Whitehorse

That’s the only reason we ended up in Whitehorse. Or near it. Was to golf. It was an excursion from our cruise. Let’s just say, it was a beautiful drive and I would’ve loved to see the city. It was also 38 degrees Faranheit, so that wasn’t “warm”, but we golfed and we enjoyed it. If you’re a golfer, it’s a wonderful course if you take the excursion (we were on Princess). We played at Meadow Lakes

I grew up in Cloverdale, BC, and I remember when Cloverdale had more cows than people! But as I grew, so did the town, until it was engulfed in the crowds of Surrey (which was itself becoming just a branch of Vancouver).

Some friends and I decided to move someplace where a.)The crowds were smaller, and b.)Jobs payed better. Our choices were the Yukon or Alberta; being that we all loved mountains and forests, we chose Whitehorse, YT.

It is a small town, with about 25,000 people (many of whom spend the summers working in mining camps, but the tourists make up for this) but it has all the big town ammenities. There is a Starbucks (another opening soon) and a few Tim Hortons, but there are also two local coffee roasters with far, far superior brews. The local beer is also quite good. The place is very easy to navigate (if you go five blocks one way, you hit a cliff, if you go five blocks the other way, you git the river, can’t get lost!) with self explanitory street names like, “Hospital road” which leads to, you guessed it, the hospital, and “Fish Lake Road” (guess where that leads!)

It doesn’t get as cold and snowy as you might expect of the far north; we did have a week of -40 to -50 celcius temperatures but these cold snaps don’t last long. Most of the winter is in the -twenties with very occasional snow (this is the driest city in Canada). The northern lights are very pretty.

Summers are mild, and not very humid at all. Pretty much every neighborhood is situated so that you can walk for 5 minutes and be in total wilderness. There are well marked trails around the forests outside of town, and well worn paths through the hills surrounding the city. But despite looking well travelled, you can easily walk for 5 hours and not see another person. Sheer bliss.

It’s fantastic, ask me anything!

I’m not a small town girl at all, but I would go back here in an instant. This is my favourite little town by far.

If we didn’t settle in Anchorage, Whitehorse would have been our next choice. Loved that city!

Need I say more? I use to have to travel for work there… In June the sun sets at about 11:30 PM! Very weird. Northern Lights are really cool but you don’t have to go that far North to see em!