RESTAURANT DESTINATION: The Klondike Rib & Salmon in Whitehorse - Canada

RESTAURANT DESTINATION: The Klondike Rib & Salmon in Whitehorse—Canada  

By Jorge Jefferds July 11, 2015

The Halibut, as some people might know, are demersal fish that inhabit the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans. They are highly regarded food fish. They are dark brown on the top side with an off-white underbelly and possess very small scales invisible to the naked eye embedded in their skin.

Halibut

One of the famous restaurants in Whitehorse, which specializes in cooking this delicious fish, is the Klondike Rib & Salmon. The place is housed in the two oldest buildings still in use in the Yukon’s Capital. The dining room was originally opened as a tent frame bakery called MacMillan’s Bakery around 1900.

The Main Entrance

In 1929 the building was purchased by T.C. Richards and Willard Phelps. They called it “Klondike Airways” (as seen on the North side of the building) and it became a mail and freight business.  Even though, the partners hoped some day to buy a plane as a means of transporting freight and mail, they never did. Using snowmobiles and caterpillars, the company carried about 110 000 lbs of mail to Dawson City each year. Before 1921 only first class mail was delivered in the winter. The rest of the mail waited in Whitehorse for the ice to break up and the steamers to sail. This usually happened sometime in May.

In the 1930's, the building was used by Jack French as a carpentry shop; and coffins were constructed for a mortuary in downtown Whitehorse. Thankfully that business ‘died’ and today this quaint little “Northern Klondike Theme Restaurant” came to provide the most delicious salmon, halibut, and rib of the area.

Rib and Salmon

The specialties are Northern Foods, such as Fresh Northern Ocean Fish, smoked meats, wild game meats, home-made breads and desserts. They use only the freshest and highest quality of available ingredients. The chef smokes meats in their own smokehouse, to achieve the delicious unique flavors the menu provides. Every item on the menu is prepared with delicacy.

The restaurant is small, but the reputation is big. The operating summer hours are Monday - Friday at 11am, Saturday - Sunday at 4 pm.

If you are spending any amount of time in Whitehorse, this is definitely a spot to put on your must eat at list. They cook the best salmon and ribs in Whitehorse. The barbeque sauce tastes delicious and the ribs just fall right off the bone. Be prepared for the possibility of a long line-up because of the popularity of the place, but the food is definitely worth the wait.

Price is average, but there isn’t much seating. With luck you won’t have to wait long. 

The Restaurant Interiors

Recommended by tour hosts, they are so far correct in all of the suggestions. The Salmon Kebobs is amazingly well prepared and the ribs meet high standards. Servers work as hard and fast as they can for how busy it is. The halibut seems amazing also. And the crab cake appetizer is delicious as well.

Whitehorse with its magic moments, all rolled up with a beautiful summers eve stroll to savor the fare of Klondike BBQ. The building is inviting and so is all that is heard about the food, and you won’t be disappointed at any level.
Stepping inside takes one back in time to the feel and look of a miner’s camp, filled with people after a hard day’s work of sluicing for the gold in those isolated places that were scattered all over the Yukon.
Seating is banquet style and hanging from the ceiling and adorning the walls are things that make the building a veritable museum. There is a lot to fuel the imagination and then one looks at the menu.
What about trying 2 pounds of fall off the bone ribs, Wild Bison Steak, Reindeer Stew or Wild Elk Stroganoff? 

The Elk Stroganoff

Those are just four of the incredible and eclectic mix of fare to satisfy any discerning palate.
Try the 11-ounce Prime Rib that is slowly cooked all day and seared just before serving. Accompanied with garlic mashed potatoes, vegetables and a huge piece of corn bread, there is enough for any hungry appetite. Taken with a very nice house red wine and finished off with blueberry pie and ice cream, this dinner can be really perfect.
So is the service and attention of all the staff. Animated in discussion and professional in their service, they would put to shame the service in some of the best restaurants below 50 degrees North Latitude.
For those with a frown on the brow, 50 degrees North Latitude is the division between the Yukon Territory and the province of British Columbia.
If you are in Whitehorse, Klondike Rib & Salmon is well worth the short walk from anywhere in town. 

CITY DESTINATION: Whitehorse - Canada

CITY DESTINATION: Whitehorse—Canada  

By Jorge Jefferds July 2, 2015

Welcome to Whitehorse, Canada’s Wilderness City, and the Yukon’s capital. Few cities in the world offer such rich access to pristine wilderness, yet still provide all the amenities of a modern metropolis. Hugged by the banks of the Yukon River and surrounded by the peaks of Grey Mountain, Haeckel Hill, and Golden Horn Mountain, Whitehorse is the Yukon’s most cosmopolitan community, but the easy access to trails, rivers, lakes and mountains are what will make your trip memorable.

Whitehorse Aerial View

Whitehorse is home to a bustling community of 25,000 people, many of whom are young, active, and adventurous. Talk to locals and you’ll be surprised how many of them grew up in Whitehorse, spent a few years “outside,” and returned to live, work, or raise families. You’ll also meet plenty of people who grew up in the metropolises of further south and spent summers in the Yukon, only to return year after year. Be careful, because once you’ve seen the city, you might just decide to stay!
Therefore, locals will be glad if you take the time to come here.  Although Whitehorse is easily accessible by plane, RV, car, or cruise ship, surely you will come to the North incited by the same sense of adventure that gold-seekers experienced. They traveled down the Yukon River and crossed the White Horse rapids from which Whitehorse got its name.
There are several things you can do, while you decide to spend your getaways here.

Emerald Lake

Emerald lake. - This lake in the southern Yukon is notable for its intense green color. It is located on the South Klondike Highway at kilometer 117.5 (mile 73.5), measured from Skagway, Alaska. The color derives from light reflecting off white deposits of marl, a mixture of clay and calcium carbonate, at the bottom of the shallow waters. The high concentration of calcium carbonate in the water here comes from limestone gravels eroded from the nearby mountains and deposited here 14,000 years ago by the glaciers of the last ice age. Glacial erosion was likewise responsible for scooping out the shallow lakebed. Hypoxic conditions during the summer may contribute to carbonate deposition and marl formation.

Miles Canyon

Miles Canyon. - The Miles Canyon Basalts represent a package of rocks that include various exposures of basaltic lava flows and cones. This sediment erupted and flowed across an ancient pre-glacial landscape in south-central Yukon. The volcanic rocks are best exposed and most easily accessible at the Miles Canyon location where the Yukon River cuts through a succession of flows south of Whitehorse. In the spring, good exposures can also be seen immediately downstream from the Yukon River hydro dam in Whitehorse which was built to extract energy from the cataracts that were the White Horse Rapids. These rapids and the Miles Canyon provided a significant challenge to gold-seekers heading to the Klondike Gold Rush, and also established the upstream terminus for paddle-wheel river boats. This way, the Miles Canyon Basalts became the reason for the establishment of the town site of Closeleigh, eventually the City of Whitehorse.

The S.S. Klondike

The S.S. Klondike. - For the first half of the twentieth century, the sternwheelers of the British Yukon Navigation Company plied the upper Yukon River between Whitehorse and Dawson City. The S.S. Klondike was the largest of the fleet. Sitting proudly on the banks of the Yukon River in Whitehorse, the famous ship has been meticulously restored and refurnished, paying tribute to an era before roads; certainly, when riverboats and rail linked the Yukon to the outside world.

The Yukon Brewing

Yukon Brewing Company. - Yukon Brewing opened its doors in 1997 under the name Chilkoot Brewing Co. Ltd. Owners Alan and Bob conceived their idea like many Yukon babies – around a campfire on a canoe trip. Both Ontario natives, they’ve lived and worked in the territory for a good deal of their adult lives. From that inaugural conversation grew plans for a craft brewery that would service the north with quality beer while keeping jobs and money in the area. Over a decade later Yukon Brewing, as it is called today, continues to work towards that goal. Employing a dozen or so staff (more in the busy summer months), Yukon Brewing actively supports countless Yukon events and causes each year. Bob and Alan continue as owners and chief operators, growing the company outside the Yukon. The brewery’s eight packaged beers are available across Alberta and BC with some even finding their way as far east as Quebec and at the Hannover Zoo in Germany.

The Bennett Beach

Bennett Beach. – This is not quite similar to the beach with the same name people usually visit in New York State. Actually, this is an abandoned town. Bennett Lake is a lake in the Province of British Columbia and Yukon Territory in northwestern Canada. It is just north of the border with the US state of Alaska, near the Alaskan port of Skagway. The narrow-gauge White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad connects the community of Bennett at the south end of the lake with Skagway further south and Whitehorse, Yukon on the north. It runs between Skagway and Fraser, British Columbia during the summer months. The abandoned town of Bennett, which is historically referred to as Lake Bennett or Bennett Lake, and the town of Carcross (Yukon) are on the shores of Bennett Lake. During the Klondike Gold Rush, Bennett Lake was where the gold-seekers who had crossed the Coast Mountains from Skagway or Dyea, carrying their goods over the Chilkoot Trail or the White Pass, purchased or built rafts to float down the Yukon River to the gold fields at Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. A large tent city sprang up on its shores, numbering in the thousands and offering all the services of a major city. In late May 1898, the North-West Mounted Police counted 778 boats under construction at Lindeman Lake (located a difficult portage above Bennett Lake), 850 in Bennett and the surrounding area, and another 198 at Caribou Crossing (now Carcross) and Tagish Lake to help transport thousands of goldfield-bound travelers. It was further estimated that another 1,200 boats were built in this land over the next few weeks.