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The ExploreNorth Blog
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The writer is a resident of Canada's Yukon Territory with a passion for Exploring the North. This blog is one of the vehicles used to share that passion through words and images.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'travel'
A Black-and-White Road Trip
I sorta got sucked in by the weather offices yesterday, but I suppose it’s okay because I really needed to hit the road for a day. The weather forecasts for both Whitehorse and Skagway were for mostly sun, clouding up in Whitehorse in the after...
Winter Dreaming – Brazil
With the days getting shorter and the snow getting deeper by the minute, Cathy and I are both doing some serious shopping for a trip. Our budget is very unlikely to permit a winter getaway this year, but if not, a major one to celebrate my 60th birth...
Lakes, Bugs & Logging
Yesterday my brother-in-law and I drove 3 hours to their cabin in the high country above Merritt and did some exploring. It’s a beautiful area but the devastation being caused by the mountain pine beetle (dendroctonus ponderosae) and the effort...
A Railway History Day at Myra Canyon
One of the highlights of the Okanagan Valley for anyone with an interest in history has to be the Myra Canyon section of the former Kettle Valley Railway. Now a hiking and biking trail, this 12-kilometer section of the rail line has 18 trestles and 2...
Agri-tourism and Thanksgiving
The Okanagan Valley is a superb location to celebrate Thanksgiving (except that Cathy isn’t with me). Just up the hill from my sister’s place is an orchard that really knows how to blend tourism into the business, and yesterday my daughte...
The Day Begins in Kelowna
The day has begun – I spent the night at my sister’s and am now back at my parents’ place having coffee while the rest of the world wakes up. I stopped in to see the Kelowna CruiseShipCenters office yesterday afternoon and had an en...
From the Snowy Yukon to the Sunny Okanagan
As of last night I’m in Kelowna for a week visiting family. It’s nowhere near as warm as I’d hoped, but it is sunny – and the Fall Wine Festival is on This is what my driveway looked like yesterday as I was getting ready to ...
CruiseShipCenters Whitehorse Grand Opening
Although the Expedia CruiseShipCenters office in Whitehorse has been open since the end of May, we had our Grand Opening over the past 3 days, and we all had a ball. The response from the community has been great – I’ve met a lot of peopl...
Bye-bye, Cruisers!
I try to get down to Skagway to see the last ships each year, and yesterday turned out to be an excellent one. Lousy weather (as expected), excellent day. I always wonder whether people know the kind of weather to expect when they book these very lat...
Fall Colours, Snow & Steam Trains
Cathy and I had planned on working on the house yesterday. No really, we had , even though it was a beautiful morning. But then I got an email from the WP&YR railfan discussion list that I belong to, saying that there was going to be a run usi...
Map typo remains after 25 years
I just picked up 1:50,000 topographical maps of the Canadian part of the Chilkoot Trail, and found a major typo on a map that was printed in 1984 and corrected in 1999 (104M/14). Not only is the park not “Childkoot”, Parks Canada says tha...
It was too nice to stay home….
…. and I just couldn’t resist going to Skagway today. There were 4 large ships scheduled, so this was probably the last opportunity to see Skagway crazy-busy in the sunshine this year. The timing was perfect to catch one of Spirit Lake Lo...
Chilkoot Trail Photojournal
I’ve finally posted the photos from the Chilkoot Trail hike that Steve and I did in late July. I’ve still got a lot of captioning to do but that could take weeks yet. All of the 100+ photos have the time that they were taken noted, though...
A Whirlwind Visit
Two of my sisters, from Kelowna and Seattle, just spent 3 days (4 nights) with us, and we kept busy with family visits and showing them some of the reasons we live here. Three days is just a teaser, of course, but it’s a start, and other family...
The road chose Dan
As Steve and I were starting down the WP&YR tracks after taking the Bare Loon Lake cutoff trail from the Chilkoot on Tuesday, we met an Aussie fellow on a Great Adventure. Dan Grec is a few weeks into a 50,000-km drive from the Arctic Ocean at P...
A New Reason to Visit Fairbanks
Fairbanks now has an antique car museum. Not a few old wrecks in a warehouse but a fine collection of classics! The museum has been established by Fountainhead Hotels, and is on the grounds of their Wedgewood Resort. Have a look at their Web site for...
The Chilkoot Trail
My son and I have just returned from a 3-day hike on the world-famous Chilkoot Trail. It will take a few days to put together a report in the way I did my 1997 hike of the trail, but here are a few photos from the 350 I shot. As you can see, the weat...
A Haines Highway Day
The weather forecast yesterday was mixed, with morning showers and clearing in the afternoon but we decided to make a drive down the Haines Highway. It’s the best place in the Yukon to see grizzlies, as well as going through spectacular scenery...
A Skagway Day
Cathy’s parents are visiting from Ontario for 5 weeks, so yesterday we did a “tourist” trip to Skagway. It was a superb day – sunny, 74 degrees (22°C) and calm in Skagway, with some great bonuses as you’ll see in th...
The Xof1 Solar Car is Back in the North
Many of you no doubt saw the strange little UFO-looking Xof1 solar car when it was up last summer for a tour. Well it’ll be back in Whitehorse either late Saturday or on Sunday. In the photo below, the car is seen on the Alaska Highway in north...
Billy Connolly in Telegraph Creek, BC
This is another of the posts that were on the old blog. The film that this post talks about was shot last summer – the Telegraph Creek portion in September. It’s now available (in the UK only so far) as “Billy Connolly – Journ...
Extreme Day Hike – Venus Mine 1901
Everyone who has ever driven the South Klondike Highway has seen a few bits and pieces of various incarnations of the Venus silver mine – the mill is impossible to miss and some of the buildings higher up the mountain are easy to spot. There...
An Alaska Mushing Operation to Avoid
One of the large losses when my blog got hacked and I had to nuke it was a lengthy discussion about Austin’s Alaska Adventures in St. Michael. The post was initiated by an email I received from Lyn Harvey of Australia, who went on a trip with t...
Luxury Alaska Photography Cruise / Tour, June 2010
I’m thoroughly enjoying my new gig as Cruise Consultant - it seems to be the perfect evolutionary step that uses much of what I’ve learned over the past couple of decades in a fun new way. There’s a lot to learn about the business s...
Carcross to Bennett on the WP&YR “Washout Special”
On May 13, 2009, the White Pass & Yukon Route announced that the seasonal rail service from Skagway to Carcross which was scheduled to begin on May 22 had been suspended due to a major washout of the rail line 4 miles south of Bennett. Although ...
This Was the Day We Dream About
On a scale of 1 to 10, today rated 11 - it was incredible. The temperature hit the high 20s C (low 80s F), and there were no clouds, no bugs and no wind. This is the day I’ll dream about in the middle of our next winter - one day like this is w...
My New 9-5 - Cruise Vacation Planning
Today, for the first time in many years, I’m going to work in an office doing a 9-5. Instead of sitting at home dreaming about and planning trips for Cathy and I, I’ll be planning cruises and other trips for other people The new Expedia ...
Bike Weather!
Summer has arrived!! My kids are making me kinda nuts, though When I was in Calgary 3 weeks ago I helped my daughter pick out a new Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle, and a few minutes ago my son pulled up on his new Kawasaki KLR650! Whoohoo, Daddy needs a...
“We Want Speed, Not Character!”
This morning I’m testing the concept of re-constructing some of the posts that were on the old blog, using the Wayback Machine (thanks for the suggestion, Monica). Originally posted on October 14, 2007 Last Saturday (the 6th, Cathy and I loade...
Back Home - 18 Days, 6583 km
We got back to Whitehorse yesterday afternoon. It was a most excellent road trip - I put 6,583 kilometers (4,090 miles) on the Outback in 18 days and had some wonderful experiences ranging from visits with family and friends to wildlife encounters an...
