The Emperor's New Grocery Shelves

Yukon highways are beautiful, winding through mountains and along racing creeks and rivers.  I highly recommend the driving/riding in the Yukon as something that should be on your bucket list.

When you come, though, make sure the highways are open.

Oh, did I forget to mention?  The mountains and racing creeks and rivers joined forces with A Whole Lotta Rain to wash out several of Yukon's Highways - including multiple sections of our main truck to the South, the Alaska Highway.

I wish I had some washout photos to post for you - because I've seem some doozies - but all I've really got to share is this link to a CBC article about the washouts and this link to a CBC video about the washouts.

A funny thing happens when the main transportation corridor to the Territory gets closed and is expected to remain closed for days or even weeks.  Groceries stop coming in.  Gas stops coming in.  And some people panic.

"All of the grocery stores are out of milk! I drove to every store looking for some!" one Facebook friend proclaimed.  "There's no meat left in the store!" announced another.  Indeed, the bare shelves were caused in part by normal consumerism, but there was a goodly number of people stockpiling food like the zombie apocalypse had just begun.

We, fortunately, keep our household freezer and pantries well-stocked.  I did go to a couple of grocery stores, though - not because I needed anything, but because I was curious.  I wanted to see the bare shelves for myself.

Like the meat section at the Superstore...


And the produce section...
Bare, bare, bare!

But if you want celery and romaine?  You're good!

The whole incident highlights Yukon's food security issues.  Fortunately, there was little need to panic (this time, anyway - the zombie apocalypse will be a different situation entirely).  The grocery stores are flying in dairy, meat, and fresh produce.



While groceries by air is unusual for most of the Yukon, it's part of the routine for Old Crow.  In fact, they even have a local word for flying in their groceries.  It's called "normal".  Unfortunately, it's also expensive and I sympathize with the Nunavummiut who spent part of their day protesting the high price of food in Nunavut.

We'll see what happens to food prices in Whitehorse over the next few days.  And it will be very interesting to see what happens at gas stations as their tanks start to run dry.

The Old Crow Spring Carnival

It's the Easter weekend in Old Crow, Yukon, and there is no shortage of action at the Old Crow Spring Carnival!

You want races?  There are: snow machine races, snowshoe races, dogsled races, toboggan races, and more.

You want food?  There's the: soup-making competition, bannock-making competition, cake making- and decorating- competition, pop scramble, juice scramble, and more.

You want games?  Lots of those!  But here's one of my favourites: the balloon pop!
 
The kids enjoyed the piñata.


Several of the adults enjoyed the hockey in the gym - even if one of them took a hard ball to the face.  I'm doing fine, thanks for asking.


There are always evening activities.  On Friday night it was a talent show.  On Saturday night there was a jigging competition followed by a dance.



For all-round family entertainment over the Easter weekend, I'm thinking the Old Crow Spring Carnival can't be beat.  I might have to find a way to bring my family here for next Easter..!

Allan Benjamin does it awl!

Allan Benjamin of Old Crow is a man of many talents. When he's not working, snowshoeing, fiddling, writing poems and drawing cartoons for his popular "Didee and Didoo" feature in the What's Up Yukon, you can be certain he's up to something fun an interesting.

Like taking up photography with his new camera...
 
(It only takes pictures of animals)

... or making beautiful tools like this caribou antler tine-handled awl.



Thanks, Allan, for the beautiful awl and for always giving me something to laugh about!

Saturday Night Hoedown

Here's another tune from Allan Benjamin's & Birch Kuch's session yesterday afternoon at the Old Crow Airport. I love the grin on Birch's face when the phone rings and how they both react to it at the end of the song.



If you'd like to hear more Old Crow fiddle music (and some Kate Weekes originals) it behooves you to check out Home Sweet Home, which features Keitha Clark and Allan's nephew Boyd Benjamin playing a whole slew of toe-tapping fiddle tunes from the Old Crow repertoire.

Hey diddle diddle!

Allan Benjamin is a poet, artist, snowshoer, Ranger, and fiddler in Old Crow, Yukon. Yukoners will recognize his "Didee and Didoo" column from What's Up Yukon. The other day, he and Birch Kuch (an amazing clarinetist) got together in the Community Airport Radio Station at the Old Crow Airport to play a couple of tunes.



Old Crow has a long history of fiddling and dancing and the community still turns out every couple of months for a big dance. Every fiddler has their own style and interpretation of the songs. Some of the songs have extra beats that can take other musicians by surprise. This song, Double Jig, is only known by a few fiddlers and Allan hopes that by posting in to youtube, others will be inspired to learn it.

Crow Mountain Revisited

I first walked up Crow Mountain in May 2009. It was a great hike and I have long wanted to repeat the trip. As luck would have it, I'm in Old Crow again for work and had a little time in the evening for a hike. This time I was joined by Heather, who also wanted to hike up the mountain.

Most of the trip takes place along a gravel road that leads up to a quarry on the side of the mountain. The road is popular with Old Crow residents and it's not unusual to run into someone heading up or down the mountain.  On our walk, we were passed by a 4-wheeler.  They were taking their dog for a walk.  And by "walk", I mean that the dog was full-out sprinting up the mountain and loving every minute of it.  At the top, they turned around to head back down and the dog was still sprinting.  When the 4-wheeler stopped to talk with us, the dog ran around excitedly, never flagging for an instant.

Any idea what this verdant little plant is?

Old Crow is a fly-in community.  It is tremendously expensive to build a winter road, so it only gets built every so many years.  It has been seven years now since the last winter road.  The equipment in the quarry is rented.  Believe it or not, so I'm told, it makes more financial sense to pay the daily rental rate on the equipment and have it sitting there for several years than it does to purchase it outright or pay for the cost of the winter road.



It's a short growing season above the tree line and many of the plants are in bloom.  I was really impressed with the blueberry plants, which are already flowering even though the leaves are barely out (not pictured below).


Crow Mountain is on one of the migration routes of the porcupine caribou herd. Caribou antlers litter the slopes.





The scale of the land is difficult to take in. Distant mountains are over a hundred kilometres away. In the picture below, you can see my hiking companion off in the distance.

The wind was powerful on top of the mountain. It wasn't the kind of powerful wind that would allow you to stand at a 45^o angle or the kind of wind that would blow you right over, but it was powerful enough to blow my face into a smiling position.


The problem that I have with hiking in a place like this is that I always want to keep going. I look at Second Mountain and I want to go there in the worst way. Maybe one of these days I will. We'll just have to see.


There's something special about being able to see a panorama that goes on for hundreds of kilometres and knowing that, aside from a few, small, scattered camps, there is nothing but wilderness.  I don't know how to describe it, but it's invigorating.  It's exciting.  It's good for my soul.

A Vulcan in Old Crow

Derrick Kapuschak-Frost is one of the most ingenious furniture makers I've ever met. He uses recycled materials and items from the land to create gorgeous works of unique furniture art. I'm not going to post any pictures of his latest work in progress (a honeybucket "throne" fit for a king) but I will post this picture of his anvil.


A long, long time ago, this Vulcan anvil - which belonged to a man named Olsen - was brought up the west coast by steamer, around Alaska and through the Bering Sea, and then up the Yukon and Porcupine Rivers. It is said that Olsen could make anything. It is the source of inspiration for Derrick's company name, Olsen's WoodCraft, and also its logo.

If you're even in Old Crow, you can find Olsen's Woodcraft behind Yukon College's Alice Frost Campus near the Recycling Depot.  It's really worth a visit just to see what Derrick has dreamed up next.

Cuteness

Most of the sled dogs in Old Crow have been moved to their summer place. It seems like it would be a good place to have puppies.

It's a gas!

I stopped by Chief Zzeh Gittlit school in Old Crow the other night and caught the final race of the CO₂ car rally.  Students and community members made drag racing cars out of blocks of wood.  There is a space at the back of each home-made car for a CO₂ cartridge.  I won't get into how difficult it is to get CO₂ cartridges into a fly-in community (the cartridges are considered dangerous goods).

Here's a picture of the second-place winner.  I didn't get a picture of the first-place winner.  It was too fast.

It's already winter in Old Crow.

It's mild and fall-like in Whitehorse, but it's already winter in Old Crow, the Yukon's most northerly community.







I always enjoy my visits to Old Crow. Not only is it beautiful, it is the epitome of northern hospitality. I just spent a week there on a work project.

I also always enjoy my homecoming. I am always amazed at the changes in my kids when I return. All of a sudden, Halia has started using four and five word sentences and she's trying out other words that just make me laugh. The school bus is the "coo-coo bus" and Rice Crispies are "rice fee-fees". I think I like her versions of the words better.

I'll be doing a lot of travel around the Yukon in the near future. I'll post when I get the chance.

Old Crow: John Tizya Centre

Every visit to Old Crow should include a stop at the John Tizya Centre. It's not just the amazing and informative interpretive displays that make it worth a visit, it's the friendly people who work there, too.

An interpretive display outlining the lay of the land.

Ice-age bison skulls, beadwork, and ratting canoes - Oh, my!

Everything (that isn't behind glass) is hands-on. It's a great place for kids, too.

It's amazing the things you can learn here! Who knew that you could eat cave carrots to get your daily dose of iron and calcium!?

I'm not exactly "Mr. Fashion" but even I know that jacket's amazing. What incredible beadwork!

Speaking of incredible beadwork!

Custom headphones for those chilly winter days.

It's the little details that make this place so amazing.

What I've shown here is just the tip of the iceberg. As I said at the start of this entry, every visit to Old Crow should include a stop at theJohn Tizya Centre.

Crow Mountain Summit

Because you, my loyal readers, requested it, here is an unobscured copy of my current background photo, taken on the summit of Crow Mountain. Click on the picture if you want to see a larger version.

A walk up Crow Mountain.

While I was in Old Crow, I heard about the road that leads up to the quarry on Crow Mountain. Of course, I just had to walk up there.

Before I left, I told an RCMP officer my plans and asked him about bear spray. It is springtime (when bears are hungry) and I would be walking in an area where I didn't know the bear situation. The RCMP officer and a lands and resources person who works for the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation assured me I wouldn't need it, but only after a bit of playful teasing. Their assurances were good enough for me, so I set out in the late evening, armed with my camera and an extra sweater.

A big bed of ice, lining the Crow River.

Just past the subdivision, as the road begins its ascent, I saw the RCMP officer again. He was driving his truck down the road. He stopped to tell me that it was 5.5km to the quarry. Secretly, I wondered if he hadn't driven someone up there to pretend to be a bear.

The climb begins.

I passed a team of dogs as they were getting fed and a creek that was running amber from all of the tannins it collected on its way down the slope.

An amber creek.

On the steady climb upwards, I got better and better views of the top of the mountain.



I also got better and better views of the land surrounding Old Crow.

Do you see the guy on the 4-wheeler?

Eventually, I made it to the quarry. The quarry wasn't anything spectacular, but the view was. I decided to keep going. I passed a snowmachine and homemade toboggan and walked past the end of the road, following the four-wheeler and snowmachine tracks over the wind-packed snow.

Homemade toboggan.

The late-evening sun. In a couple of hours, it would become the midnight sun.

Wind-packed snow.

The trail forked and I had the option of walking to Crow Flats or continuing up the summit. Without any supplies on-hand, I figured it would be best to continue up the mountain and save a walk to Crow Flats for another trip.

The trail to Crow Flats.

The snow was hard and the walking was easy. I walked around the north side of Crow Mountain, enjoying the views of Second Mountain behind it. Eventually, I bee-lined for the top, walking over alternating patches of snow and exposed ground.

Second Mountain.

The last tree I passed before I bee-lined to the summit.

As I neared the summit, I noticed a ring of rocks. I couldn't tell how old it was, but it didn't look recent. For all I know, the rink could be ten years old or ten thousand years old. Was it built by hunters for shelter while they sat look-out for herds of caribou? I'll have to ask the next time I'm in Old Crow.

Near the summit.

Tent ring?

I'm not a huge fan of the Yukon's "Larger than life" slogan, but from the summit of Crow Mountain, the immensity of he landscape was mind boggling.

The summit.

According to Google Earth, this cutbank is almost 3kms long.

Zoomed in on Old Crow, down below.

Looking west, 50 kms to Alaska.

There was only a gentle breeze, the sun was warm, and the air was refreshing. It was wonderfully quiet. I could have spent hours on top of Crow Mountain, absorbing the fantastic views and looking around the plants and rocks.

First flowers of the season.

Natural, or human-made?

Eventually, I wandered down toward the road. As usual, it was a lot faster going downhill than it was going up. Thanks to the midnight sun, I had no idea what time it was and, quite frankly, I didn't really care.

As I passed one of the bushcamps along the way, the silence was broken by a voice. I turned to see a man calling, "Come for some tea!"

The night air was cooling and a cup of tea sounded like a good idea. I met David and joined him in his wall tent, where he lives year-round. The tea was good and we chatted for an hour or two before I resumed my journey down the mountain.

A bushcamp along the road.

David.

It was well past midnight before made it back to the B&B where I was staying. I slept very well that night.

If you ever make it to Old Crow, I highly recommend a walk up Crow Mountain.