Every Christmas tree has to come from somewhere. Some reach living rooms after the roar of a chainsaw down a back road; some are sold in mall parking lots, wire-wrapped for convenient packing in and out of the family SUV; some are hauled out from the shed and unboxed year after year.
For the annual display of the towering tree at the end of Whitehorse’s Main Street, not just any tree will do. It too, had to come from somewhere. This year that somewhere was the front yard of Cindy Braga’s home, aptly located on Evergreen Crescent.
The tree was there when Braga and her family moved into the home in the early 2000s and she says the tree now standing taller than the adjacent White Pass and Yukon Route building was already large and well-established by that time.
In recent years, Braga said the tree developed a lean towards the house and a large windstorm about two years ago downed other trees on her street prompting concerns that the one in her own yard might fall. Knowing that the City of Whitehorse usually plucked a large conifer from a resident’s yard for the Main Street Christmas display, Braga said she called the city two years ago about the tree and then again this year before they accepted it and agreed to cut it down.
When it was standing in her yard, Braga said the tree was a beautiful feature of the property that often houses ravens. One year, she said it served as a perch for a pair of Stellar’s jays, an uncommon sight in the Whitehorse area.
“So it had a lot of memories. Both my kids had mixed feelings about it being taken away, but now that they see it on Main Street, you know, they're like, Okay, it's serving just a different purpose for a while,” Braga said.
Speaking with the News on Nov. 28, she added that she and her kids are planning to make an evening of it when the tree is lit up on Friday, Dec. 6.
On the topic of lights, Braga said her decorating philosophy is the more lights, the better. Even for those who don’t celebrate Christmas, she said it’s a good thing to light up the depths of winter.
-With files from Haley Ritchie
Contact Jim Elliot at jim.elliot@yukon-news.com
