Whitehorse, the Wilderness City: a Mt. McIntyre outing
Living in Whitehorse has a lot of pluses. Especially when you have secluded acreage 15 minutes from downtown. Not only do you have pretty well ever service you need close at hand, the wilderness is literally at your back door. On Saturday afternoon the Fall colours on Golden Horn...
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An evening walk at the Whitehorse airport
Cathy and I are fairly good about geting out for a walk with the dogs at least once a day. Just short ones, a loop around the property, but it’s something. When we lived in town we used to go to the airport for our walks quite often, and...
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Whales, glaciers & alpine flowers in Juneau
Even though I didn’t get to bed until well after midnight on Monday night, I was up at 04:30 this morning. My subconscious mind must have received a message about how beautiful the morning was. This photo was shot in Stephens Passage just north of the mouth of Tracy...
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Exploring Yukon History: Windy Arm
A couple of days ago, history-hunter Michael Gates called me to ask permission to use a couple of photos I took of a Klondike-era grave in a presentation. That spurred the thought that I should update my photos, as my last visit to the site was in 2003 –...
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A railway history day at Myra Canyon, BC
One of the highlights of the Okanagan Valley for anyone with an interest in history has to be the Myra Canyon section of the former Kettle Valley Railway. Now a hiking and biking trail, this 12-kilometer section of the rail line has 18 trestles and 2 tunnels, and the...
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Map typo remains after 25 years
I just picked up 1:50,000 topographical maps of the Canadian part of the Chilkoot Trail, and found a major typo on a map that was printed in 1984 and corrected in 1999 (104M/14). Not only is the park not “Childkoot”, Parks Canada says that it shouldn’t even be “Park”...
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A higher exploration of the historic Venus silver mine
Back in the mid-1990s when I was researching the history of the mines around Carcross, I knew of the existence of a cabin that was built high above Windy Arm in 1901, but in my dozens of exploratory hikes I never did get to that site. Over the years...
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Doing “The Chief” – hiking the Stawamus Chief
The heart of my day today was spent hiking the Stawamus Chief at Squamish for the first time since 1970 or ’71. I just went to the First Peak this time – that’s a 1.5-kilometre trail with an elevation gain of 500 metres. It’s a steep trail – very...
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Exploring the Whistler area
Yesterday was a combination of exploring Whistler Village on foot, and driving down Howe Sound to see some of the attractions. The first photo was shot near the gondolas, and is very much a typical Whistler scene. Cathy and I are really enjoying this place – it’s a wonderful...
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Exploring Montana Mountain, Yukon
Sunday was proof to me that sometimes you can go back in time. For 4 summers I practically lived on Montana Mountain, as I did the research for my first book. A lot has happened since then – my life is very different, and the mountain has played an...
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