One of the problems with living in the Yukon is that you can only ski half the year.
I could tell I was not the only Yukoner with this sentiment from the unexpected October flash mob at the Whitehorse Cross-Country Ski Club.
I don’t remember many years with such big dumps of snow in October. My childhood memories mostly involve trick-or-treating on frozen mud, not deep snow.
The October snow surprised many Yukoners. It was easier to get a doctor appointment than a slot to get your winter tires put on.
This is the time of year when new Yukoners begin to wonder about their life choices. After steeling themselves for a cold January, already in October they find themselves outside in the dark scraping their windshield with their freshly minted Yukon health card.
Meanwhile, Yukoners dressed in what appear to be space suits pedaling by on studded fat bikes tell them to get block heaters, winter tires, windshield covers, jump-start battery packs, Sorel boots, extra thick long johns, snowshoes, three kinds of skis, a box of good books and a Forty Below sleeping bag to keep in the back of the car in case they go off the road while driving in the dark to Watson Lake.
One of the big challenges for new Yukoners is that, when they meet new people here, they are too green to place them on the Yukon spectrum.
Just by being here, we are all somewhere on the spectrum. And some of us, being born and raised here, don’t even really understand how far out on the spectrum we might be.
But, the new Yukoner may be asking, how should I react if I just got invited on a four-day Winter Solstice ski trek on the 80-kilometre Cottonwood Trail? Is that normal? Does anyone actually do that? Is my new friend deranged?
Winter tires seem like a good idea, the new Yukoner might think, but should I really listen to my new colleague’s suggestion that I take a winter survival course and learn how to build a quinzhee?
And how do I start my life journey towards the goal of a full collection of classic skis, rock skis, skate skis, alpine skis, backcountry skis and maybe even those short wide Finnish skis for when you’re on unbroken snow in thick forest?
So, to help new Yukoners navigate all this, here are some possibly wildly unhelpful tips.
First, do your research. This involves sheltering under a warm blanket in front of the TV during the Fall to watch shows about newbies in the north like Northern Exposure and Alaska Daily. You usually have lots of spare time in Fall since there aren’t many frozen mud sports. But you’ll have to get cracking this year since the snow is already here.
Don’t watch the Klondike mini-series from 2014, and if you do, don’t tell anyone. Yukoners will mock you for watching a show that gets it so wrong they have scenes where it gets dark in Dawson in the middle of summer.
A theme of these shows is the cheechako and the sourdough initially disliking each other but eventually sharing northern spectrum experiences and becoming friends.
The shows inevitably have a scene where an old friend from Outside visits and discovers to their horror that their big-city friend has moved somewhere onto the northern spectrum.
Second, learn some tricks to fit in. Ditch the Toronto-look Canada Goose parka. Get a used MEC jacket from Changing Gears. If it doesn’t have duct tape on it already, add some. The arm you would use to put wood in the woodstove if you had one is where you should put the most tape. Find a toque that says Alaska Pipeline Project or Arctic Winter Games 2006.
Get real boots and wear them everywhere.
Third, learn Whitehorse geography. Sourdoughs don’t know street names in Whitehorse. They always say things like “a block from the old Dairy Queen” or “in the old Canadian Tire building.”
Never ever say “Take Exit 1 off Highway 1.” No one knows that the Alaska Highway is also Highway 1.
You should try to always one-up them on how far back they go. Before it was the “old Canadian Tire building,” it was “the old Hudson’s Bay building.” The Dirty Northern should be referred to as the “Capital.” You can call the Sternwheeler the “old Sheffield” or, to go under deep cover, call it “the old Travelodge.”
The 98 and the Kopper King are, of course, timeless.
Finally, get into it. You moved here for some reason. Possibly a reason you may be questioning. But you’re here now and you might as well start making friends and making stories.
The Yukon is full of clubs, societies and activities. Ones that involve group activities outdoors are particularly good. You get to see more of the Yukon, meet people outside work, and get enough exercise to avoid the winter Cheechako Chunk factor.
There is cross-country skiing, birdwatching on snowshoes, biathlon, fat biking and more. Many of these have programs welcoming newcomers, from ski lessons to the annual Backyard Bird Count. Even winter survival training, under controlled conditions with a certified instructor not a full-spectrum survivalist, is a great experience.
If you love the smell of two-stroke in the morning, and used to do dirt biking or go-carting Outside, you should definitely buy a sled and join the Klondike Snowmobile Association. If you’re single, this also lets you respond to the modern digital versions of those legendary old personal ads: “Looking for romantic partner with a widetrack sled. Send photo of sled.”
I also recommend keeping a journal. One thing you can’t find on Netflix is a good show about someone moving to the Yukon specifically. Alaska clearly has a better agent in Hollywood. Someone will have to write a script about someone sort of like themselves arriving and finding their own place on the Yukon spectrum.
Keith Halliday is a Yukon economist and the winner of the 2022 Canadian Community Newspaper Award for Outstanding Columnist. His most recent book Moonshadows, a Yukon-noir thriller, is available in Yukon bookstores.
