Pages

January 07, 2011

How I Spent My Summer Vacation on Urban Yukon

Dave over at Urban Yukon has been asked by What's Up Yukon to write an article about Urban Yukon.  Urban Yukon, if you don't already know, aggregates recent entries from a diverse array of Yukon blogs. It was founded several years ago by Geof Harries as a social experiment and is now lovingly run by Dave.

Dave wants to know what Urban Yukon means to me and how it has affected my writing

If you've never been to urbanyukon.com, go check it out now.  Don't worry, I'll be here when you get back.

Done?

Good.  Pretty neat, eh?

So, how has Urban Yukon affected my writing?

I was a blogger before I moved to the Yukon.  Unsurprisingly, when I moved here I didn't know many people.  I can't remember if I found Urban Yukon or if Urban Yukon found me.  Either way, all of a sudden, I was part of a small Yukon blogging community.  I didn't read many blogs before but Urban Yukon offered a nice collection of blogs that I found... interesting!  Comments on each other's respective blogs ensued and it wasn't long before I started running into my fellow bloggers, either by accident or by design.  There are still times when I meet people that I've never met before only to discover that they're longtime Michael's Meandering readers who found my blog through Urban Yukon.

While Urban Yukon was started as a social experiment, it is now a growing community.  By community, I mean that it's more than just a place where people "live".  A community is a place where people come together to interact, laugh, cry, share ideas and experiences and, when a need arises, help each other out.  And I have first-hand experience with that.

When my daughter started having seizures, my wife and I blogged about it.  Some of the greatest support we received was from the community of Urban Yukon bloggers.  When we put my daughter on the ketogenic diet (a strict high-fat, adequate-protein, and low-carbohydrate diet that has successfully brought her seizures under control when medication could not) it was other Urban Yukonites that were right there to help us out, shopping for food that fit within the restriction of the diet, helping us import specialty foods from across the border, and more.  We didn't have to ask; they just helped.  That's what the people in a good community do for each other.

So, how has Urban Yukon affected my writing?

It hasn't.  

I still write the way I would write if Urban Yukon never existed (though probably with fewer readers).

But Urban has affected my life, and it has affected my life for the better.

Thanks Geof, Thanks Dave, and thanks to all the Urban Yukonites out there who help to make the Urban Yukon community a great one.

2 comments:

Matt, Kara, Hunter and Cavan said...

I wrote to Dave as well! Urban Yukon has given us friendly connections in nearly every community in the Yukon. We have made numerous friends through it and have helped a number of people with their move north after they found our blog through Urban Yukon. I love the UY community!

yukondude said...

Michael, just wanted to add my thanks as well. I quoted your words about the Urban Yukon community to close the article. Assuming the editors don't ixnay it, look for it in the January 20th issue.