Yellowknife and Whitehorse travels

Some pix of my last trip to Yellowknife, before and after I went to Whitehorse. Old Town is on a peninsula that has plenty of sheltered spots for docks and house boats. The Air Tindi base is down there as well. Bullocks Pub – which apparently is used as a set for CBC’s Air North is down this way too – good Char there. Frame Lake is the body of water the museum and legislature is located by and is a backdrop for many of the outdoor activities in town. It is also the main attractant for the city’s homeless and or random party population – lots of evidence of impromptu camps in the brush.


The YK building, downtown is a non-descript brown most times, but late in the day it catches the evening light and reflects gold as an homage to the city’s history of resource extraction. The effect only lasts a short time and seems a questionable architectural effort. The mall that the YK Centre anchors is eerily empty with many of the store fronts empty – quite the departure from 7 years ago when I was there last and things were much more active. Even so, the downtown core is not entirely deserted and does have an active retail component. Though I do like the juxtaposition of the empty bench on an empty street corner in a busy city

Some images of my latest trip to Whitehorse in June. I was attending a conference at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre which is attached the library; nice building, interesting history on the treatment of the local First Nations. An amusing mini train operates along the river, shuttling people from one end of town to the other and frames the pathway and open spaces that also run along the river. The city is very walkable.

Town is a mélange of old buildings and new; and new buildings trying to look old (which is clearly a city ordinance of some sort). Whitehorse does have some great neon and a fairly active downtown core – due mainly to the preponderance of establishments catering to the fine art of sport drinking. Actually things seemed pretty in control for the most part with more of subdued merriment, all under the watchful eye of the RCMP. Just for interest sake I pushed the ISO heavily from some of these shots, just to see where I could get a look reminiscent of pushed Tri-X Pan film.

I went for a walk along Miles Canyon, lots of trails, looks to have some reasonable single track. Some of the basalt definitely has some worthy climbing potential – be fun to set up a bolted traverse for 3 or 4 pitches. I also went out to Lake LaBerge for a look around, as I was out that way for a conference event at Tahkini Hot Springs – fun place though don’t expect the caliber of hot springs amenities that you would find in Banff. While there seems to be active climbing community in Whitehorse, untapped rock abounds – lots of mix, limestone and plutonic rock, all within a short drive of town – on rather quite highways.

Like YK, Whitehorse does have its share of street people, one person would sit all day, and most of the night, in front of the hotel. It appeared that the bench situated for smokers was fertile ground for free cigarettes, so she seemed to spend a lot of time there.

Whitehorse has quite the different feel from YK, though they have numerous similarities being respective capital cities of the territories and hub centers for the region.