The Yukon Territory

Yukon,

It is foolish for me to think that I could even begin to capture your majesty and grandeur with mere words. Many have tried, many more capable than I, and yet even the most evocative language and articulate of prose can barely begin to transmit the arcane energy that pulses beneath your ancient earth. But here I am, foolishly hoping that I can bring even a fraction of your beauty to life with my words. I want to capture the essence of your rocks and stones, the ones that stretch skyward to form your well-worn, mountainous shoulders, which carry the imagination of your stalwart populace. I am a product of your wildness, and I am leaving you now as fall colours return to your slopes, dappling your entirety with rust and gold. It won't be long now before you shrug off the summer green in favour of the familiar white you do so love to be enshrouded with. 

I was blessed to return to your most populated river valley this summer. From the moment I inhaled the purity that fills your negative space, I became determined to re-acquaint myself with your secrets. As I had remembered, your azure lakes provided mental and spiritual invigoration I have been unable to find anywhere else in the world. Your waters spill from sapphire glaciers, remnants of an ice age that once choked your rugged frame. Today, the remaining frigid jewels that dot the pockets of your mountains rival the glint of the gold said to sleep in your creeks. 

I quickly found that four short months was not nearly enough time to absorb the entirety of your splendour, though you certainly did your best to help me. As you basked in the Midnight Sun, I was gifted 20 hours of light per day with which I could venture into your unknowns. Fields of angular, leafy green stars grew into the brilliant pink petals of the fireweed we chose to exemplify the entirety of your foliage. All summer my heart beat with the waves of wildflowers that pulsed across your forest floors, each week a different hue. Your atmosphere - ripe with the smell of jagged pines and the sound of trembling aspen - filled my soul. 

I do not want to leave you, but rest assured, I will be back. In the meantime, I am leaving you with a small, wood-siding house tucked in a recess of your endless forest. Take care of the empty-nesters that reside there, as well as the wily, stiff-legged brown hound that languishes lazily in your elegance. 

I never hoped to adequately describe you while I wrote this. Sometimes it's just important to try. You are my querencia, the place I draw my strength. Soon, I will walk your empty northern hemisphere again. For now, you will fill my head and my heart from afar. 

I just wanted to tell you I love you. 

I think, though, that sometimes my heart is where my home is. 

The perspective and appreciation I have been gaining from coming back to the Yukon this summer is a blessing. 

My mind and body are happy here. 

This is a good place. 

I spent my Saturday on the backbone of a mountain.

On one side, far off, lay the city of Whitehorse hidden under a smoky blue haze, the unfortunate recipient of rains that rarely frequent this territory. Closer was a lake, cupped gently between the foothills of two peaks, each the result of some ancient geological manoeuvrings. The soaking city and white capped waves made quite the pairing, but it was the view from the other side of the ridge that pilfered the oxygen from between my lips. 

Thoreau has already covered the subject with greater depth and eloquence than I hope to be able to, but what stretched before me was wildness. Of course, there was wilderness, too. Twin lakes, almost ponds they were so far off; a copse of trees, teetering on the edge of the tree line. Through the cracks of a far off valley were the teeth of the real mountains, the foreboding, archaic majesties that preside over the swelling plateau that I was lucky enough to stumble upon. But wilderness is a collection of natural objects. 

The wildness was the feeling that emanated from those objects: the smattering of snow that stubbornly adorned the hillsides, the blooming willows, the grey clouds lounging lazily over the water below, the aforementioned lakes, trees, and mountains. Wildness, as Thoreau said, is "tonic for [the] spirit", that simultaneously overwhelming yet welcoming feeling that we are greeted with when we venture beyond the last wisps of civilization. It buries itself in your soul, nestles gently in the back of your brain; it is the reason we go to the backbones of mountains, the shores of white-capped lakes, the swelling plateaus lost between jagged peaks. 

There are many stories to share from up above the 60th parallel. In the photo above is Miles Canyon, and as I looked at it today it made me think about what exactly had to happen for all those stories to come to life; what had to happen in order for me to be able to sit at my kitchen table, here in the Yukon, and attempt to tell some of my stories? As it turns out, Miles Canyon played a key role in allowing people to come to the Yukon, without whom I would not be able to sit here and type this. With this blog post, I will tell you the (relatively contemporary) story of the river-lined canyon picture above. 

In 1898, the lure of gold in the north led to a metaphorical flood of humans rushing to the mystical land known as "the Yukon". These would-be prospectors and pioneers first got off their boats in Alaska, before making the arduous trek over the Chilkoot Trail to the shores of Lake Bennett. At Bennett, men and women fashioned themselves boats and rafts, many of which could more accurately be referred to as "bundles of wood that technically do float, kind of, sort of". After constructing their crafts, the intrepid explorers set across the lake to the mouth of the Yukon River, next stop, Whitehorse. 

However, Whitehorse, the halfway-ish point to Dawson City (where all the gold was) was not so easily reached. You see, just before the Yukon River meets the gentle, welcoming banks of Whitehorse, it passes through Miles Canyon, a limestone gullet lined with thrashing rapids and deadly rocks. The earliest prospectors had to manoeuvre through this section of the river in order to reach Whitehorse where they could rest and resupply. Many men (women and children were not allowed to go through the canyon) made many attempts to get their shoddily constructed vessels through the frothing madness that stretched through the base of the canyon. Many a man died after being thrown into the rapids, his raft torn asunder, his supplies now lying on the riverbed. 

However, many more men were able to brave Miles Canyon and the following stretch of rapids that led up to Whitehorse (rapids that were said to look like the manes of white horses, hence the name). Be it by dumb luck, skill, bravery, gold fever, or a combination of them all, there were those that survived the ordeal. They are the ones that continued on to Dawson, settled in Whitehorse, or somewhere in the vast wilderness of the Yukon. Along with the hearty and fearless women of the North they started families, settlements, towns, and even a true-blue, bonafide city. It was the actions of those folks that led to the settling of the North. Granted, many of these actions led to atrocities, particularly with regards to the First Nations population, but that is a blog post for another time.

In the photo above, you can see the gentle emerald waters that now creep through Miles Canyon. The construction of a hydro-electric damn further down the river has done away with the Whitehorse Rapids and the treacherous canyon basin. Now, it is a beautiful place for a paddle or a hike. To me, it is a place that truly captures the spirit of the North. Miles Canyon is as beautiful as it is rugged, and it was the first true gateway to Whitehorse. Despite its current mellow nature, the power that once surged between those limestone cliffs is not forgotten. 

Permanence, regardless of how illusory a concept it may be, is a luxury. Being home for two weeks has shown me how lucky I am to have a place this permanent. I am referring to my house, the one I grew up in, the place that I lived in for close to 17 years, the place that I come back to whenever I return to the Yukon. I am referring to my yard, complete with childhood tree fort, ancient fire pit, and odd-shaped lawn. I am referring to the dense covering of evergreens, the gravel driveway, the faded wooden deck that embraces forest green siding and bay windows. 

(Of course there are fluid fixtures among the permanence. There's my brother, my mom, my dad. There's a geriatric brown dog whose temperament is finally approaching tolerable. They are one of the biggest reasons I come back to this place. Stewards of the permanence, if you will.)

But while my ponderings on permanence are partly influenced by my house and my family, it is this monumental landscape that has continued to occupy my mind. I went for a hike with some friends the first week that I got back. We went up Caribou Mountain, bushwhacking through some unforgiving underbrush. We didn't follow a trail and after a couple of hours of climbing we managed to find a somewhat hospitable patch on the side of the mountain where we could look out over the forest and the lake below. As we sat there, we realized that in all likelihood we were sitting in a place where no human being had ever been before. We were only 45 minutes out of town, and yet we had found a place that people were yet to intrude upon. So much of the Yukon is exactly like the minute patch of earth we sat on - untouched. And it has remained permanently untouched. 

This weekend, my mom and I drove to Skagway, and we were talking about how no matter how many times we see the same mountains, the same lakes and rivers, the same forest, they never fail to amaze. I have done the drive to Skagway dozens of times, but every single time I stare in awe at the stunning landscape. My mom and I both agreed that other parts of the world have more majestic views, more beautiful sites, maybe even more things worth seeing, but what makes the Yukon so unique is its wildness. It is a wildness that can be overwhelming. Human society has no clout in the north. We eek out a minuscule existence among the watchful mountains with their jagged, snow-capped peaks. We occupy but a tiny fraction of the evergreen coated hills and valleys, the rugged, permafrost-infused ground that is dotted with bone-chillingly cold lakes. The sheer intensity of the wild is terrifying to some. There are people who would refuse to ever come here. They wouldn't take all the money in the world to come live on the cusp of a formidable and permanent wilderness. 

However, as many of you have probably heard me talking about, there is something called "the Spell of the Yukon". People are drawn to the North, the permanence of this place. It gets in your bones and it pulls you to the fringe of humanity. Once you get a taste, you can't get it out of your system. I've spent the last three years in Ontario with an itch inside of me, one that has grown steadily, one that I have finally been able to scratch now that I am home again. Robert Service describes that itch oh so well:

"There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,

   And the rivers all run God knows where;

There are lives that are erring and aimless,

   And deaths that just hang by a hair;

There are hardships that nobody reckons;

   There are valleys unpeopled and still;

There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,

   And I want to go back—and I will."

And I have. I am lucky to be back to experience the permanence of this land, of my home, my house, and my family. After all, as I eluded to earlier, permanence can be a fickle concept. But for now, and for the next three and a half months, I will bask in this permanence, revel in this wildness, and explore this untouched land.

I am home.