For many people, the wilderness is therapeutic. For others, photography works the same way. On Wednesday (September 6th), I guided professional photographers Robin Armour (from Yukon Tourism) and Patrick Close (the current artist-in-residence at the Ted Harrison Artist Retreat at Crag Lake) up Montana Mountain for a day of...

When you’re standing in front of a glacier, it’s usually all but impossible to get a sense of scale – there’s just nothing close to it that you can compare it to. If you get lucky and see the glacier calving, just how big is that splash?? On my...

Personalized licence plates (a.k.a. “vanity plates”) are really catching on in the North recently. Last year, the folks at Alaska Tourism turned the concept into an excellent marketing tool with the plate seen below – ads that make you think are bound to be successful, and the thought that...

Despite the very long silence here, I haven’t died since retiring from bus driving a few weeks ago – I’ve just been out having fun. The Outback is getting a good workout (to the right, crossing a creek on the Alsek Road), the Canon Digital Rebel an even better...

Getting ready to leave Anchorage at 2:10 a.m. on July 23rd, for the 735-mile day. That may seem odd (it certainly did to the hotel desk staff), but that’s when I need to leave to get home at a reasonable hour. A couple of bonuses are that I get...

July 20, 2006: Princess McKinley Lodge to Anchorage – 138 milesI got up just after 3:00 a.m. to see if I could catch the first light on Denali, but was a bit too early, and the light wasn’t good. This shot was taken at 5:50 a.m., with a fog...

July 18, 2006: Fairbanks to Denali National Park – 125 milesI dropped my group off at the Alaska Railroad for their trip to the park, while I went ahead with the motorcoach and got their luggage into their hotel rooms before meeting them at the Denali railroad depot. This...

The sign above the Trans Alaska oil pipeline interpretive site says “Canada my ass, it’s Alaska’s Gas!” – that’s one of the slogans used by the Alaskan Independence Party. It refers to the current controversy about building a natural gas pipeline down the Alaska Highway, which will require paying...

I’ve just returned from my final trip as driver/guide, for a motorcoach tour that took us from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Seward, Alaska, where my group boarded the Celebrity Summit for a cruise back to Vancouver. This was about the 8th trip I’ve done for W. P. Maher Tours of...

The hottest new active-tourism excursion in Alaska and the Yukon is the zipline tour. There are now 4 lines operating in Ketchikan and Juneau, Alaska, another in Whitehorse, Yukon, 2 more slated to open in Girdwood and Hoonah, Alaska, and another one possible in the Yukon. A zipline tour...