners and my foot brake disturbing them, but not enough to make them fly away. Here we've stopped for a brief rest, but already the dogs are jumping and anxious to start running again!
Back at the dog shed we unhooked the dogs and went into the main lodge. None of the buildings had electricity, so wood stoves and gas lights were the standard setup. We visited for a while, and I was amazed at how tough these two women were. Jocelyn, the dog musher, had run her dogs in the Quest the previous year. The Quest is a race similar to the more famous Iditarod, but is less famous and more remote. It is 1000 miles long, but there are fewer checkpoints, resupply stops, and even fewer participants, which means that during the race you might go days without seeing anyone. Jocelyn said she started talking to the dogs just to hear her own voice. She proudly announced that she had been the winner of the Red Lantern, which is the prize reserved for the last finisher. You could say that she got last place, but you could also say that she was the most determined - everyone behind her had dropped out and quit before the end. Jocelyn's friend Kelly didn't have experience with dogs, but she was a mother of two who was building a log home by hand with her husband. She spoke about trying to get finished before winter so they could move in. I looked at the snow outside and thought "Winter is already here!" but not for these folks. It was only mid-November, and would get a lot colder and a lot darker. From their conversation I gathered that the people who choose to live in the Yukon love it here, and though the community is small and spread out, it is a real community, close-knit and intertwined.
That night I stayed in one of the cabins just off the main lodge. It was small, but had everything I needed: wood stove, an oil lamp, a table, a bed, and a five-gallon water bottle that drained into a bucket. The outhouse just was a short walk away. Here's the cabin with its firewood stack:
And here's my oil lamp:
I woke up once during the night to stoke the fire, and noticed that it was light outside. There was no moon and the sky was overcast, but the clouds were glowing and slowly changing color, from orange to a more green shade. I'm not sure, but I think I was seeing the aurora borealis, the northern lights shining through the cloud cover. I watched for a little bit, and listened to the perfect winter stillness, then went back to bed. The next morning I said goodbye to Jocelyn and her dogs and headed north and west to Haines Junction.
