Our Fulda Challeng

This past weekend we stayed at an inn for Alysha’s staff Christmas Party. In our rush to leave, Edward forgot to bring along his thick winter boots and a pair of gloves. Thinking it wasn’t worth turning around for, as the inn was only ½ hour out of town anyways, we kept on driving. When night fell, the conditions got real nasty: thick snow, poor visibility, no map, opera playing on the CBC, etc. Luckily, we arrived safely.

The next day had clear, partly cloudy, skies, with dramatic sunlight ripping over the surrounding mountains and lake. As we were leaving, we heard an odd thumping. We pulled over to find our back passenger-side tire had a frozen divot. The tire had actually frozen flat. Unsure of this oddity, we called our travelling partners, Niki and Land, to take a look.

After a few minutes in the cold, it was clear that Edward was in no shape to change a tire. His hand had started bleeding and his fingers were to numb to open the band-aid package. Alysha tried to treat him with a frozen alcohol swab. The band-aid was also too cold to stick.

Thankfully, Land took the helm of changing the tire. Alysha and Niki played travel scrabble in their truck, and Edward took pictures to document the event, apologising for making Land do all the work. “No problem,” he replied. “It’s good practice for the Fulda Challenge.” (Incidentally, Land has been selected to represent Team Yukon to compete in this year’s Fulda Challenge, the full explanation of which will have to be saved for a future entry. Least to say, it’s a very unusual attraction for German Tourists. For now, you can check out their website here).

The moral of the entry is, as Land graciously imparted, “If you are going to travel on the highway, you have to be prepared to travel off the highway.”

Attempting the X-Country Ski

Having Wednesday off, we went to the nearby cross country trails to pick up X-country skiing. We hope to get better.

To view video in higher quality, click here.

To see the band behind the music, see Breathe Owl Breathe's My Space and their Beautiful Blog.

Sharing Floor Plans

When we first started shopping for places to live, Alysha commented on how desolate a lot of the neighborhoods looked. Vacant of large trees and fences, she pointed to how the homes “kind of look like prefabricated ginger bread houses that are just plopped everywhere.”

And like a weird reoccurring dream, where all the patterns repeat themselves, the walk down our street brings you by the same house again and again, except with different siding each time.

We have friends who take pride in the fact that their house is a popular wartime model. “These houses can be found all over Canada.” claims Land (that’s his name, but that’s a whole other blog entry in itself). Its cookie-cutter floor plan is fairly basic, matching functional design with ample living space, making them great and dependable houses. Their neighbors have the same one but flipped. Together they share a driveway. On the other side lives Land’s brother River (ibid.)lives in the same model, but also flipped. They actually know a lot of people with the same plan and even share ideas on modifying them. “We know one guy who turned the closet upstairs into a bathroom,” Land explains. They are considering some major renovations pretty soon.

Another popular plan is the duplex. Out of the 38 houses in our neighborhood, one is a townhouse, 18 are regular houses, and 19 are duplexes.

This one (pictured above) sits across the street from us. Our neighbor-friend Ann, who works auxiliary at Alysha’s clinic, lives there with her husband Ante. They met on the Stewart-Cassiar Highway while he was on his 3 year bike tour for Peace in Croatia and she was biking from Whitehorse to Vancouver. They use half of the duplex to live in and the other half to run their B&B. Fittingly, they call it La Bicicletta. You can read more of their story here.

My Tombstone

In the spirit of Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, we bring you this short homage to Tombstone Territorial Park. We did this trip over the September long weekend.

To view with better video quality, along with full images, check out our Vimeo link.

New License Plate

During Obama’s inauguration last January, the commentators on CNN were looking for anything iconic that would signify the change of office. They pointed to the large moving truck in front of the Whitehouse, the new look of www.whitehouse.gov, and the wheelchair Dick Cheney rode in due to a fall he had while packing up his belongings.

I think changing a license plate gives that same visual confirmation that things have changed. After all the planning, packing, unpacking, faxing, arranging, waiting in line, budgeting, insuring, registering, and driving, tightening the screws on the back end of the car is a truly satisfying feeling. With all screws in place, we officially say goodbye to “Beautiful British Columbia” and welcome in “The Klondike.”

Indoor Slippers

We first noticed this practice when we were invited for lunch one day after church. In the foyer there was a small chest, filled with Nepalese slippers. They were very comfy and we took them as a warm sign of hospitality. Then we went to the hot springs (for our anniversary)  and it was the same thing. Kind of. We each paid an extra dollar to wear Crocks™ poolside. Then last Friday, at the hair dressers, there it was again. Everybody’s chic insulated foot ware  laid splayed before the clean rack of booties. It’s great. I guess the constraints of weather  create more chances to get cozy with one another.

Investor's Pizza

We laughed pretty hard when we saw this dual use of space. We sent the picture to Alysha’s brother Bryce, who works for Investors Group over on Vancouver Island. “That is hilarious. I sure wouldn't have to go far for lunch!” he wrote back.

Baked Café

Edward currently works at Baked Café. Contrary to the logo, they don’t sell gingerbread men -though they have great ginger cookies and snickerdoodles. Baked is known for being the busiest place in Whitehorse, which could make it the busiest place in the territory, and even (possibly) the busiest place in Canada’s North.

Pictures from Tombstone Territorial Park

Industrial Artifacts

Though we live close to town, we are surrounded by a lot of trails. Some of these have direct routes, such as the set of stairs that creates a safe connection between the high sand bluffs and downtown. Others hug along long stretches of chain link fence. Sometimes they run in two parallel paths, such as the off-roadways and ATV trails. And still others wander.

Picking our way between these trails, we found an array of industrial artifacts. At least half of them left us puzzeling, "What do you think this does?" If I can't figure them out, I like to think they are some part of a chairlift.

Amdmiring the Craft of George Vancouver

In the spirit of adventure, circa 18th century, we decided to annotate our travels onto hotel stationary. There is something liberating about careless map making that's different from elementary school's tracing of atlases. Map not to scale.

Boreal Lanscapes

On our September long-weekend trip to Dawson, we past by several forest fire sites. Our peripheral vision opened as the woods dwindled to fields of blackened trunks. Some of these sites were marked by signs indicating the year of the blaze. We were surprised how little grew over the subsequent years. Usually there was low bush, or a few of what we guessed to be alders, but not much more than that.

Upon reaching Tombstone, we were also taken aback by how small the trees were. In combination with how thin the air felt, the setting made us feel like we were back in the high alpine of BC. I guess we have taken the temperate rainforest climate for granted. But though growth is slow in these parts, their results are breath taking.

Construction Work, Slowing.

When checking road conditions for the trip up, I found an overwhelming amount of notices due to road construction. It’s amazing to think of how much money goes into building and repairing these byways through the most remote areas. We grew accustomed to the pylon-marked one-ways -the scariest of which was on our last day, where a gravel ramp that had recently been washed out in a mud slide. Dividing my attention between driving and noticing the amazing size of ramp (with sheer drops off each shoulder), I was a little late in noticing that our tires were slipping. After brief panic, and a sure recovery of the vehicle, I looked forward to our next bathroom break.