What Vast Is

Posted on June 25, 2008
Filed Under Call us tourists | Leave a Comment

Posted by Daria

The Yukon Territory is the epitome of “vast.” Forests spread across the land in all directions, interrupted occasionally by a mountain or a river or a rare dirt road. You can decide to pass up a gas station and live to regret it.

Yukon is home to about 32,000 people. Imagine the population of Lakewood, N.J., spread across 186,660 square miles. And it’s not really “spread,” since 24,000 residents live in the capital city of Whitehorse. The next largest city, Dawson City, has less than 2,000 people. If you put my hometown of Millington, N.J., into the Yukon, it would be the second-largest city.

We saw black and grizzly bears in Yukon, but not a whole lot of people, unless you count the crazy tourists who parked their RV in the middle of the highway to climb on the roof to photograph the grizzes.

Whitehorse, named for the manelike white foam on the rapids of the Yukon River, is rather cosmopolitan for its size. There’s a coffee shop/bakery with free wi-fi for customers and outdoor seating on the sidewalk. One bookstore boasts the largest magazine selection in North America, and another sells used books. I heard two guys on the sidewalk discussing Milan Kundera and Vaclav Havel (a sure sign there’s a college nearby) and a musician talking about Afropop. And the Yukon Brewing Company, a micro, makes pretty good beer. We picked up a six-pack of the Lead Dog Strong Ale, which has nice graphics of a dog sled on the box. The brewery motto: “Beer Worth Freezing For.”

We also attended the Frantic Follies (see earlier post). When we left the theater at 8:30 p.m., I exclaimed, “It’s still really light out!” Another patron laughed and said, “It’s going to be that way for a long while.” And he wasn’t kidding; we drove for two more hours and it was still light when we stopped at Mukluk Annie’s for the free dry camping. Two guys were working on their RV at 11 p.m. When it’s this light, no one wants to go to bed.

Of course, in the winter it’s probably a different story.

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