Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada (08-25-14)

The road to Whitehorse was a long one, so we had to stop for sustenance along the way.  For $10 you can take home the world’s biggest, but not the world’s best, cinnamon roll.  They aren’t kidding when they say it feeds 4. 

Whitehorse is the capital of the Yukon Territory, and a pretty good sized city. The first thing we set out to do is go hiking. 










Unlike downstream, the Yukon River in this area is a beautiful blue. We took the 4 mile trail to the ghost town of Canyon City.

Before the railroad came, when goods were brought up the Yukon for distribution, a tramway was built here because of the rapids. Cargo was taken off one ship, ported by land on the tramway,  and put on a different ship. The railroad spelled the death of Canyon City, and all that’s left is the interpretative displays.

One of the “must do” things in Whitehorse is the Frantic Follies.  This is an old time Vaudeville type act, set in the late 1800s.  It was rowdy and fun.  They encourage some audience participation and after teasing a couple from Oklahoma City for a bit, every time they needed a town to be the butt of a joke- Oklahoma City was it!  At one point they seriously announced the “classical portion” of the program, saying they had the “sympathy orchestra from Oklahoma City visiting” and they all played a tune on their saws.

While exploring the rest of the town, we came upon the fish ladder.  The salmon in Whitehorse have the longest migration of any salmon in the world- all the way from the Bering Sea, almost 2000 miles away.

When the river was dammed in the late 1950s, the salmon had no way to make it upstream any further, so a fish ladder was built along the shore.  The salmon slowly make their way up this ladder to their spawning grounds.









We probably could have found a few more things to occupy us in Whitehorse, but we had a reason that we wanted to be outside of town on the day we left…….more on that in the next post.