Category: History

It’s funny how sometimes a subject or a person that hasn’t been in your life for quite a while will all of a sudden appear over and over in a short period. This past week, that subject was the White Pass & Yukon Route railway. It actually began with...

We continue to have a wonderful Fall (or Early Winter), and on Monday, with a fairly good weather forecast for both Whitehorse and Skagway, I decided to take a drive to Skagway. I was away from the house just before the 09:15 sunrise, expecting some good light on the...

I may be back home in the Yukon now, but my head is still in California 🙂 We spent Friday seeing more of Santa Barbara, with the main destination for the day being the historic Mission. Mission Santa Barbara was founded by Franciscan Padre Fermín Lasuén on December 4,...

Astoria was the port I was really looking forward to on this cruise on the Norwegian Sun I may have passed through briefly during a drive a few decades ago, but had never had a good look at the community. A couple of history-oriented friends in Whitehorse like it,...

There aren’t too many roads in the Yukon, or even in Alaska, that I haven’t driven at some point over the last 23 years, but there’s one fairly close to Whitehorse that I hadn’t seen completely yet – the Aishihik Road (that’s pronounced ay-shee-ack). The furthest I’d been up...

With good weather continuing, I’m still not spending much time at home, so I’m getting further and further behind with my postings here (as well as a few other projects). I got up at 1:00 to watch a good Northern Lights show this morning, and decided to just stay...

As much as I enjoy hiking into some of the fascinating historic sites we have in the Whitehorse-Skagway area backcountry, there are times when I think that it would be great to have some mechanical assist, whether that be an ATV, a boat, a helicopter or a float plane....

The Vault, deep in Pooley Canyon on the south side of Montana Mountain, is the toughest mine I’ve ever managed to get into, and I’ve been wanting to get back in for a very long time. Some Whitehorse friends want me to take them in (having tried unsuccessfully to...

On Thursday, I went on the most difficult hike yet this year, to the ruins of the historic Inspiration Point gold mine high in the White Pass north of Skagway. I visited the site twice a dozen years ago, and have been itching to get back for a long...

Fort Selkirk is a remote ghost town, one of the oldest communities in the Yukon, and a gem of a historic site that few people will ever see. The only way to reach it is by boat, but each year on Parks Day, free boat shuttles are offered. Canada’s...