Oh, Canada, oh, Canada.
My association to Canada dates back to post World War II when my
step-father needed to take the vacation time he had not been able to take
during the war. In 1947 he took my
brother and I on a “test” trip from Connecticut to Montreal, Québec, Gaspé,
PEI, and Nova Scotia. I guess he was
able to tolerate two pre-teen boys crammed in the back of a 1947 Hudson, so in
August we traveled across Canada on the then unpaved Route 1 to Banff, Jasper,
and down to the US. So at the age of 12
years old I had traveled through all the Canadian Provinces. My association continued when I joined the
USAF and flew over Canada from Bangor, Maine and occasionally, landed at
Frobisher AFB (now Iqaluit), Goose Bay AFB and Ernest Harmon AFB. In 1963 I married my lovely wife Judy at
Ernest Harmon AFB where she was teaching school on the base.
In the 1990’s I joined a Canadian company, SHL Systemhouse
and worked most of the cities of Canada but not in the Yukon nor the newly formed Northwest Territories (I had flown into Iqaluit in the newly formed Nunavut) . I found I had
some time between travel and work in late May and early June 2012 to visit
those Territories.
The first city to visit was Yellowknife, capital of the
Northwest Territory. I flew from Los
Angeles via Calgary to Yellowknife. On
the flight from Los Angeles on an Air Canada EMB-190 with video at each seat I
watched the initial episode of the TV show “Artic Air” set in Yellowknife, which
portrays renegade bush pilots at work and play in Canada's north. Even though it is a soap opera type show it
set a little background on what to expect on my visit.
I landed in Yellowknife a little after midnight in twilight
and a large half-moon. The sun was not
scheduled to set at that time of year until near 2am. The terminal was like I had seen in the TV
show, small with one baggage carousel and a row of rental car counters. What I wasn’t expecting was the large display
in the middle of the carousel of a small ice berg with a large polar bear on
top and two fur seals under the top of the berg. It was a stunning display!
The exit was a large revolving door great to keep the cold
out but difficult for some of the people dragging their luggage. Outside I was greeted by a swarm of gnats. I had hoped that I had scheduled this trip
before the mosquito season but they were already there. They didn’t land on me and the swarm soon
left to bother the next passenger exiting the terminal.
The airport was about 3 miles from the center of the city
where my hotel, the Discovery Inn, was located.
I took a cab driven by a Sudanese.
He had immigrated to work in the mines.
When we arrived at the Inn he explained the layout of the City. The Inn was on Franklin or 50th
Avenue just one block from the center of the city, 48th Street and
Franklin. East on Franklin, down a hill
was “Old Town” and Latham Island; west on Franklin was the new section of the
City with Wal-Mart, MacDonald’s, and the hospital.
My room in the Inn was very warm. I had arrived in a heat wave and my room
faced the sun most of the day and with no air conditioning it retained the heat
that built up during the day. A window
was open but had no screen. On the wall
was a large wasp which I was able to quickly kill. It was 01:40 before I went to bed so I slept
until almost 10:00 Tuesday morning.
On the drive in from the airport I had noticed a Visitor’s
Center not far from the Center of Town so after an expensive breakfast of a
fish sandwich (because of the late hour I had to order off the lunch menu) at
the local restaurant in the Inn, I set out on foot to the “Northern Frontier
Visitors Centre” about two blocks from the Inn.
At the Center I picked up a map of the area and gained some information
on the history of the city and watched a DVD on the history of diamond mining.
The current Yellowknife city area did not originate from a
Native American village. There was a
native (First Nation) village on the Great Slave Lake in a different area
referred to as Yellowknife. The
surrounding water bodies were named after a local Dene tribe once known as the
'Copper Indians' or 'Yellowknife Indians' (now referred to locally as the
Yellowknives Dene First Nation) who traded tools made from copper deposits near
the Arctic Coast. They had a settlement
on a point of land on the east side of Yellowknife Bay, named Dettah.
In 1933 two prospectors, Herb Dixon and Johnny Baker, canoed
down the Yellowknife River from Great Bear Lake to survey for possible mineral
deposits. They found gold samples at Quyta Lake, about 19 miles up the
Yellowknife River, and some additional samples at Homer Lake.
The following year, Johnny Baker returned as part of a
larger crew to develop the previous gold finds and search for more. Gold was
found on the east side of Yellowknife Bay in 1934 and the short-lived Burwash
Mine was developed. When government
geologists uncovered gold in more favorable geology on the west side of
Yellowknife Bay in the fall of 1935, a small staking rush occurred. Con Mine was the most impressive gold deposit
and its development created the excitement that led to the first settlement of
Yellowknife in 1936–1937.
Initially it was a tent and log cabin settlement around
Latham Island but in 1938 the Royal Canadian Signals station at Fort Rae was
moved to Yellowknife and it became a bustling boomtown. The initial Con Gold Mine north of the
current city center and later the Giant Mine were towns in their self with
barracks, schools and commissaries for the employees. The mine tunnels reached under the current
city giving Yellowknife the dubbing of “the city built on gold”. In addition to the Signals station the lakes
in the area became the runways for booming bush plane activity. (The Great Slave Lake is the 5th
largest lake in North America and the 9th largest lake in the world). The airport became the hub for aviation
servicing the small villages, trapping and hunting camps, oil and mineral mines
and camps throughout the Northwest Territory.
The population of Yellowknife quickly grew to 1,000 by 1940,
and by 1942, five gold mines were in production in the Yellowknife region. However, by 1944, gold production had ground
to a halt as men were needed for the war effort. An exploration program at the Giant Mine
property on the north end of town had suggested a sizable gold deposit in
1944. This new find resulted in a
massive post-war staking rush to Yellowknife.
It also resulted in new discoveries at the Con Mine, greatly extending
the life of the mine. The Yellowknife town
site expanded from the Old Town waterfront, and the new town site was established
during 1945–1946.
In 1967, Ottawa decided to pass on management of the
NWT. Yellowknife, as the most populous
town, was picked as capital. The
community began to shift from hardscrabble outpost to buttoned-down
bureaucratic hub. That shift accelerated
in 1992 when a bitter labor dispute at Giant Mine led to the underground bombing
death of nine strikebreakers. Since
then, gold mining has ceased in Yellowknife. A new mining rush and fourth building boom
for Yellowknife began with the discovery of diamonds 190 miles north of the
city in 1991. The last of the gold mines
in Yellowknife closed in 2004 and today, Yellowknife is primarily a government
town and a service center for the diamond mines. The diamonds are not only mined but cut and
processed in the city. The labor needs
have attracted people from all over the world creating a current population of
20,000 that is ethnically mixed. Of the
eleven official languages of the Northwest Territories, five are spoken in
significant numbers in Yellowknife: Dene Suline, Dogrib, South and North
Slavey, English, and French. In the Dogrib language, the city is known as Somba
K'e ("where the money is"). On
April 1, 1999, its responsibility as capital of the NWT was reduced when the
territory of Nunavut was split from the NWT.
As a result, jurisdiction for that region of Canada was transferred to
the new capital city of Iqaluit.
Armed with this knowledge of the history of Yellowknife and
the gold and diamond mining I set out from the Visitors Center, around a small
lake to the Frame Lake Trail. A 7 km
trail around Frame Lake which links the Legislative Assembly building, Prince
of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, National Defense, Royal Canadian Mounted
Police (RCMP), City Hall, the indoor pool, and the hospital.
I walked north on the trail to the Prince of Wales Northern
Heritage Centre (PWNHC). It is the
Government of the Northwest Territories' museum and archives. It was opened in 1979, by Prince Charles,
Prince of Wales. It is very well laid
out with rooms and displays that address natural history, European exploration,
Northern aviation, Dene and Inuit ways.
I enjoyed a film in the aviation room that documented with interviews
and old pictures and films, the development of bush pilots in the territory. I was very impressed with the displays. It is a must stop for any visitor to
Yellowknife.
When I left the PWNHC it was after 13:30 and although I had
a late breakfast I skipped walking north to the Legislative Assembly building,
and headed south to the city center. On
the trail I came upon a dozen ladies pushing strollers with children and a Gym
Instructor giving them exercise commands that involved their pushing the
strollers up and down the trail.
I exited the trail by City Hall and came out on Veterans
Memorial Drive which has a number of monuments, especially in front of the RCMP
and National Defense buildings. I walked
back to my Inn and didn’t pass any eating establishments that intrigued me so I
decided to follow the recommendation in the tour guides to have lunch at the
Wildcat Café in Old Town. It was a
little over 2 mile walk down hill to the Old Town area. A the Boat Launch I came upon a couple and
asked directions to the Café only to be told it was closed for renovations but
the other recommended “must” café was Bullocks Bistro just up the hill from the
Boat Launch.
On the flight into Yellowknife I was surprised that the
Great Slave Lake was covered by ice breaking up and at the Boat Launch there
was still ice on the water.
Bullocks Bistro was in a building built in 1935. Its claim to fame was its unique fish and
chips. Every inch of the walls and the
ceiling was covered with pictures autographs, sayings and posters. It was a very colorful place. The fresh fish is grilled with a special
sauce on top. The chips are uniquely cut
with the skins and the meal is served with a salad. Several large bottles of a garlic flavored
oil and vinegar salad dressing were available.
It was a delicious meal well worth the late lunch. (It was after 14:30)
After lunch I walked up a hill to a set of steps leading to
the Pilots Monument on top of “The Rock”.
The “Rock” overlooks the Old Town area and served at one time as the
site for the area’s water tower. At the
top is a monument with a metal airplane fixed to its top. The monument is dedicated to the Bush Pilots
who as stated on a plaque: “broke the silence of the North”. “Often flying in extreme cold and facing
dangerous take-off and landing conditions, these bush pilots ferried
passengers, mail and freight in and out of remote frontier regions and played a
crucial role in the development of the Northern economy and the delivery of
public services. Blazing air trails over
immense areas, these intrepid pioneers helped map the Canadian Shield and the
Artic barrenlands, and pilots transformed Northern life by bringing this unique
region into the Canadian mainstream.” In
addition to the monument there was a plaque describing Jolliffe Island just off
the coast. I took a number of pictures
and descended down the steps and walked back to the center of the city and on
to the new section of the city, another 3 mile walk.
In the new section of the city I walked past the
MacDonald’s, onto a grocery store where I purchased some breakfast drink, then past
the Wal-Mart and up to the hospital where I accessed the Frame Lake Trail again. The walk back along the tail was interesting
as I encountered bicyclists, joggers, woman pushing strollers and other walkers
in both directions. It was a busy trail. The scenery included the lake, woods, and
solid rock formations. At times it reminded
me of my summers on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. It was after 19:00 when I reached a park by
City Hall and walked past a log cabin that once served as a blacksmith’s shop at
the Giant Mine. It had been moved to the
park and is now the “Fireweed Studio” for arts and crafts.
I had dinner in the “A Taste of Saigon” restaurant. It had been a long day with a lot of walking
and I was pleasantly surprised to find a fan in my room which I hoped would
cool it off a little.
On Wednesday I contracted ‘My Backyard Tours’ for a 2 hour
tour of the city area. Margaret Peterson
and her daughter Amanda drove me around the area. We started by returning to Old Town and the
first stop was the Boat Launch landing where I was surprised to see that all
the ice that was in Yellowknife Bay the day before was gone. Out beyond the Bay I could still see ice on
the Great Slave Lake. “What a difference
a day makes!” Next to the launch ramp we
stopped at the Government Pier where we had a close view of the houseboats that
ring Jolliffe Island. Margaret showed me
a Bombardier snowmobile modified for ice fishing, describing how they mark a
spot then move forward and use a power auger to drill through the ice which
could be up to 5 feet thick and then move back and fish through the hole in the
cozy comfort of the heated Bombardier cab.
The architecture of the buildings in Yellowknife had
surprised me. In the center of the city
all the buildings are square with what looks like corrugated metal sides or
prefab siding. The South side often had
no windows the half dozen tall buildings (10 or so floors) were concrete with
the windows recessed between columns that presented the same look as vertical
corrugated metal. Even the churches were
of the same boxy design. None of the
ones I saw had steeples and only one had a cross on top. In the city the buildings that I noticed that
varied from that style were the government buildings which I assumed were designed
in Ottawa. They were a striking contrast
to the local buildings. The Legislative
Assembly building was designed like a very large igloo. The RCMP and National Defense had a lot of
curves and glass. It wasn’t until I got
to Old Town that I saw a log cabin and even then very few.
Margaret changed my mind by driving around the houses on
Latham Island. There each house had an
individual flair. Many built on the
solid rock and blended in with the rock and scrub pines. There were a number of houses built on rather
level ground and they were constructed on top of a metal framework of jacks
that could be adjusted to compensate for the frost heaves and rocky
surface. Margaret pointed out the pipes
protruding from the houses one for fresh water the other for sewage. The cold weather and solid rock prohibits the
use of city water and sewer lines and septic tanks have to be frequently
drained.
There is a building boom in the area since rentals are 100%
occupied and command high rates.
Although there is not a hiring boom those people renting are looking to
own. Margaret drove me around several of
the new developments and as opposed to many US developments the houses for the
most part had individual designs. I am
glad I got to see that side of Yellowknife.
Leaving Old Town we stopped to visit the House of
Horrors. A log cabin style house built
in 1938 and the site of wild card playing parties in the 1940s and the
disappearance of some of the players.
Next we stopped at the Yellowknife Cultural Crossroads monument. A large rock with hand and foot prints etched
in the side of the rock. The plaque on
the rock reads: “The site is a testament to the close collaboration among
Metis, Dene, Inuvialuit, English Canadian, French Canadian and Quebec cultures
and is dedicated to all people of the North”.
There were several stone sculptures at the site.
From there we drove down to Ragged Ass Road. It is a famous area of small houses that was
populated at the time of the naming of the road by people down on their luck. The signs are a tourist attraction and were
stolen so often that they are now for sale along with a line of clothing and
tourist items in a store in the city center.
From Ragged Ass Road we drove through more housing
construction out of the city to the abandon Giant Mine site. The government is dismantling the site and
will leave just one shaft and establish a Mining Museum. Next we approached the Airport and stopped at
the Bristol Air monument of the first wheel based airplane to land at the North
Pole. It is right behind the Welcome to
Yellowknife sign where we stopped to take pictures of me by the sign.
Amanda took over the driving and we next stopped at Buffalo
Air. Buffalo Air is featured in the TV
reality series “Ice Pilots” and has the largest fleet of C-47s in the
world. They also have a C-54 and a
number of firefighting “Air Tankers”. I
was fascinated because the last two aircraft I crewed on in the USAF were a VC-47
and a VC-54 in Vietnam. I flew them
regularly to Bangkok and Hong Kong and have a lot of fond memories. The staff at Buffalo Air was very friendly
and let me climb aboard and visit the cockpit of a C-47. In addition to the aircraft the Buffalo Air
hanger contained three old restored Ford cars: a 1939 Ford coupe, a 1951
Mercury coupe and customized 1951 Mercury.
From Buffalo Air we drove to the Legislative Assembly
building and the end of the tour. They
told me I could eat lunch there and take a tour of the building at 13:30. Unfortunately the afternoon tours do not
start until summer so I walked back to the city center and had lunch at the
Black Knight Pub, another of the recommended places in Yellowknife. I had visited all the spots in the guide
books and returned to my room to a big surprise – they had installed an air
conditioning unit. I spend the afternoon
writing my journal and ate dinner at the Vietnamese Noodle Café next to the
Inn.
Wednesday I checked out of the Inn at 11:00, took a cab to
the airport, checked in for my 14:30 flight to Whitehorse via Calgary. The airport café was under renovation but did
serve sandwiches and homemade lasagna. I
had a bowl of lasagna and waited for my flight.
We walked to the plane across the ramp at the small airport
to an Air Canada Canadian Regional Jet to fly to Whitehorse via Calgary and
Vancouver. I had a close connection at
both airports and was afraid my checked bag would not get to Whitehorse with
me. When I boarded the plane on the last
leg from Vancouver to Whitehorse I had a window seat and was able to watch the
baggage handlers load the plane, the last bag loaded was mine!
I landed at Whitehorse at 21:00 to a surprise, the sun was
bright and as I started down the ramp at the aircraft exit I was met by a
strong cold wind which blew my cap off back into the aircraft. The change in temperature between Yellowknife
and Whitehorse was remarkable considering that the both are near the same
latitude. It was 80˚F when I left Yellowknife and a
little below 50˚F at
Whitehorse. On my flight from LA to
Yellowknife I had carried a winter jacket which I found I did not need in
Yellowknife so I packed it in my checked bag on the flight to Whitehorse where
it turns out I could have used it at arrival.
The Whitehorse terminal was a lot larger than the one at
Yellowknife including Customs and Immigration booths for International arrivals
and two baggage carousels. There are
flights from Germany to Whitehorse in addition to flights from the US. Outside the terminal were shuttle buses with
a list of the hotels they served for a $10 fare. My hotel (Canadas Best Value Inn) was
serviced by Marie, a very friendly and talkative middle aged lady will blond
curly hair.
The airport was on a plateau 2,000 feet above the city. On the drive down to the city the divided
highway could bypass the city or take a turn into the city. At that turn was a nasty accident so our
driver had to drive past and cut through a parking lot to get back on the road
to the city. We speculated when we
turned towards the city and was greeted by a very bright sun (it was now 21:30)
that one of the drivers in the accident was probably blinded by the sun.
My hotel was centrally located overlooking the Yukon River
and the Waterfront Trolley barn and across the street from the MacBride
Historical Museum. My room was large
with two double beds, a refrigerator and a microwave. On the drive to the hotel I noticed that the
city was decorated and laid out for the tourist trade, a stark change from
Yellowknife. A number of the major fast food
chains lined the streets and many of the buildings had false fronts and were
styled in the old western frontier style.
There were a number of lots with signs for RV parking. This was a tourist town as opposed to
Yellowknife.
Friday morning I discovered that the Inn’s restaurant did
not serve breakfast so I started out walking to the Visitor Center four blocks
away. Along the way I found a restaurant
that was opened and I had breakfast.
At the Visitor Center I found that Marie was on duty. She helped me plan my day’s activities. First I watched a film at the center on the
history of the city.
Whitehorse got its name from the Yukon River rapids named
the White Rapids. Someone remarked that
the rapids looked like a herd of white horses.
There is even a painting of the scene with each bubbling white rapid
painted to look like a horse head. The
area of the city first built up during the Gold Rush days in the 1890s when an
estimated over 100,000 people “rushed” to stake claims to mine gold in the Klondike.
The route most of the prospector’s took was to come across
the mountains via Chilkoot Pass to Canyon City and travel down the Yukon by
boat to Dawson. The traffic for people
and supplies was so great that a narrow-gauge railway connecting Skagway, at
tidewater, with White Horse a site across the river from Canyon City at the
head of navigation on the Yukon River. After
completion of the railway Canyon City’s buildings were moved across the river
to expand the city renamed Whitehorse.
For over forty years Whitehorse thrived as the transfer
point shipping goods between the river boats and the railway. Then during World War II the US Army arrived
and built the Alaska Highway to Fairbanks, Alaska. With the capability of moving goods more
efficiently by trucks the river boats ceased operation. In 1966 the S.S. Klondike was moved from the
old shipyards to become a national historic site.
So, my first stop after leaving the Visitor Center was the
S.S. Klondike. I bought a ticket for the
11:00 tour and had thirty minutes to kill and discovered that there was a
twenty minute film on the river boat history in a tent near the boat. It was very informative and assisted in my
understanding of the operation and what the tour of the boat guide to me later
on.
One of the most interesting parts of the film was the
discussion on how three boats were initially stored in the Whitehorse Shipyard
after the service was discontinued in 1955 and a later a decision was made to
make the S.S Yukon a Canadian Historic Site and move it to a spot next to the
Rotary Peace Park at the South end of the city.
There was one big problem; a bridge had been constructed crossing the
river so the boat was dragged down Second Avenue using gallons of slightly wet
Palmolive Soap to lessen the friction on the street to the site just south of
the bridge.
On the boat tour I was joined by a number of Americans from
a Holland America Alaska & The Yukon Cruise Tour. We also met several others from Holland
America on the tour in front and in back of us as the tours overlap on the
boat.
It was interesting to see the difference between the First
Class and Second Class accommodations on the boat First Class had individual cabins with a sink
and chamber pot (there was only one head and bathtub for each side of six
cabins), linen table cloths on the dining room tables and an observation lounge
under the wheelhouse. Second class was
given folding cots to set up between the cargo on the same deck with the logs
for fuel and the boiler for the steam generation. Both classes could lounge on the sun deck –
an open area behind the kitchen. In the
very aft of the sun deck was the meat locker with screen opening so the mist
from the paddle wheel would drift over the meat and keep it cool.
I liked the method used when a boat ran aground. They reversed the stern paddle wheel and
hoped it would draw the sand and silt out so the boat could back off. If that didn’t work they lowered the two
large poles in front of the boat (I always wondered what they were used for)
and using rope pulleys would lift the boat off the ground and “walk” it back a
few feet at a time to the open channel.
(We could have used that method when the Advantage Tours group I was
with ran aground in Guinea Bissau last fall.)
From the S.S. Klondike I walked across the river to the
Millennium Trail, a 5 km loop along the Yukon River from the S.S. Yukon on the
East and then returning on the West side of the river. The walk on the East side is through trees
along the river and I passed a large number of trees chewed down by
beavers. There was a large pile of down
trees in one spot that looks like the beavers want to dam the Yukon River
across from the S.S. Yukon. At the midpoint
I took a short detour to visit the Fish Ladder.
No fish were jumping up the ladder but it was interesting to see the
structure and read about how it works.
After crossing the Rotary Centennial Bridge the trail paralleled the
highway into the city from the South which led me to the “Welcome to
Whitehorse” sign which I wanted to take my picture beside and post it on
Facebook. I took several pictures with
my cell phone’s reverse camera feature and then had a couple of passer-byes took
some with my Sony camera.
Back in the city it was time for lunch so I headed to
another highly recommend lunch stops – Lil’s Place 50’s Diner & Soda
Fountain, for a Fish and Chips lunch. On
the way I passed a monument of Jack London who had camped in the area on his
way to Dawson City. Lil’s Place brought
back memories of my college summers when I worked at ‘The Ice Cream Parlor’ in
Westport, CT and had to wear a false mustache and 1890’s era bow tie, white
shirt with rolled up sleeves fastened with a garter belt and a red striped
vest. On the wall in Lil’s were
paintings of 1950 celebrities: Elvis, Brando, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe to whom
I once served an ice cream cone when she rode in on the back of photographer
Milton Greene’s motorcycle.
It was a delicious meal, with the halibut deep fried in
British style and much different than the fish and chips I had at Bullocks
Bistro in Yellowknife. Of course I had
to finish off the meal with a chocolate shake.
After lunch I walked to the Old Log Church museum, then past
the Log Sky Scrapper. Rarely were log
cabins more than one story. The Log Sky
Scrapper was three stories, each story an individual cabin accessed by stairs
from the outside, not just a second and third story of one cabin. Anyway it is considered a tourist point of
interest in the city. There was also a
two story building of two individual log cabins one on top of the other next to
the “Log Sky Scrapper”.
From the log cabins I walked to the old White Pass Train
Depot with plaques describing the history of the railroad and the impact it had
on the creation of the city of Whitehorse.
Across from my Inn was the MacBride Museum which I
visited. It contained displays, scenes,
stuffed animals and vehicles documenting and describing the history of the
Yukon. It was very informative and
impressive. A must visit for anyone
visiting Whitehorse.
After the museum tour I walked north of town in search of a
grocery store to purchase an orange for my breakfast in the morning. The downtown city is only 18 blocks north to
south and 9 blocks East to West. In
addition to the 5 km loop I ended up walking the 18 blocks more than once and
when it was diner time I ate ant another highly recommended restaurant:
’Klondike Rib & Salmon BBQ’. There
was a wait for a table and I met a couple from LA also waiting. He used to work at the Canoga Park Rocketdyne
plant just a couple of miles from my house. I had a very delicious salmon with orange
sauce diner.
It had been a day with a lot of walking so I retired early.
Saturday morning I had breakfast in my room with a breakfast
drink and one of the large California oranges I had purchased the day before. My plan for the day was to visit two museums
near the airport. I just missed catching
the city bus to the airport that ran every hour so I had to take a cab for $22.50
but it was worth the trip.
I initially visited the Yukon Transportation Museum. In front of the Museum was a C-47 on a
pedestal which allowed it to rotate into the wind. It was very clever and something I had not seen
before in the hundreds of aircraft displays I have seen all over the world.
Inside, the museum was divided into rooms and displays for
the: Alaska Highway equipment and descriptions, the Overland Trail up the Yukon
with a thirty minute movie, Dog Sledding, a diorama and description of the
Chilkoot Trail, a passenger car from the old train with a diorama of how
Whitehorse looked during the height of train and river boat service, and my
favorite, a Bush Pilot Room with lots of pictures and descriptions of the
growth of aviation in the Yukon.
It was 13:00 when I exited the museum. I had asked the staff at the door if there
was a place in walking distance where I could get lunch. They told me I had to return to the downtown
area. This annoyed me since the airport
terminal was next door and two motels were across the street which I figured
most likely one would or more would have a place to buy lunch. When I left the building there was several
tables set up and a man was spreading out food for sandwiches. I asked him if he could sell me a sandwich and
he told me he was a tour guide from Vancouver and his party was still in the
museum and there was more than enough food for the group and he invited me to
make a sandwich and have a cup of coke. I took him up on his offer and had a
chicken sandwich and drink. His group
arrived and he introduced me to one the one American who was from Missoula,
MT. We had a nice conversation about Montana
and I told him of our planned family reunion in Bozeman this summer.
After lunch with these friendly folks I walked next door to
the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, past a statue of a Wooly Monmouth. I have to be honest – I had never heard of
Beringia so the Interpretive Centre was an education. For those that don’t know Beringia, the term
was first coined by the Swedish botanist Eric Hultén in 1937. It is the name for the Bering Sea land bridge
which joined Alaska and eastern Siberia. It was a land of ice, giant mammals and the
First People of North America. During each
Ice Age, vast glaciers formed in the Northern Hemisphere, locking up much of
the world's water as ice. Global sea levels dropped as much as 100 - 150 meters
as a result, revealing the floor of the Bering Sea and creating a land
connection between Alaska and Siberia.
This land bridge was part of a larger unglaciated area called Beringia. Glaciers never formed in Beringia because the
climate was too dry. Beringia, clothed in the hardy grasses and herbs of the
mammoth steppe, was home to the giants of the Ice Age: the mammoth, the giant
short-faced bear, the steppe bison, and the scimitar cat. At the height of the last great Ice Age, the
most successful hunters of all, human beings, entered Beringia from the
Siberian steppes, conquering the last frontier for the human species. Beringia vanished with the end of the last
Ice Age. But parts of this lost land can
still be found in northern and central Yukon, Alaska and Siberia.
The Interpretive Centre provided information which included
interactive multi-media presentations, murals and dioramas which depict the
Beringia landscape, flora and fauna. The Centre also featured several films
which I found fascinating; original works of art, and exhibits of discovered
remains from throughout the Yukon. For
me the experience was a real education, especially the reason why the area was
not covered during the ice age. I had
always wondered why people would migrate across the Bearing area if it was
covered by ice all year round and now I understand that glaciers never formed
in the area.
After my tour of the museum I walked to the Airport Bus
stop. Along the way I was able to take a
cell phone picture of myself next to the airport sign. Waiting for the bus in a semi enclosed bus
stop I read a week old paper and discovered that due to funding cuts tour
guides at the S.S. Yukon would not be funded after July 1st. It is a shame because the guide gave us facts
and information I could not have learned on a self-directed tour.
The bus driver into the city was very friendly and we had a
nice chat. I returned to my room, wrote
in my journal and visited a Mexican Restaurant for diner. The return flight back to LAX via Calgary was
scheduled for 06:20, so I went to bed early.
On Sunday the flights to LAX went off as scheduled and I was
home and in my pool by 15:00.
In retrospect this was a trip on my bucket list for a long
time and it far exceeded my expectations.
Yellowknife is a vibrant young (younger than I am) city off the beaten
path. It is the end of the paved highway
north of Alberta. From there you have to
fly to the fishing and hunting camps to the north in the Northwest
Territory. On the other hand Whitehorse
is an older, historical transportation hub that traffic passes through going
north or south. It is geared for the
tourist trade but has several fine historical museums documenting the Klondike
and Yukon history back to the Ice Age. I
learned many new things in both cities and recommend that they are worthy of
your time to visit.
