S3, E32: “Wonder Is Real and it Lives Here.” The Most Wintry Place in North America.

In this episode of Unpacked by Afar, writer, photographer and Métis Canadian local, Debbie Olson, follows “the call of the wild” into the beauty and culture of Canada’s westernmost territory. She dogsleds with a professional musher, gazes at the northern lights from a local’s backyard and learns from a member of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, who is working to reclaim her ancestral lands.

Transcript

Jesse Cook:  I have been in the Yukon for 20 years and I would say what keeps me here is the, is the culture and the people and the lifestyle, the pace of life. It’s, different than any other place that I’ve ever been to.

Aislyn Greene, host: Welcome to the Yukon. I’m Aislyn Greene and this is Unpacked, the podcast that unpacks one tricky topic in travel each week. And this week, we’re entering the land of the midnight sun . . . and leaving that sun behind. Because we are taking a ride through the longer, darker —but no less magical—months in Canada’s Great White North. Our bundled-up guide is Debbie Olsen, a Métis Canadian writer and photographer with a unique voice—and a deep curiosity about true winter.

Debbie Olsen: The landscape around me is white and frozen as far as the eye can see. I’m standing on the shore of Tagish Lake. At 62 miles long, it’s impossibly vast. It stretches from the Yukon into British Columbia. I’ve been here in summer when the turquoise blue lake is surrounded by dark green spruce and formidable gray peaks. But right now, in the heart of winter, the lake and everything around it is asleep under a blanket of downy white. There are few signs of civilization, aside from the glow of lights from Southern Lakes Resort & Restaurant, where I’m staying for a few days.

Then there’s the hockey. As I watch a game on the lake’s makeshift rink, a player pauses and points. I turn to see glowing waves of green, the northern lights dancing their way across the sky. The Yukon sits directly under the auroral oval, the area surrounding Earth’s geomagnetic North Pole where this activity is best and brightest; the lights shine regularly between late August and mid-April. The locals resume their competition, but I keep my eyes upward, watching the lights swirl around the stars. It feels like a window into the cosmos, a celestial postcard delivered in real time.

At 186,272 square miles, the Yukon is almost the same size as Spain. But it has just one city, three towns, four villages, and some unincorporated communities. And only 45,000 residents live in the Yukon year-round. The territory also holds Canada’s tallest mountain, its second-longest river, and the largest nonpolar ice field in the world. Yet it remains mostly known for something else: the discovery of gold near the Klondike River and the gold rush between 1896 and 1899. That event brought thousands of people and international awareness to the destination. But the Yukon’s story goes back millennia, lived by Indigenous peoples.

As a Canadian, I’ve visited every province and territory in the country, and I’d been to the Yukon before. I’d loved what I’d experienced but still wanted more—more of its winter. Winter, after all, is legendary here. Newcomers were once called cheechakos—jargon for “new arrivals”—until they had survived a season. Those who made it through the winter earned a new nickname: “sourdoughs.” Winter in the Yukon is long, dark, cold, and quiet. But I’d also heard it was magical. And so in February, I traveled from my home in Alberta for a seven-day trip with tour operator Entrée Destinations. I wouldn’t be there long enough to earn the sourdough title, but I hoped it would be long enough to experience the wonder of winter in the Yukon.

Michelle Phillips: So this is our team here today. They are Alaskan huskies. The Alaskan husky is not a purebred dog. It’s a dog that we use primarily in long-distance racing. The front two dogs in our team are called our lead dogs. Gee, gee, gee, gee, gee. No, go gee, go gee, go gee, go gee. No, go gee, go gee. Yep, good boy.

Debbie: That’s Michelle Phillips. She’s a musher, the name for a person who drives dogsleds. She’s also a long-distance sled dog racer. It’s morning now, and even colder than the night before. Inside my cozy cabin, I gear up for a day outside with base layers, two pairs of thermal socks, rented snow pants, a heavy winter jacket, and warm boots. When I step outside, I can see my breath. My cheeks tingle in the cold air as I walk down to the lake to meet Michelle and her dogs. We’re heading out for a half day of dogsledding—across the lake and through the forest on local trails.

Dogs were once the main form of transportation in the Yukon. They are able to cross frozen rivers, navigate thick woodlands, and traverse challenging terrain. So they brought supplies and communication to remote communities. In 1898, there were approximately 4,000 dogs working the region. Today, sled dogs have largely been replaced by snowmobiles. But some people here still use them to get around and to show visitors the heart of the Yukon. Michelle, who grew up in the Yukon, is one of them. I’m shivering but Michelle greets me in a fur-trimmed parka with a warm smile and the flushed face of an outdoorswoman.

The dogs bark, yip, and pull at their harnesses, eager to get going. I climb inside the basket of the sled and wrap myself in blankets. Michelle stands behind me with both hands on the sled handle and one foot on the brake. She releases it and the pack takes off. As we pick up speed, I swear some of the dogs have smiles on their faces. We glide along, the landscape unfolding at ground level. Michelle introduces each of the animals and explains their roles on the team.

Michelle: The lead dogs respond to the commands just like they did there. The one on the left, his name is Astro. The one on the right is Banshee. Behind the leaders, uh, the position is called the swing dog and the swing dogs work with the leaders to turn the team. In swing we have Adira and Dougal. Behind them, we have the team position, and we have Lambo and Selene. And then the very back position is called the wheel dog. It is an important position because it helps you steer your sled. And in wheel, we have Waylon.

Debbie: Michelle also explains the guide commands: “gee” for right,“haw” for left,“whoa” to stop. We wind deeper into the forest, trees heavy with snow, the dogs’ paws thumping on the trail. I consider how special it is to use a mode of transportation invented by Indigenous peoples and honored for centuries. When we stop for a break, the animals are tended to first. Then we get to talking. I ask Michelle how she became a musher.

Michelle: I didn’t start dogsledding until my late 20s when I met my partner, Ed. He had been a dog musher since he was 18 or so. He had always felt a calling for it. So, um, yeah, he taught me how to mush.

Debbie: Since then, Michelle has become one of the region’s best mushers. She’s run 21 1,000- mile races. And she’s participated in the Iditarod race multiple times, once finishing in 11th place. But it’s not an easy sport. I saw that firsthand as Michelle patiently guided the dogs through turns and forks in the winding trail. And one time when the snow hook slipped off the sled and we came to an abrupt and unplanned stop.

Michelle: I’ve been in all kinds of situations. I’ve been dragged down a mountain, a mountain on my face. I’ve been in overflow up to my waist. I’ve been in storms, you know, 70, 80 miles an hour. So yeah, all kinds of different things. I mean, a dogsled race is never boring.

Debbie: But it’s clear that there’s nowhere else Michelle would rather be. I ask her why she continues, despite the challenges.

Michelle: I like a life connected to nature. Um, it works well for my dogs. I have 65 dogs, so neighbors are not always the best when you have that many dogs. Um, I have a large, you know, I have 40 acres, I have two horses and we have all the trails around us so we can train our dogs and I just really enjoying being part of nature.

Debbie: And she wants to share that connection with nature with guests like me.

Michelle: I really hope they get to see the connection between man and animal and just the love and care we have for our dogs and just, um, you know, the peace and beauty and nature and [are] just left with a really good feeling inside.

Debbie: A couple of days after my dogsled tour with Michelle, I’m driving a snowmobile in the dark. My destination is West Dawson, to do an aurora borealis viewing tour.

After my long, chilly drive, I relax inside a heated yurt with a small group of tour participants and wait for the northern lights to appear. When glowing streaks of green light start dancing across the sky, I stand outside and take in the show.

Our guide tonight is Jesse Cook, founder of Klondike Experience, a tour company that offers day tours in and around Dawson City. Jesse is from Ontario but has lived in the Yukon since 2005. And I learn that we’re basically in Jesse’s backyard, a small community that has no public services: no roads, power, water, sewer, or telephone lines. It’s separated from stores and resources by a river that can be impassable at times, and people who live here have to be resourceful and independent.

Jesse Cook: So you’re, you’re in West Dawson. Uh, we’re sitting here in my yard and, um, I have very few neighbors. They say that at most a couple hundred people live on the side of the river, but I’d be surprised. It’s probably 50 to a hundred people here at the moment.

Debbie: As we watch shimmering ribbons of greenish-blue light moving across the sky just above the tree line, Jesse tells me about his life. He and his wife have two kids and pretty much live completely off the grid.

Jesse: There’s no electricity, there’s no running water. So our electricity comes from the sun in the summertime. We’ve got solar panels. In the wintertime, we’re running gasoline generators. Um, we’ve got running water, but again, we haul, you know, every drop of water that we use, I, I bring to the house in the back of my pickup truck, or this time of year just in little blue jugs in the back of my snow machine.

Debbie: West Dawson is separated from Dawson City by the Yukon River. When the river freezes well enough, an ice road is built and residents of West Dawson can drive motor vehicles across the frozen ice bridge. In years when the river doesn’t fully freeze up, you have to travel by snowmobile to get across the river further upstream. That’s why we rode the snowmobiles to go to the aurora viewing location. When school is on, Jesse takes his kids to school on snowmobiles.

Jesse: We fire up the snow machines every, every morning and get everybody bundled up and cover every little square inch of skin and throw them on the back and we’ll do that into the, into the minus 40s as well. I’ve got neighbors that brought their kids in by dogsled and people cross-country ski or skijor into town.

Debbie: He’s been running his tour company since 2012. And as I saw with Michelle, I can tell that he loves sharing this part of the Yukon with travelers like me.

Jesse: Experiencing the awe and the wonder and the beauty of the Yukon through tourist’s eyes for the first time, over and over again. And so when I’m with a group, maybe on the Dempster highway up north, or, um, between Whitehorse and Dawson or just downtown Dawson City or something. And I’m touring a group around. I can feel it. I can feel the excitement. I can feel what it was like to come here for the first time and experience that. It’s, it’s wonderful.

Debbie: The next day, I’m back out in the snow. But this time I’m relying on my own power, instead of a snowmobile or dogsled. I’ve strapped on a pair of snowshoes to hike in Tombstone Territorial Park on another tour with Klondike Adventures and Jesse Cook.

To get here, we drove up part of the Dempster Highway, a 458-mile unpaved road. It’s the only public road in Canada that crosses the Arctic Circle and is open year-round. On the drive up, I saw signs for the Arctic Ocean. That’s how far north we are.

The Yukon is vast and wild and no place illustrates that better than Tombstone. We stopped several times as we drove along the Dempster—to take photos of the towering mountains and snow-laden trees. As we drove along, Jesse told us about the history of the park and the road that locals call the “Joe Henry Highway” after the Indigenous man who guided the people who surveyed the path of the road.

Tombstone Territorial Park was created in 2000 as part of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in land claim agreement. It’s basically a modern-day treaty between the Yukon Territorial Government and the Indigenous peoples because the large park lies entirely within their traditional territory. The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in call this place Ddhäl Ch’èl Cha Nän, which means “ragged mountain land.”

And as I follow Cook through the woodland, I see why. I pad past fragrant spruce, leaving racquet-shaped patterns in the snow. And I feel my own insignificance. I am a small speck in a vast landscape, an ephemeral visitor in an ancient place where Indigenous peoples have lived since time immemorial. Our group is talking and laughing as we move through the snowy landscape on well-traveled snowshoe trails. The sun is shining so brightly that it makes the snow sparkle. And I can’t help thinking that this is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

As we move further along the trail and the group quiets down a bit, the only noise is the flutter of gray jays through the trees. I start to wonder how deep the drift would be just off the trail. So I remove my snowshoes and promptly sink to my waist.

I feel that wonder and awe I was searching for as we continue further into the forest through a rugged landscape so big it makes me feel small in the face of it. Somehow that sense of smallness brings life into perspective. I think the people in my group feel the same way. And Jesse says that’s not surprising—that the travelers who come here are unique.

Jesse: They’re the type of people that are searching for something off the beaten track, right? And I think what people need to know, uh, when they come here is that this is definitely off the beaten track. So, um, I think it’s important when you visit the North in general, that you try to experience the place as it is. Not as you would expect it to be, or not as you wish it would be—it was for you as a visitor, but, but really as it is.

Debbie: After we reach the end of the snowshoe trek, I prepare to take in the landscapes from a different vantage point. I climb inside a helicopter, buckle my seat belt, and put on headphones to hear the pilot. The park’s Tombstone Mountain sparkles in the afternoon light. From the air, the “ragged mountain land” seems even more epic. I feel my heartbeat quicken as the aircraft dips. The line of a frozen river, the dense forest, wide valleys, and steep summits stretch out seemingly endlessly. Seeing the park’s scale, I have even more admiration for the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people who have thrived in this place.

The helicopter touches down outside Dawson City. It was once known as the “Paris of the North,” partially for its grand facades and opera houses. Many of the historic buildings erected during the gold rush remain. They’re now part of a national historic site with tours offered by Parks Canada staff, who share gold rush history. In recent years, they have incorporated more information about the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in. A few [of] us from the tour group decide to have a drink at the Pit, a community bar with a canoe hanging from the ceiling. As we toast to the day, I think about something else that Jesse told me.

Jesse: We don’t have, I don’t think we have any five-star hotels. I don’t think we have any, you know, five-star restaurants, but I like to think that we have these kinds of five-star experiences in the sense that you, you come up here and you live something real and you live something authentic and, um, you have a chance to really get into the communities and get into the culture where you are and, um, and really experience it for what it is.

Jackie Olson: I’m Jackie Olson. I’m Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in. I’m born and raised in Dawson, so a true Dawsonite. Um, welcome to my traditional territory. Um, you’re here on my land. Um, and as you can see, my land is on, um, the tailings. And so I always say that I’m reclaiming my land, you know, because the gold rush destroyed the land, took everything apart. And so I’ve been slowly building and putting it back together.

Debbie: It feels fitting to end my time in the territory with Jackie Olson. Jackie is a Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in artist. She’s known for her abstract expressionist pieces, often made with bark and feathers. She’s also the granddaughter of Joe and Annie Henry, two legendary pioneers who lived near the Dempster Highway. Her grandfather was the very same Joe Henry who guided the surveyors who built the Dempster Highway, which I traveled to explore Tombstone Park.

We’re sitting in Jackie’s Dawson City living room. The sun is streaming in and Jackie sits with a cat on her lap and two dogs at her feet.

Growing up, Jackie’s community was still feeling the effects of residential schools and other traumas brought on by colonization. They still are. She says it wasn’t an easy time to live in Dawson City. So she left to travel the world as a young artist.

Jackie: Back in the day, to be successful, you can’t live in Dawson City. And that’s why I’m really passionate about making Dawson City—yes, you can be successful in your own community.You don’t have to leave to show success, right? Um, so yeah, I was always looking for my green pasture. It wasn’t until I got pregnant with my daughter when I was 34, so I actually started to make roots in Dawson when I was 34.

Debbie: Since Jackie has been back, she has been instrumental in building this community, including championing the designation of Tr’ondëk-Klondike, which is centered on the Yukon and Klondike rivers. In September 2023, it was named the Yukon’s—and Canada’s—newest UNESCO World Heritage site. With eight parcels of land in the Dawson City area, the sites examine the effect of rapid colonization during the gold rush on Indigenous peoples—another, different story about the Yukon.

And now, she says it’s a very different place.

Jackie: My daughter, she’s like, “I’m never leaving Dawson.” And I’m like, “Wow, what are you going to do?” She goes, “I don’t know, but I’m not leaving Dawson.” And you know, so that really reinforced in me the um, the need to make sure that there’s enough here for people to want to stay.

Debbie: Jackie’s work is part of private and permanent collections throughout the world. She’s one of 10 Indigenous Yukon artists whose work is now displayed in Canadian embassies and buildings in more than 100 cities. In 2022, she was awarded the Yukon Hall of Innovators Lifetime Achievement Award. Now, Jackie offers art classes centered on the willow she finds while foraging.

Jackie: The more I started to work with it and understand it, and the more you work with the willow, cut it back, the stronger the willow becomes.

Debbie: She tells me that her dream is to finish the cabin she’s building for herself at the entrance of Tombstone Territorial Park. She wants to bring visitors there to help them learn about the Yukon, its willows, and its many wonders.

Jackie: Now that I’ve retired and I just had this really strong feeling of the land is calling me home.

Debbie: The Yukon has a way of doing that. It calls to you. Jack London dubbed it “The Call of the Wild” and you see it over and over again: Indigenous people drawn back to their traditional lands, people that come for a short visit and never leave, and others like me who can’t resist the urge to go back again and again. Wonder is real and it lives here.

Aislyn: And that was Debbie Olsen. Ever since she reported this story for us, I too have felt the call of the winter wild, and maybe you have as well. If so, we’ve linked to the businesses and places she mentioned in our show notes. We also have a link to Debbie’s website, wanderwoman.ca. Next week, we’ll be back with a guide to where to travel in 2025 according to your astrological sign.

Adama Sesay: So we start off the year with Jupiter retrograde in Gemini, which I actually talked a little bit about Jupiter and Gemini in my 2024 forecast. But now we’re bringing that over into 2025. And this may bring challenges related to flying, international movement, air travel. Jupiter will also station direct on February 4th, so it’s not going to last forever, but for the first month, we may feel some restriction when it comes to travel or some challenges when it comes to travel, especially internationally.

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This has been Unpacked, a production of AFAR Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Music composition by Chris Colin.

And remember: The world is complicated. We’re here to help you unpack it.