Recent Posts
The ExploreNorth Blog
Return To Blog Listing
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 'weather'
Disappearing under a Blanket
That’s what’s happening to the green part of my world – it’s rapidly disappearing under a blanket of white. And that makes me want to disappear under a blanket of wool for a few months… ...
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...
Getting Warm Now to Get Warm all Winter
The rest of the firewood logs have now been delivered, and due to a breakdown of the trailer dump, the timing worked out very well. It was only possible to get 3 loads dropped out of the way – load #4 was going to block entry to the portable ga...
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 ...
Winter Prep – Timing is Everything
I got the snow tires installed on both cars yesterday. This is the first time that I’ve ever been able to do it myself, and saving $240+ for an hour’s work felt great! It takes a considerable investment in extra wheels, and having an air ...
Preparing for Winter
For many of us this is an even busier period than summer – getting ready for winter is a lot of work when you live like we do. In the city we didn’t have this “problem” – the thermostat provided heat all winter, the driv...
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...
Making Winter Easier
Going through photos of our house renovation progress yesterday, I came across some pictures of the snow we got last winter, and was shocked – my memory of being buried in the white crap might have underestimated it. The two photos below show C...
Hard Choices on a Fall Day
The Fall colours on Golden Horn are spectacular this morning – this photo was taken from the deck at 7:40. I had planned to get into the high country today but the friend who was going to go with me cancelled because she’s sick. Now, shou...
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...
How Smoky is my World?
Well, the first photo below was shot on Friday, the one below it was shot from the same location (the Canada Games Centre) an hour ago. The road running from side to side is the Alaska Highway (Alaska is to the left), downtown Whitehorse is ahead and...
Our Smoky World
Our good luck couldn’t last – I’m amazed that it lasted as long as it did. The negative side to the hot, dry summers I love is that the forests go up in flames. The Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia are all covered in smoke now. U...
A Recipe for Disaster
Blend together: 31°C temperatures 31% humidity localized winds gusting to 90kmh Add lightning, with rain removed. Stand back – waaaaaay back. This is the recipe that’s being served up in the central and northern Yukon in the ne...
Nice Work, Mother Nature!
This is the most incredibly beautiful summer I’ve ever seen. Look at the weather forecast – it just keeps coming! This photo was shot at the Bove Island viewpoint south of Carcross a couple of hours ago – click to greatly ...
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...
Forest Fires and Airplanes
Although there have been some worries, the Yukon has been exceptionally lucky this summer – lots of hot, sunny days with few forest fires. Only Dawson has significant fires burning – lightning has, I believe, caused all of them this year....
Winter Has Arrived – June 28
So this is Global Warming – or Climate Change – or whatever. Yesterday afternoon we got the heaviest hail I’ve ever seen in this country, and this morning the temperature is -5°C (23°F), everything is glazed with ice and t...
I Love Rain!
I don’t always love rain, but I sure do love the rain that’s fallen the past 2 days. The forest fire smoke is gone and the flowers, especially the lupine on our property, are going crazy. I was getting very paranoid about fires, despite t...
My Kelowna View
I woke up to rain this morning, which I used to hate when lived in Vancouver. Now I rather like it because I see it so seldom. The sun is coming out as I type this, but look at the view from my parent’s deck - that’s snow low on the moun...
Spring Dog
Monty loves Spring as much as I do. He’s been digging a bed into the soft, aromatic dirt in what will some day be one of the flower gardens, but one of the rapidly-growing snow-free places out in the forest is a good place for an afternoon nap,...
The Weather Forecast I’ve Been Dreaming About
How tough is this to deal with??...
Snow & Flowers!
It’s snowing again but there’s a light at the end of the long white tunnel. The light at the end of the tunnel? On CBC Radio this morning, a young girl phoned in to say that she saw the first crocus of the year at Paint Mountain (H...
Digging my way into Spring
This time of year, I start digging through the snow looking for Spring. Well actually I go looking for bare ground - the sun now has enough heat to warm the ground and get things dried out and growing weeks earlier than if I let Mother Nature do her ...
Driving to Spring - a Skagway Day
When I woke up yesterday morning it was -26°C here! (that’s -15°F). The weather forecast showed 42F and mostly sunny for Skagway, so when my buddy Rob phoned, he and I quickly decided that heading south to Alaska was a better idea tha...
Spring in the Yukon….
Well, Spring officially began about 5 hours ago. The images below show what things looked like here a few minutes ago. Whoopee, I love Spring! w00t…....
Poor Subie…
When I get into “renovation” mode poor Subie loses her warm, dry bedroom - doesn’t she look like she deserves a trip to the Oregon coast?…. or Phoenix….. or Yuma….. or Albuquerque…………....
It’s March 9 - and Minus 35 Degrees….
It’s March 9, it’s almost 10:00, and the thermometer is reading -35°C - *sigh*...
Is This Going to be the Last Weekend of Winter?
Well, The Weather Network long-term forecast seems to indicate that the cold is about at an end There are moose tracks all over the property now (even in the corral), so I was out shovelling waist-deep snow today to create places for our moose to g...
Snow Truckin’
The white crap just keeps falling. I’ve never seen the likes of this in the Yukon - we just don’t normally get a lot of snow. At our city property, the piles are over 8 feet high and there’s no room to put any more, so this morning ...
Chain Store Silliness
I went down to Canadian Tire yesterday, thinking about buying a snowblower - shovels just can’t keep up with the white crap this year in the many places that my truck-mounted plow can’t get to. What did I find instead? The front of the st...
