Rosie and The Operator have come full circle as we roll back into Whitehorse, the Gateway to the Yukon, after having started and now finished our epic 1650km road trip here, in this beautiful town.
When we first arrived in Whitehorse we arrived late and breezed out early the very next day, not spending any time here at all. Now, after completing our road trip, having journeyed along the remote Klondike Highway to Dawson City and visited the The Klondike Goldfields followed by a Great Night Out in Dawson . Traveled the Top of the World Highway to our overnight stop over in Beaver Creek and finished our drive on the truly beautifully and scenic Alaska Highway after a surprise snow fall, was just incredible. Now, we are kicking back for a couple of days, and just chilling in this town perched on the banks of the Yukon River for a bit of downtime and reflection at the end of our holiday coupled with venturing out, of course and exploring this town.
End of The Line on The Alaska Highway
Overnight Snowfall on The Alaska Highway
Whitehorse is the Capitol City of The Yukon Territory. This Territory/Province, is twice the size of New Zealand in land mass with a total of 41,000 people living in it in total, 31,000 of this number live in Whitehorse. Crazy to believe isn’t it, no matter how many times Rosie reads this stat, but you have seen it on our travels, there is a hell of a lot of pristine, empty, back country out there with no one, for hundreds of miles.
Top of The World Highway after the Fog Cleared
The Klondike Highway – One of Three Bridges Crossing The Yukon River
The town of Whitehorse was named after the close by White Horse River Rapids for their resemblance to the mane of a white horse and, keeping with the theme, this rearing, wild looking sculpture looking over the town from its hilltop is made out of donated scrap metal from the people of the Yukon. Not only is it a representation of the towns name, but also of the people who literally have helped shape it.
The Main Street Of Whitehorse is tidy and pretty, it maintains its frontier spirit of days gone by and revels in its gold rush heritage. During the rush Whitehorse was used as a stop off point for those prospectors travelling by the river, it became a bit of a bottleneck with the amount of people moving onward to the goldfields and a few on their way to find gold, discovered copper in the hills surrounding Whitehorse and stayed on to mine that instead.
Whitehorse changed completely when The White Pass and Yukon Railway was officially opened in 1900, this rail line linked the port of Skagway, Alaska with Whitehorse and for those who could afford a train ticket, this route was so much easier than braving the walk over the mountains of the Chilkoot Pass en route to the Klondike Goldfields. The train line also turned Whitehorse into a more permanent community and when the Alaska Highway was built in 1942, Whitehorse boomed, replacing Dawson City as the State Capitol in 1953.
Street Art showing the trek up The Chilcoot Pass out of Skagway to get to the Klondike Gold Fields
Whitehorse sits in The Yukon river valley and its dry climate is milder than alot of other Northern communities making it the warmest place in the Yukon, even though the winter temps in January are on average -19c. Winter days are shorter here and summer days have up to about 19 hours of daylight. On top of this, The Guinness Book of World Records has recorded that Whitehorse is the city with the least air pollution in the World! Now you know why a lot of folk move from Dawson to Whitehorse for the winter….
Street Art Showing the Paddle Boats on The Yukon in their Heyday
Whitehorse has an ingenious way to make a huge concrete alley wall look awesome and keep the area tidy. The art is also in the spirit of the town and quite apt. Rosie is now walking all of the alleyways behind the buildings and it has been quite surprising what she has found.
Sitting on the banks of the fast flowing Yukon River is the SS Klondike, she was one of 88 of these mighty river ships that used to ply the river between Whitehorse and Dawson City during the Gold Rush and right up until the road was built.
It was the quickest way between the towns, albeit the most expensive, taking 48 hours when the overland track took 4 days. Her last journey was in 1950, retired and rendered obsolete due to the opening of the highway linking the North. She sits in dry dock, as a museum, an epitaph of the the glory days.
Standing riverside the leaves are shining orange and yellow in the sun and the river is wide and fast. Would Rosie have chanced her life and worldly goods on a home made raft launched from here to get to the goldfields, probably, the river looks fairly tame here, Rosie can understand the folly after seeing what awaits up the river.
The riverside has a modern boardwalk and it was a pleasant stroll in the autumn sunshine a small library/free book exchange on the banks of the river caught Rosies eye and plenty of others were out strolling and enjoying the sunshine as well.
Now Whitehorse is still semi deemed ‘The Far North’ and even though the town does not strictly bask under the Midnight Sun, of which it is said has the tendency to make folks a little crazy, this town does have a couple of quirks. Take the DC10 weather vane for example. It does actually rotate in the wind, a full size aeroplane on a rotating spindle, you would think it would only move in a howling gale.
Also there is the Midnight Sun Emporiums unique guest book, made up of of strings of clothes pegs that loop from one side of the shop to the other…plus said the bored shop girl wearing an Indian headband with a feather sticking up from it, we have hundreds of more strings out the back that don’t fit in the shop.
Of course Rosie cannot forget Lola, hello Lola! She was wearing a wee puffer onesie with a hole cut in the back for her bum, her Mumma was very friendly and INSISTED that Rosie take a pic of her cute, wee girl as we slowly backed away smiling.
After eating out late at 9.30pm in Spain at the beginning of the year and also recently in Argentina Rosie loves it that dinner time here is early! Early even for Rosie! We have been heading out for dinner at 6.00pm and have had to wait for a table a couple of times because the restaurants are full! Plus in the photos, it looks like it’s summer in these bars…it’s 10c outside and 30c inside the shops and bars, everyone takes off their puffers, scarves and gloves and are wearing summer clothes underneath!
We loved our short stopover in Whitehorse at the end of our Yukon adventure before we flew back to Vancouver. Its not the most exciting town for sightseeing but its compact and pretty with great restaurants, bars, cafes and neat everyday shops to browse. It was literally a breath of fresh air and a relaxing pit stop before we move on.
Sadly, we say good goodbye to the wide open spaces of The Yukon. It was a brilliant road trip where we met may interesting people along the way. Some who have been in this part of the world for life and wouldn’t exchange it for anywhere else in the world. Some who have only planned on staying for a summer and years on, have never left. Some who are also wide eyed and excited about spending their first winter here…and Rosie nods sagely and believes it will not be their last. This part of the world has a strange effect on you and the peacefulness and empty tranquility seems to call you back. There are plenty of roads we have still to travel in this part of the world, who knows one day we too might return.
Actually, said The Operator, we have to return, we did not get to see the Aurora anywhere on our Yukon travels. We were too early. The locals were pulling out their phones and checking their aurora activity meter apps for us on the journey and lamented our unluckiness. Activity was low and the sky too overcast, best time the locals said is in January, if you can brave the cold they said with a wink.
