Carrie’s Ramblings

Climbing Caribou Mountain1
Carrie posted in Recreation on May 27th, 2007

Last night after the BBQ Sebastian mentioned he was climbing Caribou Mountain near Carcross and had 2 more spaces in his car if anyone was interested. Greg and I decided to join him with another girl who is working at a tourist trap in Carcross. I don’t think any of us really new what we were getting into and we were definitely not prepared for how cold it was at the top. After walking in a circle (then laughing about it) we finally found the trail head and started up. The first part was really cool because it was an even forest of aspen trees with various mosses and lichens on the ground. So you could see between all the small trees under the canopy and it felt like something out of The Lord of the Rings. But then every single blackened stump became a bear waiting to eat us. Fortunately we carried mace and starting clapping and singing camp songs so that we didn’t sneak up and startle Smokey into unecessary defensive action.

After we broke through the tree line we looked up to see that the peak was hidden by a thick layer of clouds. Nonetheless we pushed upwards and saw some beautiful alpine flowers trying so hard to grow in that harsh climate. Once at the top, the rocks and lichens were covered with these wind blown ice crystals that looked almost alien. The wind was so strong at the top we could barely stand up to take a picture so we didn’t hang around too long. We were hoping to see some moutain goats or sheep but they were as elusive at the bears. The view of historic Lake Bennett (where the prospectors finished hiking the Chilkoot and White Pass trails and mowed down the forest to build boats to sail down the Yukon River) and the town of Carcross (were the Caribou cross the narrows between Tagish Lake and Lake Bennett). We could also see the Carcross desert and Emerald Lake at the same time. The desert is so bizarre: literally 2 sand dunes right there in the middle of the forest. The lake is finally clear of ice and the view of the colours was even better from the top of the mountains.

The hike was really tough but I’ve been jogging regularly so I pulled through. I just wished I had brought more clothes with me! The concept of “mountains” is still foreign to me and I was prepared for the weather to be nicer than it was. Like I said, didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. It worked out in the end.

Some good hard work0
Carrie posted in Uncategorized on May 27th, 2007

Today I worked at a property outside of Whitehorse building a dog run. A guy from the hostel was hired by one person who then referred him to another, etc. and this last job required a bit more help and so I went along for some extra spending money. We built a fenced-in dogrun so that the woman there could leave the dogs outside safetly while she was away at work during the day. The wire was a pain and I have the scars to prove it but she rented a gas powered auger for the day so that made digging the post holes was a cinch. The woman was really nice plus she volunteers at a therapeutic riding school so I’m thinking potential interview here. At the end of what seemed like a typical May 2-4 weekend day at the cottage I walked away with $120 cash. Ain’t gonna ague with that.

We had a big BBQ at the hostel with steaks and everything to mark the end of our stay together. Six of us have been staying here for 2 weeks and have grown quite close but June 1st marks the beginning of many rental dates and this is our last weekend together. It’s unfortunate that we figured out we like each other so late because had we known earlier we would have looked for a place to rent together. We sat outside on the porch and laughed about stupidities from the German and English language and then joked around with some guy from Phoenix for a while and enjoy a last night together. It’s sad but that’s the way it goes with backpacker hostels. People come and go and they’re great to meet but everyone is so transient. Sad but refreshing too: you leave each other before you get tired of them:)

Days are getting long here and at 1:30 am you can still see the dusk on the horizon and it’s not completely dark. It’s getting light by 4 am but I don’t really know because I haven’t seen that time of day ever:) I was glad today to put in some serious hard labour. Makes it a good days work…

I’ll proof read and edit this when I’ve had less to drink so forgive the typos until then.

Wildlife Tally0
Carrie posted in Uncategorized on May 22nd, 2007

Birds:
Bald Eagle,
Bohemian Waxwing
Bonaparte’s Gull
Boreal Chickadee
Bufflehead
Cliff swallow
Chipping Sparrow
Common Red breasted Merganzer (male and female)
Common Yellowthroat (warbler)
Golden Eagle (two of them!)
Golden Eye (duck)
Horned Grebe
Lesser Yellowlegs (sandpiper)
Lincoln’s Sparrow
Magpie
Purple Finch
Raven
Red-necked Grebe
Ruby crowned kinglet
Savannah Sparrow
Sharp-shinned hawk
Spotted Sandpiper
Swainson’s Thrush
Tree Swallow
Warbling Vireo
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Wilson’s Warbler

Mammals:
Black bear
Porqupine
Mule Deer
Tourists

Deep thoughts in the Deep Woods0
Carrie posted in Recreation on May 21st, 2007

Today we emptied the hostel and 6 of us went on a hike together around Shwatka lake. Shwatka Lake is the lake that was created by building the dam before the Whitehorse Rapids. We walked along the Millenium Trail and up past the fish ladder and we climbed up the steep slope and walked around the Hidden Lakes also. All in all we walked around 17 km in about 5.5 hours with 2 breaks. It was a good trek! We walked around the lake and up and down these mountains that were so sandy. The sand really threw me off because I’m used to hiking on Canadian Shield. We walked to Miles Canyon which was a cool canyon at the entrance the Shwatka and crossed this suspension bridge. Some of the trails were perrilously close to the edge of the cliffs but we pulled off our best mountain goat manoeuvre and made it through. However it was also the most philosophical hike I have ever been on. During our breaks we discussed the impacts of the Second World War and the Holocaust on the current German generation and history lessons as well as the consequences and changes regarding the fall of the Berlin wall. The second break ended in a discussion about the homosexuality and creationism, religion and rainbows. It was deep. Then we talked about our favourite ice cream flavours. It was good while it lasted.

Skagway4
Carrie posted in Uncategorized on May 20th, 2007

Yesterday a girl from the hostel and I drove down to Skagway, Alaska. You have to get on the Alaskan Highway and make one right-hand turn and just stay on that road (not that there are any options) until you get to the ocean. We missed the turn. The girl who gave us directions said you’ll come to something called Carcross Corner and you need to turn right there. Well it wasn’t a corner at all it was a little side street with a tiny sign. So we were driving along and then I said “Marsh Lake? I think Marsh Lake is supposed to be in on our lefthand side…” Well sure enough we were in the wrong spot but there are no signs and no people to stop and ask if we had gone the wrong way! All we could do was keep driving and if we came to Jake’s Crossing then we knew we were wrong. When I saw a sign advertising some campground in Atlin I confirmed our suspicions. Not to worry though there was a road that cut across through Tagish (booming metropolis of,) to Carcross itself. We laughed it off and actually got to see 2 Mule Deer as a result. There are worse things that could have happened.

Driving down to Skagway is reputed as one of the most of beautiful drives you could ever take. Really spectacular. You go through so many different mini-climate zones to get there: chilly interior mountains, desert (no joke), alpine tundra, muskeg, snow covered mountain tops, and down to the warm sunny Skagway fjord by the ocean. The drive was honestly the best part. Just before Carcross is the world’s smallest desert and it’s just that. You pull over on the highway and walk out on to sand dune with scraggily pine trees growing out of it. Crazy! Apparently the sand was left there after an ancient glacial lake dried up and the prevailing wind off of Lake Bennett prevents anything else from taking over. I have pictures and I’ll add them as soon as I get them off of my friend’s camera. You can also see Emerald Lake (which is in all the post cards) where the diatoms and algae-leaking limestone left behind by prehistoric coral reefs in a warm sea causes the water to appear an emerald green. It really looks like an Aurora Borealis in the water. So cool.

The border crossing was bizarre because you drive by the Canadian Customs (we were all ready with our ID) but you don’t have to stop. Instead you drive for about 20 km and then you get to the actual border. There’s a sign saying Welcome to Alaska and beside is a small boulder with a Canadian flag on one side and an American on the other. Right there at the top of this mountain with snow all around. That’s it. Okay…so we keep driving about about 8 km later we come to the US Customs office. We sorta wondered what happens if you get trapped in no-man’s-land in between. Anyway, my friend was expecting to get hassled a bit because she was born in Lebanon but they just took are drivers licences and asked us where we were going (where the heck do you think we’re going? The road only goes ONE place…) and if we had any firearms. Excuse me? A gun? No, we’re not packing…And we got through.

Skagway itself: kinda underwhelming. Unless you want to buy diamonds. Lots and lots of diamond stores. Which we thought was weird considering it’s the Northwest Territories that is known for their diamonds and they had all this gold stuff too and all the gold was in the Yukon. It also felt like Disneyworld. Everything was so fake…too perfect. There were tours with people in costume, the railroad conductors had old uniforms on and the streets had no cars because most of the people there came off the cruise ships. It felt like they hadn’t done any work actually restoring the old town. I mean, the shops were clearly housed in new buildings but if you walked down a side street you see The Livery, 1889 was just sitting there rotting away. I feel like the only reason Skagway exists is for it’s historical value and yet none of that has been preserved. It’s not the focus and had I not read Pierre Berton’s Klondike we would have been hard pressed to find out about what really was going on in Skagway and it’s original purpose. It would have been very disappointing except that I had been warned that it was very much like Disneyland before so I didn’t have high hopes.

We ate our sandwiches in the “National Historic Park” which consisted of a statue and an old train…yeah that’s it…and went to look at the cruise ships and went into some cheap souvenir shops that were scattered between the diamond stores. I bought a post card for 21 cents (US!) and they told me they wouldn’t accept Canadian coins. I said, “Of course you don’t…the smallest Canadian bill is a $5.00…” Well I gave her a $10 and thought I’d use the American change to get a fruit smoothie for the drive back and she gave me $6.89 in return. I was about to leave when I stopped and said “Wait! I just paid $4 for this post card?!?!!!” Well we did the math and they were exchanging at 1.5!!! The dollars are practically even, what a rip off! I said forget it but then my friend found an American quarter and we laid it down and walked out with my postcard. It wasn’t even that nice of a post card. So we spent the rest of the time watching the tourists get hosed. Quite interesting actually. And fitting since the town of Skagway was originally founded by con men and now they’re just continuing the tradition with the tourists! Made me laugh.

We then drove up to the Gold Rush Cemetery and saw Soapy Smith’s grave and Frank Reid’s (the guy who shot Soapy Smith…actually they shot each other) and walked up to Reid Falls. The falls come down 300 m which was actually quite impressive and the water was so clear. A good find. Then we drove down this super sketchy (some might even say DICEY) road to the ghost town of Dyea. Nothing there now but a campground and the head of the Chilkoot trail but we walked the trail for a couple of metres and then headed home. The road was carved right out of the moutains with the fjord on the other side and it was scary but really beautiful.

On the way home we took the correct road and stopped at every single historical plaque we could find. We turned a 1.5 hour trip into 3.5 hours but speed wasn’t the point. Unfortunately we only saw a porqupine on the road and NO other wildlife. When Bill and Gisele did the drive last week they saw a bear, a caribou and a wolf! We did see a bald eagle on the river ice bergs just before we pulled into the hostel. That made us feel a bit better.

The moral: it’s worth the drive to Skagway. Just not Skagway itself. Turn around at the border.

WWOOFing2
Carrie posted in Uncategorized on May 18th, 2007

If you haven’t heard of this programme then it’s definitely an interesting one to check out. I’ve heard of some of my classmates doing it over the summer or taking a year or two off from school to go down into New Zealand and Australia to do some WWOOFing. WWOOFing stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms or World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms and it is essentially a formal network of organic farms where you can go and stay and help out. You pay $40-$50 into the membership base and receive a book listing the WWOOFing opportunities in whatever country you’re visiting. Then it’s your responsibility to contact the farms and discuss your abilities and interests and where/how you can help out. In return for your labour you’re given free room and board (and you can imagine the eating is pretty good there). You can travel across a country just working on these farms and usually you only work a couple of hours a day or a couple of days a week and have the rest of the time to see the area and do some touring. I’ve heard some amazing stories and also some horror stories so you have to take the good with the bad. Anyway I met a number of people in the hostel who have been doing this all over Canada and the States and it’s a pretty interesting system so I thought I’d enlighten you. I’ve included a link for more information in my links category because for some reason it won’t let me add a link in my blog (that’s just my computer being…special).

Admin Edit: Linky! WWOOFing

Have a good 2-4 weekend everyone!

Yukon Brewing Company3
Carrie posted in Uncategorized on May 17th, 2007

Today after putting some hours in at the Yukon Volunteer Bureau, some friends came by and picked me up on the way to the Yukon Brewing Company. Located at the far end of Whitehorse, the brewery is in this tiny building using an entirely local process to develop their unique tasting beer. They reuse old bottles and check them over and stir the vats of beer with big paddles and stack them up themselves then use a glue gun from Canadian tire to close the boxes:) Local artists have competed to design the labels and the boxes and one beer is even named after a famous local Yukon Quest Lead Dog. You can go on this tour of the place and see how they make all the beer and bottle it, etc and taste all the different beers at the same time. Yeah so by 5 in the afternoon we were all a little bit tipsy and having a good time!! So buddy who looks like he graduated from Rec (he’s actually originally from St. Catherines) tells us all about the different beers and how they were developed and what ingredients they use etc. There were some great beers there! It was like wine tasting only with beer. He told us what to look for and colour differences and different levels of filtration…I tried to remember it all but couldn’t possibly (especially after all we had to drink:). I’m going to bring this one type of beer back home that is designed almost like an ice wine version of beer. You wouldn’t drink a bottle of it but it’s almost sweet and the guy recommended having it right before dinner as a sort of palate cleansing beverage. It comes in these big jug-like bottles as opposed to individual servings and you would just sip it. It was really good! And they had some beers that have wild berries with fireweed (the territorial flower) in it and an India Pale Ale that smelled like spruce trees. They even had one called Espresso Stout or something or other that tasted like coffee. You can imagine I didn’t really like it but it was interesting nonetheless.

After leaving the brewery we roamed the streets of Whitehorse causing trouble and the likes and ended up at the Log Cabin Sky Scraper looking for Kristie but she wasn’t home. I hope she gives me a call because I’d love to rent her place from her while she’s going her fish study in Juneau or wherever it is that she’s going. Because after that I’ve lined up a place to housesit from June 17th to July 17th. It’s up the hill (bugger) but it’s between the college and town so a good balance I think. Plus I get to look after Maya, this beautiful chocolate Lab that is so well trained and good natured. So if taking care of a dog doesn’t fit with me I can always give it back at the end of the month! A good trial period…

All for now!

Current Mailing address0
Carrie posted in Uncategorized on May 15th, 2007

My mailing address for the rest of the year (like, until May, 2008) is:

Carrie McClelland
c/o Barltey Front Desk
Lakehead University Residence
955 Oliver Road
Thunder Bay, ON
P7B 5E1

Phone number until 807-343-8888 x 4697
Updated August, 2007.

Licence Plate Tally0
Carrie posted in Uncategorized on May 15th, 2007

Licence plates I have seen in Whitehorse:

Alabama
Alaska
Alberta
Arizona
British Columbia
California
Delaware
Florida
Germany
Great Britain
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Maine
Manitoba
Massachusettes
Missouri
Nebraska
Newfoundland Labrador
Netherlands
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Northwest Territories
Oklahoma
Ontario
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Quebec
Saskatchewan
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin
Yukon

Walmart Campgrounds4
Carrie posted in Uncategorized on May 15th, 2007

An interesting argument that is present in Whitehorse is the issue of the Walmart parking lot campground. Some of you may have heard that Walmarts allow RVs to camp for free in their parking lots overnight. For some small communities this has become a problem because it pulls buyers away from downtown cores and small businesses that depend on tourism to survive. Apparently, in Whitehorse allowing RVs to camp in their parking lot has already put one campground out of business and the community is not too impressed. There was even a protest where people tried to tent there overnight but they were kicked out. I’m not sure about the rules (for example, how do they prevent squatters?) but I was told today that in a couple of weeks there will be upwards of 80 or 90 RVs in the Walmart parking lot.

Whitehorse is definitely geared towards the long distance traveller. There are pull-through and RV-sized parking lots all over the place and at all of the major museums and attractions. The visitors information centre is HUGE and gorgeous and jam packed full of information about Whitehorse, the Yukon and Alaska. Appropriately, the northern regions work together in their tourism marketing campaigns instead of trying to out compete each other. It’s a good idea because people are already up here so they already have some plans. When I commented on the amount of RV traffic to a woman at Sport Yukon today during a meeting she rolled her eyes and smiled saying, “I’m pretty sure that every American has to make a pilgrimage to Alaska once in their lifetime…and they all have to stop here first!” If I didn’t have personal evidence to the contrary I wouldn’t hesistate to believe her! Thus far I’ve seen licence plates from Texas, Iowa, Idaho, and even (drum roll please) Alabama! (”When are we gonna convert our money to Alaskan money?”) But the city is well kept. The backs and sides of buildings are covered in huge beautiful murals, bear-proof garbage bins are painted and decorated, and buildings are painted and designed with old-fashioned facades to make everthing just quaint. Of course, you can walk 2 blocks off the main downtown core (by where I live) and see all the group homes and shacks that look like the prospectors built them during the gold rush and they haven’t changed since (nor has anyone taken out the garbage since). But still, there are walking paths and sidewalks and so many souvenir shops and easy-to-access tour groups and river boats etc. It’s well designed and something I think that Thunder Bay should learn from. These are the kinds of things a city needs to do if it wants to attract and hold visitors. Clean it up!

So the issue of Walmart campgrounds is one of great debate. On the one hand it can increase tourism in an area by ensuring that people stop and spend the night and on the other hand local campgrounds and businesses are feeling the strain. Who knows…