Our first few nights in the Yukon were spent in a Yurt about 20km south of Whitehorse.
It was off-grid & we were still opting for the no-4G lifestyle, so we’d have no internet access once we arrived. Instead of prepping accordingly for this, we just popped to the shop for wine & groceries and then headed there with no real plan. Luckily the host had given us some good info on how to find it and there was obviously no lock or anything, so check-in was smooth. The view was incredible and the vibe super cozy. (It had fairy lights which are one of my favourite things… deffo up there with paper maps.) It also had lots of brochures & maps, so a very good start!
I was absolutely shattered from the weekend still, so we settled in with our charcuterie & red wine in front of the woodstove and had an early night.
(Cute, but empty… let’s say quaint.)
The next morning we decided to head to Carcross, which I’d read about in multiple brochures & guides and found on the map. According to one of the leaflets, there was a nice driving route out to Mt Lorne & Annie lakes so we took a slight detour to check this out. The views were pretty cool. Soooo many mountains which was totally unexpected; not sure why, but we both thought the Yukon was pretty flat!
We then headed down to Carcross to find, well, basically nothing! It was totally empty and not a single shop/café was open?! We weren’t sure what we were meant to be doing*, so we just sat on a bench and ate our lunch.
I had work later in the day, so we then needed to head back to Whitehorse. We’d read that “Tagish” was a nice place to visit too, so detoured a bit to visit that. There wasn’t much there either & everything that was, was closed for winter! Luckily the drive was super scenic and we found a couple of mini-walks near the road, so we just laughed it off, squeezed our steps in & enjoyed the views.
When we eventually reached Whitehorse we parked up & went into a brewery I’d read about. We asked about Wifi and were told that they didn’t have it & that none of the local establishments would either**, as it was super expensive. Soooo…. we left & went to Starbuck were we sat for the next 3-4 hours. The true “Yukon” experience.
When I’d finished my shift, downloaded some trails for the next day & finished our coffees we headed back to the yurt. The plan was to stay up & hopefully catch the Northern Lights. 🤞
We got in around 8/9pm and were ready to wait it out. We set our pasta on top of the wood-burner, snacked on snacky-bits and poured a glass of wine. I set an alarm for 10 minute intervals (later changed to 15), to pop out and check the skies. HOURS passed. We chatted, ate, sipped wine, checked the skies – Nothing.
Around 12:30am we began a game of Farkle. I was on FIRE rolling straight after straight. Etienne had no points. A win was clearly in sight & I could feel fate shining down on me. I would win 10,000-Nil at Farkle and the lights would light-up in celebration. There was no doubt in my mind. But suddenly, the tables turned. A near-impossible amount of Full-Houses later, Etienne had clawed his way back, achieving one of, if not THE greatest come-back of the this century. As I threw my final dice, I knew fate was sealed. The game was lost, there would be no Northern Lights.
the Northern Lights.
As I clambered into bed, tired, defeated & broken I hear a shout from outside…
THEY WERE HERE!!! We watched for well over an hour as the light moved & danced & the sky bounced like sound-waves; pulses of light right over our head. It wasn’t as bright as we were expecting & nothing like we’d seen in photos, but a totally different & mystical experience. I can’t really explain it & the photos we took are just awful. But, just like the mountains of Yukon, we were caught totally by surprise at what we were seeing.
After a while of watching, we eventually hit the hay.
So, two days in the Yukon & some important lessons learned already:
1. The ‘unexpected’ has it’s own beauty. Next time something isn’t how you were hoping, try to see it for that. (I definitely faltered a little, but when I look back ‘our’ Yukon was better than what I saw in the brochures, even if we didn’t find the ‘learn-how-to-make-your-own-Totem-Pole’ man in Carcross.)
2. It doesn’t hurt to download a few maps/trails, or have some plans in mind before heading out into the sticks.
3. For any given game of Farkle, the probability of seeing the Northern Lights, is in no way correlated to the final score.
*Apparently there should’ve been cross-country somewhere. We also had multiple people recommend this town to us later in the trip, so clearly we missed something? We’re still not sure.
**A note on the Wifi: You may be thinking “What idiots! OF COURSE this happens in small towns.”
But for context – Whitehorse is a city, not a town, the capital of the region & served by an international airport. We also had met a girl earlier in our trip who lived there & when we suggested we thought it would be remote/cut-off she laughed at us, saying (& I quote): “Whitehorse is like, a proper city you know!!!”*** So she’d really thrown us off-track!
***An addition from Etienne: In French town & city are the same word. The girl who told us was French-Canadian, so perhaps this was a classic case of ‘lost in translation’.
