The Far north

If you ever wondered if there’s places were nature is so hostile to humanity that you must be brave or at least crazy (I’m still not sure) to live here, then you havent visited the far north.

First a bit of geography and a date : Whitehorse, Yukon, March 28th 2019. I left the upcoming spring of beautifull Vancouver, Canada, to visit the place that nobody really knows and nobody wants to know. Stepping outside of the airport, I can already feel that I can forget the warm days : winter is back.

The climate is the fist thing that strikes you in the Yukon territory : winters are incredibly long and cold generally from October-november to April-May with at least 3 month at -20 celsius degree and 2 weeks at -40 celsius degree. Vegetable can only grow in july and August and there’s a tchick layer of permafrost which makes the ground hard as a rock. The trees are pretty small because it cant grow correctly in that hostile environment.

The capital in itself is were 90% of the population of the all territory lives. Yet, it still about 25 000 people, about the size of a small city if I compare it to my native land, France. Whitehorse is a just a small community point that gathered all of the marginalized people that aren’t afraid of the cold.

Living in the Yukon and having such a hard winter translate by a need of being well prepared. Warm clothes are obviously a must have but there’s also a need of having heat in your house even in the most remote places, which can be a problem for the more secluded people. Also forget about the nice city cars because you will need to have a truck with special equipment to be able to go on the roads. Vegans and vegetarian, this is not a country for you because nothing grows out here and locals ea a lot of meat.

Moreover, the kindness of the locals is unvaluable. You would find lift to the capital at anytime of the day and it’s a common rules to help anyone in need. That’s how I got to have a canoe for free if I did a bit of fixing on it and got a lift to go down the Takini river.

The trip was around 4-5 to five days. I decided to do it with a good friend of mie that recently arrived to Yukon. A quick tour at the grocery store and we were on the river by ourselves with a cheap tent and some not adapted sleeping bag.

The water was crystal clear and big lumps of ice were flowing in the sens of the stream to remind us that this heavenly river was really cold. If the days were beautifull and really long, about 20 hours of sun, the nights were freezing coldand we had to do a fire every morning first hour to reheat ourselves.

This trip has been magic : we saw mooses, a grizzly bear, deers and beavers all over. Even the coldest places are filled with life. And more, not a single human has been seen in those 5 days. The nature was amazing really green from the pine tree and white from other type of tree.

If you’re an adventurer, I trully advice anyone to come to the Yukon. It’s a lifetime experience and a great opportunity to reconnect with nature, where humanity havent touched too much of it… Yet!