Last weekend Maya, Martina, myself and about 1/2 of Whitehorse took off to Haines, Alaska, for the 17th Annual Great Alaska Craft Beer and Homebrew Festival. Yes, I went to the USA for the beer, which was outstanding, even after many tastes (the Haines Brewery Spruce Tip actually uses spruce tips in the brewing and it is the finest beer I have ever tasted). The festival was held at the fair grounds, which also happened to be the set for the movie White Fang. Amidst the revelling in beer was first a band that sounded like it came from the Kootenays and then a bluegrass band. Adults in overalls where out in full force. The police where there but only to keep an eye on girls passed out in the sun...I'm surprised they didn't stand so as to make shade for them they were so nice.

Our trip over was great. Spotted 3 grizzly bears by the road and saw Kluane National Park for the first time, it looks absolutely stunning. The Haines Junction, YT to Haines, Alaska, is probably one of the finest drives. There were a lot of superlatives and explicit language as well as some sheer silence to describe the views. Shortly after arriving at the summit, we dropped down into coastal forest and came to a screech at the border (who puts a boarder crossing station on a steep hill??). We were greeted by none other than a fine Mr. Allgood. Yes, it was his name and I am sure that he got drafted by the border service to work at that particular crossing based on his perfect name. After confirming that we did not have any ivory or firearms (I accidently lied about some apples and eggs for no apparent reason), we were in the USA, my first trip since I lifted my self-imposed travel ban when GWBush got re-elected. A few kilometers past the border was my favorite sort of business, the "Food Gas Beer" establishment, but we had just eaten at the Frosty Freeze in Haines Juction so rolled past.

Haines sits at the mouth of the Chilkat River at the end of the Lynn Canal, close to Skagway. They throw down not only a great beer festival but also a Hammer Museum, a great shop called the Mountain Market and a tiny Mexican restaurant. We found that nothing in Haines was easy to find...a restaurant here, campground there...but it made for great exploration (especially on tired hungry bellies).

On the way home from Haines, Maya and I stopped just inside BC to go for a hike off the road. Looked easy enough, just up to a nice ridge to see what we could see. Well, after a few hours of slogging through ankle/knee/waist deep snow we decided that maybe we'd come back later in the summer and brave the bears instead. The views were amazing though and it was a great day out in the sun beating the willow, crossing creeks, kicking steps into snow and looking at rocks and ice.

We also stopped at Million Dollar Falls to see if it really was worthy of its name. It is a pretty stunning waterfall with some exellent trail crew boardwalk installation and a really nice campground (for the Alaska-Yukon RV season).

For Fun

Whitehorse is an incredible city, and the North is an incredible place.

Now, I've only been here for less than 10 days, but have been able to check out a few things and make a few observations.

First of all, anybody you ever knew who now lives in Whitehorse will instantly renew a friendship and share their friends. The connections here are unreal as there are lots of transplants and newbies here. I'm not sure what the term is for somebody who lives in Whitehorse, but I would just call them "nice people". Within a few days of being here, I went to a potluck with Alison who I met while she was at the College in Golden. It was like Golden except that the hostesses mother, from Vancouver Island, smuggled a frozen chicken on the plane for dinner, which reminded me of how far food travels to get to the table up here. Unless of course it's fish, game or berries, much of which is not in season right now.
The recreation possibilities are virtually endless and I am looking forward to my upcoming weekend of "100 mile recreation", kind of like the 100 mile diet. As I have been driving so much lately I thought it prudent to reduce the footprint and stay within 100 miles of Whitehorse. Which means I could go birdwatching, hiking, biking, fishing, running, canoeing, swimming, or possibly grizzly bear wrestling. There is a beautiful trail along the river that connects the downtown (and the S.S. Klondike!) with the campground and the fish ladder (have to go check that out too) at the other end of town. Lots of trails around town to check out as well.
There is a serious arts scene here as well. Lunch time concerts (free) in a little park a few blocks from the office. Lots of galleries. Pottery studio for $5/hr that I will check out on Sunday. Buildings that double as works of art (CBC North is the pinkest pink I've ever seen). I await the cancan dancers this summer. And the festival season! As well as the tourist season.
As part of the environment forum last week, I also attended an evening presentation with a local artist, Marten Berkman and he spoke about the question of whether art can really move people to be connected to place. If a photograph in a boardroom can make people who make decisions about the land actually care about it. It's certainly a good question and one that I'm not sure has an answer.
There are tonnes of good food options here, my favorite thus far being a little cafe called Baked which is right downtown (well, everything is right downtown, really). There are rumors around town that a little brewpub is supposed to open soon, but I don't really know. One of the weird things about the Yukon is that in order to have a liquor license you need to have a hotel. So there are really no standalone bars (no Taps, that's for sure). I guess it's to keep those rowdy goldminers on the downlow when they roll in to town?? If anybody can explain this one, please post in the comments!

At any rate, the bottom line is that there are lots of fun things to do in lots of pretty spots here and it's exciting to be in a brand new place to explore!

The first week has flown by. And it seems that may have a lot to say...so I will break this into a few posts.

WORK (or, why I came to the Yukon).
The Yukon River Inter-tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC) has an office in downtown Whitehorse, which is where I live and work. It's a two bedroom apartment with the office in the living room and so I really do have a short commute! I will stay here until a new intern comes in July or until I find a place I really want to move in to.

Most days it's Maya (intern from UBC), Loni Jack (event co-ordinator from Atlin) and Albert our water quality guy around the office. Maya has an engineering background and is looking at mining, environmental assessments, reclaiming old mines and coal bed methane extraction mostly. I on the other hand am researching regulations in the YT to install a 5kW hydrokinetic turbine in the Yukon River. The YRITWC installed one last year in Ruby, Alaska and the company that built it is offering another for the Yukon side. It seems that inadvertantly I've become an IPP proponent in a way...it's interesting to see things from this side because it feels like I'm the one who is going to pull out my hair screaming "but all I want to do is put this little thing in the river...the fish will be fine!". And then I think about some of the places that I have fought for and about...and I start being happy for the regulations!

I am also working on creating a youth agenda for our upcoming Summit in August. We are going to have aboriginal youth from the watershed...hopefully one or two from each community. The program is going to focus on bringing them together (Loni told me that they are shy, especially the ones from the Northern Alaskan communities), and getting them out on the water and the land. I think it is going to be a great time and look forward to meeting delegates from the watershed. We had a meeting with one of the Cheifs (from Ta'an Kwach'an) and organizers from the other local First Nations (Kwanlin Dun) yesterday. I'm sure that this was the first time I've been part of planning an event that we discussed hunters as a key role in the event. Sounds like a wise way to feed 300 on the shores of Lake Labarge in August!

Last week Maya and I attended an environment forum put on by the Yukon Government. It was a good introduction to Whitehorse and the Yukon and what is going on up here in terms of community environmental problems. If you think that recycling is a costly and complicated affair in the South, I challenge you to go to Dawson City! Waste management in many Yukon towns mostly consists of burning garbage in a landfill. And electricity generation means diesel generators. But there are a lot of great initiatives and it's really interesting to see how things are working (or not) up here. Yukoners really care about their environment and that's why most of us are up here (tourists included), so it makes sense to take care of it. The final presenter of the day got us really excited about fishing some of the lakes around Whitehorse. I've got my flyrod and the ice is coming off the lakes!

Well that's a little bit about the work. Please follow the links to get a bigger picture of what is going on (and more pictures).

The next post will be about some of the fun I'm having...stay tuned.

The Drive

Martina and I rollled into the Yukon on Saturday evening. We decided to take the scenic route along the Stewart-Cassiar Highway up Western British Columbia.

We left Golden (after fueling up at Jita's of course) mid morning (no rush) and drove up to Jasper, still not sure which direction we were going. Realized that we should set the trip odometer about 50km outside Jasper...it now reads just over 2000km. After Jasper we headed west past Mt. Robson (couldn't see the peak) into "uncharted territory" as we called it, neither of us had been West past Valemount. We stopped for groceries in Prince George (ummm, like Golden but bigger) after I realized that my friend Gavin, being the friend he is and even though he was on the Sunshine Coast, would probably let us crash in his cabin in Telkwa. We rolled into Telkwa to meet Gavin's friendly landlord and crash in his place. I stole Dharma Bums (hey, I needed a novel really badly) and on the landlord's recommendations headed into Smithers for coffee and baked goods. Martina and I had been using the baseline of having all our student loans paid off to measure if we would live and work in a town along the route for one year...Burns Lake, Fraser Lake, PG, Vanderhoof and decided that we would live in Smithers for much less. The rest of the towns...well, we'd have to see them in the sun perhaps.

We got to the intersection of the Cassiar Highway, decided that 3/4 of a tank of gas would last us well to the next gas station and saw our first real Alaskan trucker. Took some photos and North we finally went. In the next few hours I would learn the meaning of "remote highway". There are a few dots on the map that looked to be the same size sort of dots as Golden. Apparently Golden is practically a city in comparison to most of Northern BC/Yukon. Driving along in a tiny car with amazing gas milage (the road is in great shape by the way...most of it that is, just a few gravel sections), I thought that we would be able to go down to about half a tank before filling. Not the case...even in a fuel efficient Yaris we learned to stop and fill the tank every chance we got! May long weekend may be the craziest time for tourist businesses back home, but up here it was still deep in the early stages of spring and nothing much was going on. Bell II was a life saver and I have never been so happy for a cup of Folgers.

We ran into few other vehicles along the way, the odd truck and camper or some sort of highway or gov't official. I think we saw more wildlife than cars come to think of it. And lots of trees...and lots of logging. Now what really puzzled me is the blocks from the 80's that were clearly cedar/hemlock that are full of pine...but that's another rant for another time. Way up into Nisgaa territory we went, crossing the Nass river. A lot of the big rivers who's names I've read and Parks that I have heard about were right there in front of us...with nobody around.

I stared wild eyed up to the Spatsizi Plateau from the Stikine River...crossed the Bulkley, Liard, Fraser and Nass rivers along the way. This is a wild place we call home...and it's hard to comprehend the enormity and the incredible diversity of the landscape.

Dease Lake was our next stop...my first grocery store in the North. Next time I hear somebody tell me that food is expensive in the Columbia Valley because of transport I think I will send them on a trip to check out Dease Lake, because it wasn't so different and there is no fast way in and out of this tiny community. Dease Lake to Watson Lake offered little more than signs for a few mines and some old mines alongside the road and a few odd cabins for human civilization. However, I did see my most exciting wildlife sighting (well besides the ponies back near the Stikine crossing, random!). My first CARIBOU! Big guy, loping across the road and into the bush. We'd see many more...mom with babies and a few more solitary beasts. Martina laughed as I yelled and stopped to take a picture singing "cari-boooo, cari-boooo, it's a cariboooooooouuuuuu". Yeah, kind of excited.

We crossed into the Yukon just south of the Alaska Highway. Stopped to wave goodbye to BC (well, we crossed back over after Watson Lake for a short time) and took pictures in front of the Yukon sign, and the caribou tracks as big as my foot.

Saturday night we got to Watson Lake and decided that we didn't want to tent afterall. Couple of princesses. We stayed at the old Air Force Lodge and enjoyed a hot shower and soft bed. Not a bad idea as we woke to snow and freezing temps in the morning. Had a breakfast (Elise, the Hollindaise sauce would have made you cry, it was so bad. I should have known better...thus ends my no holds barred affair with eggs benny).

With less than 500 km to Whitehorse and a slightly early arrival than we had planned, we drove off to meet some friends of Martina's just outside of Whitehorse, near Marsh Lake (which will mean nothing to most of you!). The instructions were: turn left after the blue bridge over the Yukon River and drive down the dirt road for about 5km, I will call you around 4pm to see where you are and pick you up with an ATV for the rest of the road. Did I mention we are in the Yukon? Sure enough, we found the road and waited for the call. In a little while, Jean-Fred rolled down with an ATV and trailer and we loaded our camping gear up (and myself) into the ATV for a 7km ride to a little cabin by a little lake (oh, the lakes are still iced over up here). Jean-Fred and his friend are working for a couple setting up a guiding busines, and they live in a teepee by the lake...we crashed at their place for the night in our tent. A friendly couple with a little baby and grandparents visiting, we had dinner and then sat around a fire waiting for it to get dark. I went to bed finally but I'm not sure if it ever got dark...it's only May and already the sun stays up until almost midnight!

In the morning (today) after my feet felt as if they were going to freeze off, we got up and packed up camp, said goodbye and headed into town. We arrived in Whitehorse under a cloudless blue sky in time for lunch at the Baked Cafe in downtown Whitehorse. Finally some delicious food that I didn't eat out of our shared bowl in the car! We found our "homes" for the next while and took a few hours break from each other.

My temporary home is a room in the office I work in, which is basically in a two room apartment. We have a balcony where I can look out to the airport and enjoy the late sun. It's only a few blocks from downtown and the river. I'll be looking for a real home that has a couch instead of office chairs and computers. Other than living and working in the same place, it's really nice and happy I have a home for now!

Martina and I met up and went for my first beer since we hit the road (it's been a long time...for me at least). A guy a table over looked over at us about 2 minutes into the beer and asked where we were from. I sarcastically remarked, from here, why? can't you tell? Which he reminded me that everyone in Whitehorse knows everyone and the new kids in town are pretty obvious. And that Yukoners are a friendly lot...which is pretty much all I've heard and all I've seen so far.

We hit the Superstore to stock up on food (again, cheaper than I ever imagined) and now I am working in the office/living room to update you all on this little adventure so far.

The stats for the drive (I'll have to get the fuel amount/price from Martina)...

7 caribou

6 black bear

7 horses (on the road...)

1 hawk owl (yes, I do bird and drive)

2 elk

lots of deer

0 moose

0 grizzly bear

1 CBC Between the Covers 30 episode broadcast of The Book of Negros by Lawrence Hill

1 stolen Dharma Bums

1 night in Telkwa BC

5 major highways (Hwy 1, 93N, 16, 37, Alaska Hwy)

1 night in a tent

1 Elvis impersonator by the side of the road

0 room for hitchhikers

4 Americano's (only 2 outside of Golden!!!)

1 bowl for breakfast, lunch and dinner between the two of us

1 viewing of a quad being loaded into the back of a Ford Aerostar van (McBride to Prince George)

Well, that is more than most people will want to read...but I'm sure as I get settled the updates will be shorter and fewer!

Welcome to my journey North!
I've spent the last few weeks in B.C., visiting law firms and public interest law organizations in Vancouver, visiting family and friends in Golden, Nelson and New Denver and working on the campaign to re-elect Norm Macdonald in Kimberley. The time has flown by and suddenly I am facing the prospect of a looonnnnggg drive to a part of the country I've never been to.

What is this summer (and this blog) all about?
An internship adventure in the wilds of Northern Canada!

First things first, way back in the early winter I applied for an internship with Canadian Lawyers Abroad. There were placements all over the world. The one that I thought looked like it was most interesting to me and that I would be able to share some of my experience with was the Yukon River Intertribal Watershed Council. I was accepted to my first choice and so began this journey.
I realized that as great an experience as I hope to have, working for free was going to be tough, especially when the tuition payment rolls around next fall. I set out applying for funding and appealing to my amazing family and friends for their support.
One of my applications was to the Parhad Programme Summer Studentship, through the University of Calgary Faculty of Social Work. I applied and waited and waited. In the thick of exams I had an interview with a really tough panel, that when I walked out I was sure I'd bombed. They emailed me back a little while later to say that I was successful and I had recieved a good contribution towards my living expenses and travel to Whitehorse. Score!
Previous to that I had also applied, along with my fellow intern from UBC, to the federal government's Summer Works funding program. It took until I was in Kimberley to find out that one of our positions was accepted for funding. This then meant that a further funding program through our Student's Union at the University of Calgary called SWEEP (Student Work Experience Enhancement Program) kicked in for me and I get to top up my wage to $15/hr.
In addition, family and friends really stepped up and generously contributed cash as well.
The reason I share this story is that it really shows that doing what you think is right and what you really want to do can work out. It does take hard work and I'm sure that my final grades reflect the time I spent writing applications, going to interviews and corresponding with these funding sources. But in the end, it means that I get to carry out important work, in an amazing place, with and for incredible people, and come out OK for myself. It also shows that the saying "where there is a will there is a way" is so true!

Friday, May 15th is the day that Martina (we were in highschool together a decade ago) and I head out of Golden on the long road north. I will be keeping this blog updated (as per funders requirements) and will get some photos up ASAP as well.

Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive and of course to all my funders!

Carmen