Our 2014 Summer Vacation to the Yukon

We’ve just returned from two weeks exploring Canada’s northwest: Yukon Territory, North West Territories, a small piece of British Columbia, and Alaska too!

Our Route

We flew to Whitehorse, Yukon. It took 3 flights (we stopped in Montreal and Vancouver).

Here’s a Google Map with our route: https://goo.gl/maps/K2VOJ

My Thoughts on our first night in the Yukon

It is 7:34pm here north of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory! We woke up at 2am Atlantic time to catch the first of our 3 flights today. It doesn’t feel like it’s been a long day, but we crossed 4 time zones, and I’m way over tired. Fighting going to sleep too early so we can normalize our internal clocks again 🙂

We *just* made all of our connections. We were delayed in Montreal because a plane that took off reported hitting birds on the run way. They closed the runway to do an inspection and found a couple dead baby ducks 🙁 Then the next plane took off and hit more of them, so they closed it again to clear them before we took off.

Luckily we made it to Vancouver and landed at the gate right beside the Whitehorse connection, just in time to pee and board the plane. It was cloudy, rainy, and about 12 degrees in Halifax, Montreal, and Vancouver. Finally just before Whitehorse the clouds started having a few breaks in them. WOW what a view! The landscape on the way into Whitehorse is simply breathtaking. Mountains covered in snow, hills, trees, water, rivers, bright turquoise lakes.

First glimpse of the Yukon

We found our Canadream rental pick up fella standing in the terminal with a sign. While he was waiting for another couple, we went to the tourist kiosk. He told us he was from New Brunswick! The guy picking us up was from Sweden, and the couple at Canadream immigrated from Germany and lived in Halifax for 3 years. We we’re starting to think no is actually “from” here 🙂

Then we got groceries and supplies, and some Yukon beer. Gas is only 139.9 here, about the same as it is back home in Nova Scotia. Because we will have time in Whitehorse at the end of the trip, we didn’t stay long and headed north to the Takhini Hot Springs campground. We got a site with electricity tonight so we could get everything unpacked in the camper van and use their WIFI to research our stops for the next couple of days.

I’m so tired I feel like I’m on a boat and everything is moving. I don’t think I’m going to last too much longer. More tomorrow, with more photos 😉

Our site at the Tahkini Hot Springs Campground.

The Van

Living on the other side of Canada, we just didn’t have the time to drive from Nova Scotia to the Yukon. And the thought of flying with all of our camping gear was a real turn off. So we decided to become RV folks!

We rented a deluxe camper van from Canadream in Whitehorse. It was a Ford full sized van that was extra tall. The rental included everything we needed – dishes, sheets, blankets, pillows, towels, and the van was equipped with an itty bitty bathroom and the back of the van converted into a king sized bed. We also rented 2 lawn chairs from Canadream.

It took a bit to get used to. Although I didn’t every get used to the height of everything. I smashed my head every day, many times a day, on the cupboards and shelves.

At first were were concerned there wasn’t enough room for everything, but there was plenty. We purposely travelled with duffle bags so we could compress them and tuck them away.

Links to our Trip Posts:

Here are the direct links to each segment of our trip, complete with photos and my commentary 🙂

• Whitehorse -> Dawson City
• Dawson City -> Inuvik (The Dempster Highway)
• Inuvik -> Dawson City
• Dawson City -> Chicken, Alaska -> Haines, Alaska
• Hanes, Alaska -> Skagway, Alaska
• Skagway, Alaska -> Whitehorse, Yukon
• Whitehorse, Yukon