The 10th installment of Yukonography has now been published in the July/August 2008 issue of above&beyond magazine, which can be found in seatbacks of First Air planes across the North. It should also be on the magazine rack at Mac’s Fireweed bookstore in downtown Whitehorse.

The column, titled “Requiem for a Cabin,” is a bit of tribute to a funky Marsh Lake cabin that won some notoriety as “The Abandoned Cottage” (or some variation) in local media coverage of last year’s record-breaking flood at Marsh Lake.

The previous column “Coast Efficiency” has now been posted on the Yukonography site. It was originally published under the title “Historical Ties”–not my decision.

Southeast Alaska offers ocean-loving Yukoners an easy way out.

When it’s time to celebrate Canada Day or the birth of Queen Victoria, there’s nothing Yukoners enjoy more than a trip to the United States. No doubt, America is also a favourite long weekend destination for patriotically-challenged Canadians who live along the 49th parallel. But, due to Alaska’s convenient geography, Yukoners are the only Canadians “North of 60” who can routinely fête our national holidays on foreign soil—and, even better, foreign surf.

Of course, we don’t mean any disrespect to the homeland. It’s just that we long for the occasional stint by the sea. While the Yukon does have some oceanfront to call its own, this coastline measures a mere 418 kilometers. (By contrast, the NWT has nearly 15,000 kilometers of coastline, while Nunavut can boast almost ten times that amount.) More problematic, the Yukon’s coast is on the thin edge of our territorial wedge; located at the northern tip, along the Beaufort Sea, a couple of hundred kilometers from the nearest Yukon settlement, completely inaccessible by road. Even if Yukoners had the wherewithal to plan a weekend on our seashore, we’d discover that it’s icebound until July, subsequently overrun by bugs, and lacking any services. All in all, it presents a poor scenario for a carefree getaway.

Which brings us, literally, to southeast Alaska.

A two-hour drive from Whitehorse, the moist and salty air of Lynn Canal proves irresistible to our dry, cracked skin. This 145 kilometer-long finger of the Pacific Ocean—the longest, deepest glacial fjord in North America—pokes teasingly towards the Yukon’s landlocked underbelly. Near the inlet’s furthest reach, the once-and-again boomtown of Skagway lies at the foot of the Coast Mountains. It was here, and in nearby Dyea, that thousands of stampeders jumped ship in 1897, then began the grueling climb over a coastal pass en route to the Klondike gold fields. And it is through the infamous White Pass that Yukoners now regularly travel, in the opposite direction over a well-maintained highway, to enjoy everything the coast has to offer.

Every time we Yukoners crest the White Pass summit and begin the descent to the promised land of Skagway’s tidewater, we enter a world that is simultaneously foreign and familiar. Foreign, yes, in the sense that we can’t mistake the beefed up American border crossing where the guards seem a little less laid-back than in days-gone-by. And foreign, too, by virtue of the lush vegetation on the mountainsides that funnel a stream of Yukon campers and boat trailers down the road to sea level. There, we rediscover the alien delights of—among other things—abundant salmon runs, halibut fishing, shrimping, camping by the ocean, and sea kayaking on actual sea.

Our sense of familiarity, on the other hand, derives from the deep historical ties between the Yukon and southeast Alaska. After more than a century of constant to-and-fro that has seen, for example, Skagwegian babies born in Whitehorse’s hospital and Yukon minerals exported from southeast Alaskan docks, Yukoners tend to feel right at home on Skagway’s boardwalks, as well as on the rolling streets and fishing grounds of neighbouring Haines. We can even feel a little territorial, knowing that both of these communities—and all their scenic and recreational bounty—might have belonged to Canada (though to British Columbia, not the Yukon) had a boundary dispute with the United States been resolved more fairly in 1903.

But, all in all, it’s hard to complain. As long as our friends in southeast Alaska are willing to share the spoils, Yukoners won’t be holding grudges. If anything, history has taught us that we can accomplish a lot more by holding fly rods and cheap American beer.

© 2008 Mark Koepke

It’s time to show some respect for Old Man Winter

Around the time of the spring equinox, a group of people gets together to “burn away the winter blues” in Whitehorse. From what I gather, the participants construct an effigy of Old Man Winter from willow branches, march the condemned twig figure along the banks of the Yukon River, and finally set him ablaze in a giant bonfire. This ceremony—I suppose it now qualifies as a Yukon tradition—may also involve something called the “dragon of spring,” but don’t quote me on that.

If this spectacle had been part of Yukon life when I was a kid, I’m sure it would have kindled my pyromaniac fantasies, if nothing else. But as far as I can recall, we usually managed to make the annual transition from winter to spring without the aid of Wiccas or puppets of fire-breathing monsters.

Now that I do have the opportunity to participate in a local faux-pagan ritual, I’m not inclined to pick up a torch. And it’s not because I’ve overcome my boyish obsession with fire. No, it’s because I’d never kick a man when he’s down, even symbolically.

And I have to say, Old Man Winter has been looking a little down of late.

The Yukon’s winter climate isn’t what it used to be. Or at least it feels that way in the southern Yukon. Chalk the changes up to global warming, but Old Man Winter seems to have loosened his legendarily harsh grip on the land. No longer is the mere mention of his name guaranteed to put frostbite on the eardrum. To my mind, it’s just as likely to conjure the image of a balmy bluebird day on the local ski trails.

Sure, we can still count on the occasional biting cold snap to remind us that the frosty old geezer hasn’t lost his dentures. But it wouldn’t be too great an exaggeration to suggest that he has settled into a kinder, gentler semi-retirement.

So, it’s puzzling why some Yukoners are so enthusiastic to hasten winter’s demise every March. Will they not be happy until we’re all waterskiing in January?

I can understand the fuss Yukoners used to make when the ice finally went out on the Yukon River at Dawson City (and much later than March). They had ample reason to suffer from the winter blues. They faced a tougher environment—with no modern conveniences to cushion the blow. After months of isolation, the river’s break-up promised the long-awaited bounty of fully laden paddle wheelers. Consequently, the event had real meaning for everyone in the community.

I wonder how those pioneers—a hardier breed than today’s Yukoner, that’s for sure—would regard a painstakingly (if not painfully) contrived ceremony to beat down the personification of a relatively toothless version of the Yukon’s signature season. They might suggest we stop trying so hard to live in an episode of Northern Exposure.

The way I see it, anyone who chooses to call the Yukon home has to realize that winter is part of the bargain: darkness, cold, snow, the lot of it. Beating up on the biggest chunk of the calendar is like calling yourself stupid. If you’re smart, you embrace Old Man Winter and feel lucky that he’s around at all.

If you’d rather be playing golf, you’d be well advised to relocate. The world has plenty of places that tilt less towards winter, more towards summer. At best, Yukon summers are fleeting affairs and, given the alternating cycles of fire and rain in recent years, that’s probably a blessing. Around here, living for summer can be like waiting for Godot.

Living for winter, on the other hand, is just good living.

This column was first published in the March/April 2008 issue of above&beyond magazine.компютри втора употреба

© 2008 Mark Koepke / Photo by Chris Wheeler

The more things change…

In the dead of winter, the City of Whitehorse is full of life and colour. The frosted trees along Main Street are tangled with festive lights, people are flush with the holiday glow, and the promise of other winter traditions on the brightening horizon—the Yukon Quest, Frostbite (the music festival, not the medical condition) and Rendezvous—gives the place an air of optimism.

So, I find it funny that around this very time last year, a group known as the überculture collective showed up to screen a documentary called Wal-Town. Indeed, the world’s largest retailer set up shop a stone’s throw from the Yukon River several years ago. Less certain is one of Wal-Town’s implications: that this big-box store will inevitably destroy our city’s unique character, if not the city itself.

I didn’t catch the film or the post-screening discussion, but I suspect I’ve heard similar arguments on other occasions. Like bad fire seasons, controversy about Whitehorse’s commercial evolution periodically tears through the local environment. And as Starbucks is poised to penetrate the very heart of the downtown core with its second local outlet, I wouldn’t be surprised if things heat up again.

The truth is, Wal-Mart wouldn’t exist in my version of a perfect Yukon. Nor would Starbucks, for that matter.

But I also realize that progress inevitably elbows its way into this place, as it does almost everywhere else. Historically, the trappings of the modern world have managed to sniff the Yukon out, no matter how remote it seemed. One after the other, Outside forces have appeared on the landscape—the Hudson Bay Company, the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad, the U.S. Army, mining conglomerates, national chain stores, multinational behemoths, you name it. Each has produced its own profound effects. And in most cases, the population welcomed these effects.

Naturally, there are some Yukoners who see a paradise diminished or even lost with each new development. Maybe they move on, deeper into the land’s wildest nooks and crannies, beyond the clutches of modernity. There’s always a place if you look hard enough. Meanwhile, newcomers find their way to the Yukon, including Whitehorse, where they discover something they love—warts and all—and decide to stick around.

The irony is, the newest arrivals are often the most anxious to stop the clock. They have romantic ideals. The rest of us just accept the fact that, while our giant Canadian Tire store will never have the ramshackle charm of Nelson’s Hardware (displaced years ago by our first Tim Horton’s franchise), Whitehorse is more than just the signs on our storefronts. We know that the Yukon’s willingness to welcome change and yet, somehow, remain uniquely itself is as true to local character as anything else. We also know that nothing rubs harder against the grain of Yukon tradition than collectivist tendencies to dictate against free will and free enterprise.

So, let the changes continue. Canadian Tire has joined Wal-Mart along the bends of Two Mile Hill, just down the road from the venerable Yukon Tire. We’re surviving. The new Starbucks will be cornered by three branches of big national banks, which aren’t exactly homegrown businesses—yet somehow manage to evade the wrath of the local anti-globalization crowd. Tomorrow, something else will come along and Yukoners will do what we always do: we’ll adjust.

Meanwhile, the Yukon River slides timelessly by.

Grey Mountain and Golden Horn still size each other up across the broad valley.

The same old trails lead to new discoveries.

As ever, the ravens play their crazy tricks.

And, yes, gophers occasionally get caught in traffic. Let’s save the eulogies for them. The Yukon’s capital feels totally alive.

This column was first published in the January/February 2008 issue of above&beyond magazine.

© 2008 Mark Koepke / Photo by Christine Todd

Will a proposed raven-shaped licence plate ever take flight?

When the Yukon government announced plans to remove the iconic gold panner from our licence plate in the late 1980s, public outrage put an end to that idea. The miner, who’d been riding the bumpers of Yukon vehicles since 1953, was instead given a multi-colour makeover. And so he remained, undisturbed in his crouch beneath “The Klondike,” for almost two decades.

Then a Yukoner named Bill Barnie re-opened the plate debate. Or, as some critics might say, he went stark raven mad.

Years ago, Barnie was the art teacher at my Whitehorse high school, where he had the good fortune never to count me among his students. Now, the 60-year-old owns The Frame Shop, does fine art printing, and produces the occasional original painting. But his most famous—and controversial—endeavour is almost certainly his ongoing effort to give the Yukon a licence plate in the shape of its official bird.

“I came to the Yukon in ’84 from the NWT, so I was pretty familiar with shaped plates and I always felt that a shaped plate here would draw attention to the Yukon,” Barnie tells me.

Unfortunately, when he decided to release his most recent raven-shaped plate prototype into the wilds of public opinion in 2006, it flew straight into the face of the resident gold panner. And that’s about as far as it went.

According to Barnie, people got the wrong idea.

“One of the main reasons it never went through is a lot of people felt, incorrectly, that it was being proposed as a replacement for the existing plate—and I’ve never done that,” he explains. “The raven plate was always proposed as a designer plate that you’d actually have to pay a premium for.”

But Yukoners who are protective of the miner’s exalted status weren’t the only vocal locals who had a bone to pick with Barnie’s raven. While some loved the design, others suggested that the artist took excessive licence in his interpretation of the raven’s shape. Barnie has already made some changes, but he emphasizes that there are design constraints.

“It will always be an abstract just because it also has to function as a licence plate,” he says. “There has to be four holes…. There has to be certain room for the lettering…. But I believe, as much as people have criticized the design I’ve come up with, that my plate looks more like a raven than the NWT’s plate looks like a polar bear.”

This argument may only serve to ruffle the feathers of a whole new batch of Northerners. Yet Barnie forges ahead on the strength of his convictions and thick skin. He maintains that his plate design is a surefire winner because it also incorporates the colours black and gold, which have a long association with placer mining.

“I think that my plate—my raven plate—says more about the Yukon than anything that has ever been said before, because it speaks to its wildlife and it speaks to its history and it’s also representative of one of the First Nation clans in the Yukon, which have the crow as their symbol.”

However, Barnie won’t play favourites with the clans.

“After the raven plate comes out,” he promises, “I’m going to propose a wolf plate.”

His note of certainty seems completely genuine.

“I’m used to seeing things happen,” Barnie says, alluding to his contributions to the development of the Yukon Arts Centre and Whitehorse’s waterfront trolley. “I’m a little bit frustrated that this one is taking so long, but….”

Sooner or later, he suggests, the raven plate will get off the ground and eventually soar to great heights in the collectibles market.

“I’ll always pursue it,“ he says. “I’m always willing to talk about the raven plate.”

This column was first published in the November/December 2007 issue of above&beyond magazine.

© 2007 Mark Koepke

Sometimes, there’s more to an apron than meets the eye

When I was a kid, the service station at the junction of the Alaska Highway and Tagish Road advertised free ice cream with every tank of gas. It’s called Jake’s Corner and we’d often pop in on the way to our lakeside cabin. Jake liked my Dad, so he’d invariably deliver an armload of frozen treats to my family’s dusty station wagon, whether we bought gas or not. A lot of RV tourists weren’t so lucky, even after a huge fill-up.

Today, Yukoners and visitors alike can generally count on more consistent standards in the local service industry. But this progress doesn’t mean that the colourful characters have all disappeared. You’ll still encounter the occasional old timer cast from the same mould as Jake, as well as a strange breed of front-line service worker that adds a whole new dimension to the concept of professional service.

Consider Stephane Aucoin.

During the summer, the 31-year-old sells gourmet fish and chips from a trailer at the waterfront end of Whitehorse’s Main Street. While Aucoin’s customers appreciate both the fruits of his labour and his over-the-counter charm, most of them never realize just how professional his service is.

You see, behind Aucoin’s cooking apron hides a master’s degree in mechanical/aerospace engineering.

Granted, Aucoin is an entrepreneur who built his entire operation from scratch, including his unique recipes. But the reality is, he slaves away seven days a week, doing the kind of work that people typically hope to escape through advanced education.

“I work about 12 to 13 hours a day, and on crazy chaotic days, I’ll work 14 or 15 hours,” he says. “And then, when I’m closed the one day, I probably work about eight hours or so cleaning the trailer and getting things ready for the next week.”

Some might call him insane, but Aucoin is content in his relationship with the deep fryer.

“It’s kind of ironic, but I definitely wouldn’t trade it for an aerospace degree,” he says. “Obviously, I have the flexibility of doing other stuff as well, so perhaps that makes it different.”

If Aucoin’s experience offers a cautionary tale for fellow professionals contemplating a backbreaking service venture, 40-year-old architect Tony Zedda hasn’t heeded it. Kitty-corner from Aucoin’s trailer, you can sometimes spot him wiping down sidewalk tables outside a popular café that he and a partner purchased in 2007. A few months earlier, they opened a martini bar at the other end of Main.

Like Aucoin, Zedda had no previous experience in food and beverage. But whereas Aucoin approaches his job like a full-course meal, Zedda treats his service vocation as more of a side dish. From his firm’s architectural office—located above the café—he continues to oversee the design, construction and marketing of stylish downtown condos.

“We just thought there are a couple of things we’d like to jump into that are an extension of the design and development side, to make downtown a more interesting, liveable place,” he explains during a break.

Although Zedda expects his hands-on involvement in the café to taper off as he learns the business, he won’t hang up his wash cloth and apron altogether.

“With the office professional job, there are quite a few times when you don’t feel like staying there all day and there’s something nice about this,” he says, referring to his ability to pop downstairs and switch hats. “It’s a more direct kind of thing—when you’re feeding people and there’s a certain pleasure that they receive and you’re somehow part of that.”

As Zedda heads back to work, the engineer-chef across the intersection gladly serves a spicy cajun to another happy tourist.

And somewhere, much further away, the spirit of Jake probably stares down in disbelief.

This column was first published in the August/September 2007 issue of above&beyond magazine.

© 2007 Mark Koepke/Photo by Jesse Devost