Category: History

A friend asked if I’d like to drive into the Atlin – Surprise Lake backcountry yesterday to gather rocks for her landscaping. I love the Atlin area, so the answer was, of course, “yes” and it turned out to be an excellent day, ending with a series of wild...

June 29 was an amazing day, riding behind the White Pass & Yukon Route’s beloved 1947 Baldwin steam locomotive #73 to Bennett and back. I’m still not clear on how this all played out, but 9 days prior I had received an email from a friend at the WP&YR,...

Yesterday, June 20th, was World Naked Hiking Day, one of the two big annual events for nudists and naturists. It’s actually held on the Summer Solstice, which is usually June 21st, but this year Solstice is early. The other big nudist/naturist event is World Naked Gardening Day, but it’s...

On Wednesday (May 1st), I finally made it to what had been my planned destination, the trail to the Venus mine, a few minutes before 1 pm. Then I immediately changed my plan again – there was a vehicle there. So I drove back a few hundred meters to...

On Wednesday (May 1st), I decided on the spur of the moment to do my almost-annual because-I-still-can hike up to the upper adit of the historic Venus silver mine. That’s not the way the day played out, though – here’s the first of two posts about what I did...

On Tuesday, April 9th, my friend Tyson and I drove the ice road from Inuvik to Aklavik, but this post shows more than the title indicates. We also drove back to Inuvik in very different weather conditions, took a side trip on the ice road to historic Reindeer Station,...

Although Tuktoyaktuk was mostly just part of the package this time, on my first visit 39 years ago, Tuk was the target destination, and the many other places we visited were just bonuses. The first photo today is a flashback to that 1985 visit, with my Cessna 172, C-GWDM,...

I’ve been watching the weather forecasts to make another try to get to Skagway, and yesterday, though not great, was the best day in Skagway for 10 days or so, and was forecast to get as the day progressed. in both Skagway and Whitehorse. The day turned out to...

I’ve mentioned every now and then about the amount of material in my collection – photos, publications, and documents – that I’m scanning, then getting rid of in various ways. I’m currently in a large box of newspaper clippings that I’ve been carting around for 63 years. Its last...

My focus recently has switched back to scanning my files. While doing that a couple of days ago, I found some hike reports from 1993-1995, written as I was researching the historic mines on Montana Mountain for my first book, “Fractured Veins & Broken Dreams.” I carried a notebook,...