How to carbon proof your wallet
It looks like a carbon tax will be one of the big issues in the upcoming territorial election. Last week Premier Pasloski said he would fight likely federal plans for a national carbon-pricing program that would include the Yukon.
Licence to build: unpacking the meaning of ‘social licence’
No, it doesn’t mean needing a licence to use social media, although that might be a good idea given what you see on Twitter these days.
City versus frontier: 21st century economic development
Whitehorse is on the battle lines of a big debate in economic development. Will big cities rule the 21st century, or will growing populations and the need for space give another push to geographical expansion?
Tear that ‘Frack Free Yukon’ sticker off your car
It’s a small town, and I know your dirty secret: You’ve been fracking again.
Why our kids should learn coding
Back in the early 1980s, I had a mind-expanding experience. It wasn’t because of Pac-Man, Van Halen or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Gold gets a boost from the loonie
There hasn’t been a lot of good economic news for the Yukon lately, but 2016’s resurgent gold market — boosted further by the weaker Canadian dollar — is a bright spot for us.
Mountain to mountain, hut to hut
When I first hiked to Grizzly Lake in the Tombstones 20 years ago, it was an off-piste wilderness trek. We didn’t see anyone else.
What should you do this winter?
It is starting to get dark at night again, a sure sign that you need to decide what you want to do this winter.
Pokemon and the rest of us
On the one hand, it’s good to see that the Yukon’s digital infrastructure is good enough that Yukoners can go as bonkers over Pikachu and Charmander as the rest of the planet.
Council of Pokemon
Last week you may have noticed groups of people around Whitehorse, strangely fixated on their smartphones and huddled at apparently random street corners.
What’s not in the Fireweed Party platform
Sometimes what is not in a political party’s platform is as important as the “announceables” you see in the news.
Brexit: Implications for the Yukon
This week, I’ll take a break from the Fireweed Party series to report from London on what Brexit means for the Yukon.
The Fireweed Party capital budget
We’ve been having fun for the last few weeks, at least by economist standards, talking about the platform of a mythical Fireweed Party that wants to make the Yukon the best choice in Canada.
The Fireweed Party and the essentials of daily life
This is the third installment of the platform of the mythical “Fireweed Party,” which I have put together after chatting with various veterans of Yukon politics about what their dream party might offer to voters.
The Fireweed Party’s economic platform
Last week, I idly speculated what a new Yukon political party might put in its platform, if it tried a bit harder to get past the vague bafflegab that fills most political platforms.
Launching the Fireweed Party
Believe it or not, in some places people get so sick of their tired old political parties that they invent new ones.
Yukonomist visits the big city
Yukoners like to treat Skagway like it's in their own backyard. But while Alaska looks a lot the same, it is different in many ways from the Yukon.
Digital Sourdoughs: How do you prove your identity online?
I generally get very fast and efficient service at the motor vehicles branch office and the Department of Health. With four kids, we are frequent fliers in the learner's licence and lost-health-card categories.
The sharing economy and the Yukon
The "sharing economy" is one of 2016's buzzwords. Trendy tech startups such as Uber, Yerdle, Taskrabbit and Airbnb are promising to fundamentally change how people use cars, hotel rooms and even their spare time.
The Cloud offers new options for Yukon business
If you go to a business conference these days, there seems to be no problem that can't be solved by "the Cloud." The Cloud is so trendy that it begets second-order cliches describing it as a "paradigm shift" or the "new normal.