At 3:50pm on Friday April 5, I was picked up outside my grandmothers building in Victoria by a pre-arranged airport shuttle. Destination Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. After a bit of worry based on a late meeting of two airport shuttles I arrived at the Victoria Airport just in the nick of time. Well, it would have been just in the nick of time had my flight not been delayed by an hour. Fortunately, I was due to have a four hour layover in Vancouver before heading towards my final destination. After an hour and a half in the Victoria airport followed by a fourteen minute flight, three hours in the Vancouver airport then a two hour flight, I had arrived in Whitehorse. It was around 12:30am Saturday morning.
Now, as some of you may know from earlier posts or, just from knowing me, my birthday is on April 5. As is my girlfriend Suzanne’s. As it was both our birthdays, Suzanne’s mother, through the help of a hotel employee and friend booked us a hotel room. This I knew. What myself and Suzanne did not know was that the room which had been booked for us was the Presidential Suit. Yup! My first night in Whitehorse was spent in the luxury of the Presidential Suit. I’m talking jacuzzi tub, fireplace, big comfy bed, champagne, the whole nine yards. It was pretty amazing!
After a long late morning soak in the ridiculously large jacuzzi we headed out for breakfast to a little place around the corner called Burnt Toast. Evidently I work there part time now. Breakfast was good. We spent the rest of that day catching up on sleep and seeing the sights in Whitehorse which included a very interesting visit to the Klondike museum.
Sunday was a very special day to me for a few different reasons. First, Suzanne and I spent the whole day driving around which was a lot of fun. Secondly, it marked my first visit to a foreign country. We drove to Alaska. Thirdly, I saw some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life. I have added some pictures just below but I assure they do not do the place justice.
While in Alaska we visited a place just on the other side of the border called Skagway. It is a tiny little town exuding the brilliance and mystery one would expect to find in a small northern. town from the gold rush era. Though, it is still a living, breathing town, most of the buildings are originals. It is really a cool little place. One of the places we visited in Skagway was a tavern called the Red Onion Saloon. This place used to be a brothel which the pictures on the wall have no intent of hiding. Apparently, in the summer they do tours of the upstairs which has been transformed into a whore house museum of sorts. Unfortunately, the museum wasn’t open yet so we satisfied ourselves with a cold beer and internal décor of the place which included amongst the pictures of infamous prostitutes from back in the day, many different types of bedpans and chamber pots strung along where the wall meets the ceiling.
Once we finished our beers we headed out into the wilderness via an ever narrowing dirt road which clung to the side of a mountain like a baby orangutang clinging to it’s mothers back. It was a little nerve racking to say the least but Suzanne handled it expertly. As we drove along the narrow dirt road towards some tidal flats where a town once stood, we were caught by a bit a scenery the likes of which I had never seen before. As the picture below shows, we were looking over the pacific ocean. Mountains in front, beside, and behind us. The turquoise water shimmering in the warm sunlight. As we bathed in the warmth and the beauty, accepting the likely fact that nothing would ever compare to the moment and place we had unknowingly found ourselves in, it some how became better. In that instant, somewhere between bliss and total sensory overload, as we stood looking, taking it all in, less than thirty feet in front of us, set to a postcard-Esq backdrop, a bald eagle flew. Right there, in an instant we had seen the truth behind all the Alaskan tourism commercials and brochures. It was perfection. We sat there, eating smoked sausage, Tillamook cheddar, and bread taking in the pristine beauty that will remain with me for as long as a live.
There was much more to that day. Lots of other incredible things seen and done. But, after writing the description that I just wrote I feel it is pointless to say anymore today. Anything else I could possibly tell you about that day will seem mundane and boring. So, I will stop here. I will tell more about that day some other time, or, maybe I won’t I don’t know. What I do know is that I am so incredibly happy to be here in the Yukon, and I am so thankful for the things I have had the opportunity to see and do in the short while I have been here. I look forward to all the things the great white north has to offer me that I have yet to experience. And of course, I look forward to sharing them all with you.
Thanks for reading. Until next time.
PROTOADVENTURE 