Date: November 27, 2005 - Kilometers Traveled: 0 Weather: -13 degrees and cloudy

Whitehorse is a pretty big small city. By that I mean that it has a relatively small population but covers a lot of area. Whitehorse has about half the population of, say, Mount Pearl in Newfoundland, but is at least twice as big. The other odd thing is that the downtown is physically removed from the rest of the town – by a substantial margin. The chief reason for this is the terrain, namely the hills that border all sides of the downtown. These things make it a bit of a unique town.

Prices here on some things are a little more expensive than in other places, but for the most part they are quite reasonable. I would estimate that most things are either about the same cost or between five and ten percents more. If you factor in the lack of sales tax (of course the GST is here, it seems to permeate every aspect of Canadians’ lives like a bad virus that just won’t seem to go away), then it’s a wash.

I always thought that the city would have been named for some native legend or be the English version of some native word, but not so. The Yukon River runs right through the downtown of Whitehorse. During the gold rush, prospectors and settlers used the Yukon River to ferry supplies and peopleto Dawson City, but the area of what is now Whitehorse had some pretty rough spots. These rapids, it was said, churned up the water creating bubbles and froth in enough quantity, and in the correct positions, to resemble the manes of white horses. Back then Dawson was the capital of the Yukon, but after the gold rush days were over, Whitehorse quickly grew as the major transportation and administrations centre. The capital city status was moved from Dawson to Whitehorse in1953. And those white flowing horse-mane rapids? They’re gone too now, the river long since having been dammed off upstream and a reservoir created to produce hydro electric power. The river now has a soft a gentle flow to it, not at all reminiscent of the impressive rapids that must have once existed.

Although not a large city, Whitehorse does seem to be a diverse one. I have encountered people from many areas of the Canada, and the world including French, German, British. One can hear a variety of accents at just about every turn. I think many of the “foreigners” are very much like ourselves, looking for adventure or something a little different from the every day minutia of life. I think Whitehorse is big enough that that adventure would be, at least partially, mitigated though, by modern conveniences and availability of goods and services. I guess moving from a place like London or Berlin or Paris to a city like Whitehorse is a good first step.

This is a Sunday, and Sunday’s are pretty quiet in Whitehorse. There’s not much Sunday shopping here, but the local Wal-Mart is open today.

It’s decision time for us. I start work in eight days and we more than a little anxious to get to Inuvik and get settled away. There are two main obstacles in our path right now. The main one, and the one that worries me the most, is that part of the Dempster Highway is closed due to high winds and blowing snow. Normally that wouldn’t be a big problem, because, back home the road would be opened in a day or two, and off we go. This section of the highway, however, has been closed for this reason for going on three weeks. I don’t know if the situation is as bad as they say, or if perhaps the government is trying to save some money by not having to clear snow if part of the road is closed anyway. As well, there has been an avalanche on another section of the highway that has yet to be cleared. The second obstacle is the readiness of the ice road. All indications are that the Arctic Red River ice crossing should be ready by now, but it is still listed as closed. And until that one is open, we aren’t going anywhere.

If we can’t drive to Inuvik, we wil have to leave the jeep in Whitehorse and fly up. That will be both expensive, and a pain in the ass since we will have to do without a vehicle for a while in Inuvik. We checked the airline and it sounds like it will cost us about a thousand dollars to fly to Inuvik from Whitehorse, one-way with the dog. Plus we will have to buy a kennel for the dog.

That leaves us in a position where I will have to fly back down some time in the future and drive the jeep up. That kind of screws up the last part of our adventure, but what are you going to do, right? I guess we will hang on for another day or two and see what happens.

Cheers!