Day 75 – June 17

We awoke to clear skies after a violent but short rainstorm in the middle of the night that sent us scrambling to close the large window next to our bed. Our last serviced spot was just out of the wifi range of the site and as it was very close to the Robert Service Way the traffic noise was a bit of a distraction so Diane checked if we could move sites and possibly be closer to Jane and Ike. As a number of RV’s had pulled out in the morning we got a site across from them that had a better wifi signal so we moved some of our stuff to the site and then headed into Whitehorse.

The first item on my list was to try and organize a fishing guide. When we last visited Whitehorse I had hired a local guide and wanted to see if he was still in the business. My e-mail inquiries from Halifax had remained unanswered. I went to a shop that Ike had recommended but they did not have any spots available for at least a week. They did recommend another guide and thought that my previous guide still might be working.

I needed to make some phone calls or get some Internet connection. Due to a concern of roaming charges I wanted to check if there would be roaming charges for my Bell phone. We saw the Northwest Tell building and went there to inquire. Unfortunately it was their operations building but there was a phone number on the door and a pay phone nearby so we called. When Diane identified that she was from Nova Scotia the operator, Pam said that she was from Cape Breton. Continuing on with the conversation Diane mentioned the great waitress that we had the night before who also was from Cape Breton. Can you believe it was Pam’s daughter and she had mentioned the crowd of Nova Scotians that she had served the night before. This is a small town.

Pam couldn’t answer our question so we continued walking around downtown. At one point I was sitting on a bench along a busy sidewalk when someone who looked familiar walked by. I hesitated at first but throwing caution to the wind I pursued them down the sidewalk and when I asked if his name was Steve and he said yes I knew that I had tracked down my old guide. Did I mention that this is a small town. Unfortunately Steve had retired from the business but he did recommend another guide.

After walking around downtown Whitehorse, in ever increasing winds, we headed to the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre. This is a beautiful building just about to celebrate its one year anniversary. As they were between major exhibitions we looked at some of the permanent displays and watched a video on the making of a ceremonial dug out canoe, a project undertaken to bring youth back in touch with their culture. It was a well done video and at one point during the process when a major crack split down the side of the canoe, it was clear from the looks on the faces of the youth workers what an investment they had in the project. Fixing the canoe became yet another life lesson for them. The conflicts of culture and the loss to some of their First Nations culture is very evident at times and a large display in the cultural centre memorializing the loss of lives of First Nations women was very poignant.

The canoe from the video was on display and Jason, a very soft spoken First Nations interpreter at the centre took us into the locked display building to show it to us. His quiet pride, not only in the canoe but in his culture and their creation story, was obvious, giving us the feeling that we were standing in a sacred space not a museum display. He made the those inanimate objects come to life with meaning for us.

Wolf and Crow

We returned to the campsite and while Diane did a laundry I made contact with the guide who lives on Lake Labarge, made famous world wide by Robert Services’ epic poem ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’. The earliest that he could take me out was on Thursday, longer than we had planned to stay in Whitehorse but as all plans are STC (subject to change) our plans changed.

Jane provided cold turkey and salad for supper and we supplied carrots, risotto and barbecued asparagus, making for a great meal. We had a chance to look at some of their pictures and got their advice on highlights of their trip to Alaska, which really whet our appetite for the next phase of our trip. Supper preparation and plans to eat outside were interrupted by a brief rainstorm so we retired to the BRT to dine before turning in for the night at a typically late hour. It will take a long time to get used to this midnight sun.