CITY DESTINATION: Whitehorse—Canada
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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