Out in the snow – Whitehorse & Skagway
For the past 3 days, everyone in Whitehorse is talking about the weather. On Wednesday we got one of the wilder storms I’ve seen in my 22 years in the Yukon.
This is what the deck looked like at 11:00 am on Wednesday – the Xmas decorations didn’t fare too well in the high winds 🙂 Our home weather station, which is in a somewhat sheltered location (every possible location for it is sheltered to some degree) recorded a 43 km/h gust a few minutes after I took this photo.
At about 1:30 I decided to go out for a look at the wild world. The first stop was a shopping one, though. One of the things that gives Whitehorse the character it has is the abundance of unique little shops. Last Saturday we’d gone to a sale at the Cliffside Country Store & Greenhouse, and I stopped in to pick up our purchase.
I’ve been going to Cliffside for quality plants for years, and the new owner this year is having a lot of fun with her year-round furniture and accessories store. Since Country House Antiques shut down a few years ago, we’ve been hoping that someone would fill that void, and Fay has done that, albeit on a smaller scale.
This is what we got – this water feature was exactly what we’ve been looking for to add some more warmth to the living room.
The next stop was the airport, which had the potential to be interesting. Air North’s Hawker Siddeley HS 748, apparently heading out on a charter, provided what I wanted 🙂
Aircraft landings and takeoffs were all but invisible because of the heavy snow so I continued on. The cornices on these trucks at Klondike Motors are evidence of the strength of the wind.
Daphne Mennell’s wonderful horse statue at the new Public Safety Building looks even better in the snow.
The storm has calmed substantially by the time Cathy had to go to work at 08:00 am on Thursday, but the driveway was heavily drifted out near the road. Whenever we think about getting new cars (ours are both 11 years old), days like this keep 4×4 or AWD high on the “must-have” list.
The view from the basement windows is getting rather limited. I have a lot of firewood that needs to be cut to length and stacked under cover yet.
Cathy took a day off work yesterday (Friday) so we could go to Skagway. It was -24°C (-11°F) and snowing lightly when we left home. On the way, we made a loop around downtown Carcross to see what’s new. Construction of a new home for the water delivery truck appears to be far behind schedule – this is tough weather to be pouring concrete!
The one-way street and many signs that were added this year have caused a great deal of controversy in town.
It was great to see that the Caribou Hotel now has the heat on and people are back working on it. I hope that means that it’ll be open next summer 🙂
There was less snow in the White Pass than I thought there might be, and even the wind wasn’t too bad.
Summit Lake. Yes, it was as cold as it looks – the air temperature was -19°C and the wind chill was certainly in the high 20s.
Once in Skagway, where it was only -12°C (+10°F), I picked up my mail, then went see if there were any seals at the mouth of the Skagway River. There weren’t, but I took this photo of one of the lowest tides I’ve seen at Yakutania Point.
The view down Taiya Inlet.
Looking back at the White Pass summit as we headed north in the evening light (3:30 pm – sunset was at 4:17). The only wildlife we saw on this trip was a moose on the road just south of Bove Island (halfway back to Whitehorse) – there weren’t even any tracks of other animals.
The big job today may be to tear down my dead snowblower. It may need new drive belts, which is a big job at minus 25 (the temperature as I write this). I’m hoping, though, that some part of the drive system has just iced up and a couple of hours with a heater under a tarp will cure what ails it. Fingers crossed…
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