The slowing-changing face of Whitehorse
Whitehorse is a dramatically different community than it was when I arrived 20 years ago, but the changes have come fairly slowly. Yesterday I took an hour and recorded some of the little changes happening now.
One of the larger construction projects is the new medical staff residence at the hospital. The old residence, seen on the left, appears to be about 50 years old and from the look of the exterior can’t be a very pleasant place to live.
The new residence, with its wonderful location above the river, may help with the chronic medical staff shortage.
Shipyards Park is slowly evolving, slowly getting better. I hope that the next improvement will be demolition of the bridge to Kishwoot Island, seen on the right – it’s simply a place for druggies and drunks to hang out, and nothing good ever happens there.
One of the business to shut down in the past year is the SuperValu grocery store, seen in the foreground. Lower prices (sometimes dramatically lower) at Extra Foods and The Real Canadian SuperStore always made me wonder why anybody shopped there. The yellowish building behind it is the Whitehorse Elementary School.
Another business that’s closed is KFC – rumours continue to circulate that this will become a Burger King soon. Staffing is a huge problem in Whitehorse and was reported to be one of the factors that closed both Dairy Queen and KFC.
Here’s a business that should close, for the same reason the bridge to Kishwoot Island should be demolished. A few years ago I talked to a tourist who spent a night there – his stories are not exactly the sort of thing we want to hear from visitors 🙁
In the broad view, though, Whitehorse hasn’t changed a whole lot in the past century – a few low buildings on the bank of the eternal Yukon River. I need to get out and do this sort of shooting more often – as well as being enjoyable in its own right, it’s a good way to keep track of my community.
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