Planet Yukon – Stogan Stories

It’s hard to believe that Yukon is a part of Canada because it feels like another planet – or at least a place that should be somewhere far far away on the other side of the planet.

Everything you need to know about Yukon – Larger than life.

Let’s explore the things and review some numbers from Mission: Yukon.

We were on the ground in Yukon for 9 days. During that time we toured 7 “places” and surrounding areas:

Whitehorse
Haines Junction (+ Kathleen Lake + Silver City)
Kluane park (pronounced “clue-a-nee”)
Skagway (Alaska)
Carcross (Caribou Crossing OMG – though we didn’t see any there)
Dawson City (home of the gold rush)
Tombstone park

Ignore the hours and km listed, it’s not 100% representative – see below.

Kluane in the background just outside Haines Junction

We went on 6(ish) hikes:

Miles Canyon
Spirit Canyon (where we saw a Raven’s nest with chirpy youngsters)
Sheep Creek (Kluane, now with Dall Sheep!)
Mount White (attempted mountain goat spotting)
Mount McIntyre (disc golf woot!)
Goldensides (Tombstone – just a little leg stretch, didn’t do the whole hike)

We visited 3 museums (each are worth a visit):

Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre (land bridge whaaaat?)
MacBride Museum (So much insightful info about Yukon’s First Nations, the Gold Rush, CBC/Communications history in Yukon and Yukon art, culture and topography)
Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre (more on First Nations history, culture and art)

We drank at 5 breweries and visited 7 (2 were closed, but we did sample Polarity while dining) – as Miranda would say “Not a beer trip”:

Winterlong Brewing (this was a delicious on tap staple as we toured around)
Yukon Brewing
Woodcutters Brewing
Klondike Brewing (SOLID BREWERY)
Skagway Brewing (LOVE their spruce beer – brought some home!)

We drove 2,997 km. Two thousand, nine hundred, ninety seven kilometres.

I’d heard of the expression walking “uphill both ways”, but I’d never really seen it in action. Many times while driving, it seemed like we were somehow surrounded by mountains on all sides (sorry but this is a hard picture to capture, so I’ll just share a gallery of various views below).

It’s very likely that those mountains were filled with wildlife (except the glaciers & Kluane – nothing is up there but snow, ice, and lost items from hikers)! But otherwise, you’ll likely find Dall Sheep, Mountain Goats, and Bears!

And when we weren’t climbing mountains, we we spotting animals by the roadside…

1 moose
1 beaver
3 Black Bears
5 Elk
5 Caribou
10+ Dall Sheep
0 Ermines (next time!)

In addition to the “spotted” animals above, we were introduced to a literal boatload of creatures at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve – we had an amazing experience with Lindsay on our photography tour that got us up close and personal with some amazing wildlife (we also learned a ton!). We needed to knock the rest off of our Canadian Wildlife bingo, and figured this would be a good way to do so at the tail end of our trip. BTW the goats and Dall above were also in the Preserve, but we did see Dall in the wild (at Sheep Creek).