Last puppy, cemetery research, and starting a tour
It’s been 3 weeks since I’ve talked to you, but it’s not because I’ve just been sitting around watching TV and drinking beer.
When I wrote back on January 17th, that our puppy-fostering had reached a happy conclusion with everyone having found a forever-home, I was a bit ahead of myself as it turned out. On December 30, I got a call saying that one of Blue’s puppies who had been adopted before YARN and I got involved, needed a better home, and a foster was needed until one was found. We of course agreed to take him.
The boy we called Peanut turned out to be my favourite of all 8, and he was with us for 22 wonderful days. Letting him go was extremely difficult and I tried many times to rationalize keeping him, but he has a great home in Dawson now.
Once I got de-puppied, my attention turned back to history. A discussion on Facebook led me to discovering that in my collection I have about 700 photos of graves and cemeteries, most of them in the Yukon, Alaska, the NWT, and northern BC. So, I started building Northern Cemeteries and Graves pages on ExploreNorth. I got about 1/3 of the way through them when the date to begin guiding a Yukon Quest tour arrived.
Yesterday, February 1st, I picked up my tour van from Driving Force and to keep things comfortable in the van, a trailer for our suitcases and the extra winter gear that’s supplied for our guests. I drove down to the SS Klondike to get this “start-of-the-tour” photo, and then went home to await the 3:30pm flight.
The temperature was sitting at -24°C (-11°F) by the time I got everything together. That’s pretty much the perfect temperature for the Yukon Quest sled dog race, and to get a great “Yukon” experience. This was the Yukon River in front of the SS Klondike.
Lots of papers and other important stuff to keep track of.
Murphy’s Law – the longer your day has been, the more likely that your last flight of the day will be delayed.
The group is staying at the Westmark Whitehorse. We normally allow for a rest before dinner, but the delayed flight eliminated that. A small group (6 people) makes the initial meeting much easier, and a good dinner put the Yukon part of the trip off to a fine start.
At 7:30, we drove up to the Meet the Mushers event, always a fun event that sets the stage well for the main event. Each of our guests sponsors a mile on the race route, thus joining the Thousand Mile Club and getting a very nice jacket, and also sponsors a musher. This event allows them to meet the musher they’ve sponsored.
There was cake, too! 🙂
With clear skies and a very good aurora forecast, I offered to take anyone who was interested out on an aurora hunt at 01:00. I stopped at the SS Klondike to set my camera up and make sure everything was working okay.
I drove about 20 km west on the Alaska Highway, far from the lights of the city, and we spent about an hour waiting, and watching a fairly faint aurora trying to make a show show. This was about as good as it good, but it was still a good experience (I think).
Day 2 begins as soon as I post this – a city tour this morning, and the Yukon Quest start banquet tonight.
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