North to the Yukon

I was invited to speak at a conference in Whitehorse at the end of September, so went a week early and headed out to Haines Junction to do a little exploring. It was pretty interesting for me to be so far up the Alaska Highway, having grown up at Mile Zero.

I stayed with some wonderful folks, right next to the church made out of a culvert, and even ran into an old friend from university. It was still autumn according to the leaves on the trees, but the snow had snuck down the mountainsides and into the valleys, surprising them a little. The snow was great for seeing lots of animal tracks, including: wolf, grizzly, and mountain (Dall) sheep. I even saw a tree chewed by a beaver, which felt very Canadian, especially in the same day as seeing Sam McGee's cabin and reading Robert Service poetry.