Owner: The ExploreNorth Blog URL:http://www.explorenorth.com/wordpress/ Join Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:31:03 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: 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.
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There Are No Elephants in Alaska 2007-11-02 11:25:27 At least as of last night there are no elephants in Alaska
. Maggie, a 2-ton, 25-year-old African elephant, has spent most of her life at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, but last night was flown in a C-17 military cargo plane to the Performing Animal Welfare Society facility in California (that’s the same type of aircraft used to move Willy the orca in 1998).
Watching the Maggie story in the Anchorage Daily News and on their Web site over the past 15 years or so has been upsetting, and is one of the reasons I’ve never been to the Anchorage zoo in my 100+ visits to the city. The zoo has been under ever-increasing pressure to move her to a warmer climate, particularly since her companion elephant died 10 years ago.
My last visit to a zoo was about 15 years ago, when my kids were small. We went to the Vancouver Game Farm which was bearable, and then perhaps a year later to one in Kamloops, BC, which finished me off with zoos forever. They had a grizzly bear in a tiny metal cage
Weighty Decisions, Guy Style: Garage Planning 2007-11-02 00:05:54 In 5 weeks I’m moving to a house that has double the useable square footage, and the same-size double garage without the huge mezzanine storage I have now. Looking around my garage tonight, one of 3 conditions must be true:
#1 - I have too much stuff
#2 - my garage is too small
#3 - I’m not storing my stuff correctly to maximize the useable space
Now every guy knows that #1 is just silly - there is no such thing as having too much stuff! Economics largely rules #2 so it’s often non-negotiable. That leaves #3 - I’m just not storing/racking/shelving my stuff properly. The photo below may give you an idea of what’s involved in solving #3, though.
Wow, where does a guy start?? All my regular readers know the answer to that question for this guy - I go to a garage storage Web site.
Planning my new garage before the moving truck backs up to it is going to save me an enormous amount of work. I know the basics - a sturdy full-length work bench with pegboa Read more:Decisions
, Garage
, Style
Bargain Bald Eagles Next Week!! 2007-11-01 20:29:25 No, you can’t buy bald eagles cheaply next week, but with the US dollar going for 97.3 Canadian cents at banks today, getting to Haines, Alaska, to see the incredible Alaska Bald Eagle Festival is a bargain. It’s been a few years since I took Vancouver-area photographer friend Roy Luckow down, and I’m long over due for another trip. The photo here was taken on my trip with Roy - it’s okay, but I have much better photographic equipment now.
The gathering of eagles is truly a world-class natural event. Drawn by a late run of chum salmon, the number of eagles peaks in mid-November at between 3-4,000, varying quite a bit from year to year. Most of the birds congregate in a very short stretch of river just below the mouth of the Tsirku River. A huge reservoir of water far under the riverbed at that point keeps the river ice-free for most of the winter, allowing the salmon to spawn and the eagles to feed. The result is that you can see, from the side of the road, tre Read more:Bargain
Getting Noticed Online 2007-10-31 14:25:41 Many of you have blogs or Web sites for commercial or personal reasons. All of you in that part of the online world know that the biggest challenge in having an online presence is getting noticed so that it’s worth your time and/or money to keep it “live.” Sometimes it’s possible to leverage someone else’s efforts to get noticed to help yourself. Enter MyPRGenie, who is giving away valuable services in order to get more noticed in a tough market.
To quote from their Web site, “MyPRGenie is the leading publicity engine for pdf, text, pictures and video releases. With the basic FREE MyPRGenie solution, you can go online to order a PR package that distributes your press release to up to 4,000 reporters and editors. For the premium MyPRGenie solution, you can substantially increase your exposure and distribute your news to up to 10,000 search engine and web directory submissions, maximize your search engine rankings and target key editors and reporters.&
Justice & the Law - not the same thing at all 2007-10-30 13:13:22 I expect that almost all of you remember when, on March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Alaska’s spectacular Prince William Sound. Many of you probably don’t know that the court case against Exxon is still going on. Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cut the punitive damages award from $5 billion to $2.5 billion, and I just read in the Anchorage Daily News that Exxon has just been granted an appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court. Was the $5,000,000,000 too large an award for one of the worst single human-caused environmental tragedies in history? I don’t know. The disaster did force the development and use of double-hulled tankers - the new Endeavour Class tankers are impressive, to say the least - and that is very expensive. But it does seem that a legal system that allows lawyers to delay a resolution of an issue such as this for over 18 years has serious flaws. Certainly some of the people most affected by the spill have died without Read more:Justice
Executive Home with Rental Suite For Sale 2007-10-27 10:34:18 This home is located in the upscale neighbourhood of Granger, high on the hill above Whitehorse. During the short drive downtown, you are faced with wonderful views of the Big Salmon Mountain Range. A large grocery store is 6 blocks away, downtown Whitehorse 4 kilometers.
15 years old
huge fully-fenced lot with lots of trees behind - very private
extensive renovations have been completed on the upper floor since Feb/2005, using high-quality materials
- - Italian porcelain tiles in the entry, kitchen and breakfast nook
- - Pergo wood laminate flooring in living room, dining room and den/bedroom
- - extensive polished tilework in ensuite and spa room
all on one floor - the basement is a completely separate home (with very quiet long-term tenants)
$385,900
For more information, see http://www.yukonalaska.com/29wilson/ or phone us at 867-456-2193
Read more:Executive
, Rental
, Suite
“I am very embarrassed to live in the Yukon” 2007-10-26 15:56:16 So says Terry Cumming in his rant against popular Yukon News columnist Doug Bell at http://animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/17286 . Don’t let the door hit you on the way Outside (where you obviously belong), Terry.
Read more:ldquo
, rdquo
Sled Dog Advocacy? 2007-10-17 12:30:42 Oct. 31 Edit: I’ve now opened SledDogWatch.com to further counter the nonsense described below. This site is “Dedicated to Honouring the Tradition and the Sport of Mushing.”
Those of you in Whitehorse may have seen the posters put up by Terry Cumming opposing the Yukon Quest in particular and mushing in general due to what Terry claims is the cruelty of the sport. I know Terry well, and have just ignored his nonsense up until today. I just read a Letter to the Editor, though, in which he trashes the person/people who is/are tearing down his posters, calling them “very cowardly”. As soon as I post this I’m going to phone the City Bylaw department to see why he isn’t being charged for defacing city property - his posters are every bit as obnoxious as that of any of the other brainless “taggers” in this town.
If Terry chose to target the places where dog cruelty actually takes place (or animal cruelty in other forms), I’d cont
Historic Mine Buildings Washed Away 2007-10-15 08:14:01 This morning, I again awoke to fairly heavy snow falling. That makes yesterday’s sunshine even more special - it prompted another trip to Skagway, and it turned out to be a superb day. The light was spectacular, and there were enough clouds to provide a lot of drama through the White Pass in particular. It was truly a photographer’s dream day, and between Cathy and I we shot 92 photos. This image shows Summit Lake and the Sawtooth Mountains in the White Pass (click to enlarge each of today’s photos).
During the day, though, I also discovered that two century-old mining buildings were washed away by this summer’s extremely high water levels in the Southern Lakes. This photo shows the Venus Mine on May 31 this year. To the left of the large mill is a log warehouse on the shore of Windy Arm of Tagish Lake - it is now completely gone, apparently just an assortment of scattered logs drifting down the lake system somehwere.
This house was built in about 1911 for Read more:Buildings
“We Want Speed, Not Character!” 2007-10-14 11:37:59 Last Saturday (the 6th), Cathy and I loaded the dogs into the Outback and headed out to &ldquo
;D-Bay&rdquo
; for lunch (it’s offically Destruction Bay, but nobody around here uses that name). The weather wasn’t particular nice and it might seem a little odd to drive 170 miles to have lunch at a roadside “greasy spoon”, but we were badly in need of a road trip, even a short one. For day trips out of Whitehorse, it’s pretty tough to beat Kluane Lake for scenery.
Every local and everyone who has driven the Alaska Highway in the last 20 years or so knows about the Shakwak Project, even if not by name. This is the massive rebuilding of the Alaska Highway that’s going on between the Aishihik River and the Alaska border. It continues to be the source of huge complaints from those who use the highway as well as being a significant driver of the economy of the Yukon. Fewer complaints are heard from those of us who loved the road the way it was.
The section of Read more:Character
, Speed
Whitehorse Visited on a Flight Around the World 2007-11-06 13:43:17 I had just started down the Alaska Highway to Carcross yesterday afternoon when I got thoroughly distracted by an unsual bird. Descending out of the ragged clouds was a large aircraft with a paint scheme I’d never seen before. I pulled around and headed back to the airport at top speed, getting there just as the Icelandair Boeing 757-200 seen below rolled to a stop. The first photo (click to enlarge them) shows passengers disembarking upon arrival yesterday, the second shows the plane taking off just after noon today.
My son just called me from the airport to say that this is the first stop on a round-the-world charter organized by Travel Guild, Inc. of Ontario. They’ll also be visiting Tokyo, Japan; Hong Kong, China; Saigon, Vietnam; Angkor Wat, Cambodia; the Taj Mahal in Agra, India; Dubai UAE; Shaba, Kenya; Cairo, Egypt; Prague, Czech Republic; and Iceland between now and December 2nd - all without changing planes. Tickets were $30,000 per person, but what an adventure Read more:Flight
, World
The Significance of Domain Names 2007-11-06 11:56:52 Did any of you watch Dragon’s Den last night? If so, you saw just how significant a domain name can be when you’re promoting a Web site. The developers of UniversityParty.ca got turned down for financing largely because they don’t own UniversityParty.com (a company in New York owns it). Not only did they blow the financing, they also increased the value of UniversityParty.com by an enormous amount by going on national television and talking about it. Short-sighted doesn’t begin to describe that combination of decisions!
Many years ago when YukonAlaska.com was my primary site, I thought about buying AlaskaYukon.com and YukonAlaska.ca as well, but “saved” $30 by not registering them. Oh well - there’s a reason I now own almost 40 domains. In the past week I’ve added 2 more, SledDog Watch.com for mushing information (that will intercept a lot of traffic headed for the anti-mushing site with a similar but longer name) and CouponExplorers.com Read more:Domain Names
, Names
, Significance
Please don’t grow up to be a Yukoner 2007-11-04 08:33:24 This is another easy-to-amuse morning for me. I see that recruiters from Queen Margaret’s School, an “all girls’ university preparatory school” for Grades 7-12 are going to be in Whitehorse on Tuesday. Their half-page ad doesn’t say anything about their academic programme, but does say that the school, located near Duncan on Vancouver Island, has an “on-campus equestrian program” (and the photo shows off their lovely uniforms). Perfect for those government employees who are afraid that their girls might grow up to become Yukoners
On a serious note, though, what a shame that some people don’t want to send their kids to schools in Whitehorse. I well remember when my kids went to school and I was haunted by what goes on in schools everywhere. But do kids who go to schools such as QMS actually do better in the long run? Better in the wholistic sense - are they happier people? Or it just a prestige thing in some circles to say that you sen Read more:Please
Lunch with a View - and Jets! 2007-11-03 19:24:54 Restaurants come and go regularly in Whitehorse, sometimes due to changes in the quality of the service and/or food (which means that Ricky’s will be the next to go), sometimes seemingly due merely to the fickle nature of public opinion. For the past 3 years or so, the most common place that Cathy and I go for breakfast is Erica’s Restaurant, located upstairs in the Whitehorse airport terminal. Now I know that “airport food”, while vastly better in general than what it was a decade ago, is still not good enough in most places to lure anyone other than folks waiting to board a plane. But Erica’s attracts lots of locals who aren’t going anywhere.
Erica’s would be an excellent casual restaurant regardless of where it was located. Being at the airport is “the icing on the cake” for some of us.
We were at my favourite viewing spot just after noon today, watching four CF-18s getting ready to take off when my cell phone rang. It was fri Read more:Lunch
Freelancing Capital of the World? 2007-11-03 14:19:44 I wonder where the freelancing capital of the world is. If Whitehorse isn’t it, it must be right up there. It seems like an enormous percentage of the population here is like me - they either freelance as their main gig, or at least has some sort of freelance income on the side, as writer, photographer, sales agent, election scrutineer, travel agent, a consultant in some field, or a nearly-infinite number of other possibilities. Certainly the good ole’ “www” makes it easier than ever before to find freelance work, both locally and globally. What’s your dream?
Read more:World
It May Have Been Hallowe’en, BUT…. 2007-11-03 12:55:24 The King of Poor Taste this year was certainly Whitehorse artist Lance Burton with his 5.4 meter (19 foot) replica of the World Trade Center with a couple of jetliners sticking out of it. That is in appallingly poor taste, and I’m equally appalled that the Yukon News would print a half-page photo of it in yesterday’s edition. What are you going to do next year, Lance, build a huge mushroom with a mock-up of Hiroshima under it? Or maybe a scale model of Dresden as it looked on the night of February 13, 1945?? :(
Read more:hellip
Politically Correct? Not at Yukon Confidential 2007-11-10 07:32:44 Many of you know what I think of the Yukon Government as a corporate entity. From the former heroin trafficker Premier to the nationally-famous hiring practices, I have nothing good to say about it. That’s why I’m very pleased to see a new blog devoted to airing the dirty laundry that originates there. The first post at Yukon Confidential
confirms it as a regular on my browsing list.
The reason that I used the term “the Yukon Government as a corporate entity” is that my dealings with the front-line employees at several offices have been consistently positive. Despite the conditions they work under, there are some fine Yukoners working at Motor Vehicles, Highways, Land Titles and Community Services in particular. But having worked for the government for 4 years, I know the other side, and that bad taste will never go away.
Read more:Correct
Whitehorse Journalist / Editor Job Available 2007-11-09 11:51:35 I just got an email from Aaron Spitzer, editor of Up Here, that may be of interest to several of you:
—————————————————–
Hi Up Here contributors and fellow journalists,
Up Here Publishing Ltd. is creating a full-time Whitehorse-based associate editor position — someone who would basically be in charge of our Yukon writing-and-editing beat. If you know of any keeners lurking around the Yukon journalism scene looking for work, can you let me know — or let them know?
More details can be found on the job-board at masthead.ca.
Thanks!
Aaron
Editor
, Up Here
Suite 800, 4920 52nd St.
Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
X1A 3T1 Canada
Ph: (867) 766-6710 x314
E-Mail: aaron@uphere.ca
Web: http://www.uphere.ca/
Read more:Journalist
Canada Needs the Death Penalty 2007-11-14 13:43:08 Many of you saw this scene on your television screen last night - the funeral of another murdered Mountie.
We are far past the time when Canadians have to stand up and say in a concrete way that this cannot happen again. Bringing back the death penalty is that way. If a young cop can get the death penalty for trying to make this a better country, why is it not appropriate for those who pull that trigger?
Ocassionally we get lucky and true justice is served quickly. That happened in 1998 when a warning shot to the forehead of Harley Timmers in Whitehorse ended the discussion about whether killing a cop was reasonable. That is seldom the case, though, and the laws have to change.
I’m sickened by the murder of Constable Scott, who was only 20 years old. I’m sickened that this is the second murder of an RCMP officer in the Territories in a month. And I’m sickened by what this will probably lead to - which is poorer policing in the communities that need it the most. The d Read more:Canada
, Needs
, Penalty
The Simple Pleasures and Home-Based Business 2007-11-13 18:46:40 Working from home isn’t without its challenges - from uneven cash flow to the occasional difficulty of staying focused. But on days like today when I can add kitten-sittin’ to my Web site duties, “there’s no place like home”. Molly spent much of the afternoon curled up beside my monitor
Read more:Based Business
, Business
, Simple
Truths in Alaska? Read Craig Medred 2007-11-12 11:11:36 Every place needs a writer or 2 or 6 who thinks about what’s going on and what’s being said by others - I mean really thinks - and then writes about his assessments. My favourite Alaska
n writer in that vein is Craig
Medred, whose columns appear in the Anchorage Daily News. While not always controversial, I thoroughly enjoy reading his articles that are.
In today’s edition, he talks about California having too many beavers and Alaska having too many wolves, and the obvious solution tp both problems. Last week, his assessment of the very popular book and movie about Chris McCandless began with “‘Into the Wild’ is a misrepresentation, a sham, a fraud”.
Be sure to read some of the responses to his articles as well - they’re often just as interesting as the piece that prompted them.
A Heart-Warming Husky Story 2007-11-20 19:27:07 What can you do when one of your working huskies goes blind? Certainly she can’t continue to pull tourists across the tundra around Churchill, Manitoba. Or can she?? When husky cross Isobel went blind 3 years ago, some of Jenafor Ollander’s friends said that she might as well shoot her. Jenafor kept her as a house companion for a while, but Isobel went into a deep depression. In desperation, Jenafor’s husband decided to try putting her back in her team, and was amazed at what happened. Read the whole story here on the CBC site. I suppose some people won’t find this story heart-warming, but I sure do. Huskies have a spirit that never ceases to amaze and thrill me - way to go, Isobel!
Thanks, Michael, for sending me that link.
Read more:Heart
, Husky
Northern Housing - No Recession Here! 2007-11-20 12:23:48 The housing situation in the Yukon seldom makes it into the national spotlight, but perhaps it should.
While we’re now in the slow season due to the simple fact that few people want to either build or move in the winter, it’s still a hot market, with contractors, sellers and landlords all doing very well. This is in stark contrast to the United States, where price drops continue in most markets, with the drops being dramatic in many cases. According to Housing
Predictor.com,
“The slow down in home sales has transformed what once was an all-time boom market into the worst housing market that the nation has witnessed since the Great Depression.“
Alaska is one of the few exceptions to that general rule - while price increases have slowed, they’re still climbing, with Sitka remaining a hot spot.
One of the real estate investment opportunities that is still available in many areas is the renovation market, and that’s very true in both the Yukon and Ala Read more:Northern
, Recession
The Best Black Friday Shopping Deal 2007-11-23 07:34:03 We’re moving in 10 days so I’m not really into buying anything more, but MY there are some good deals out there today!! The best I’ve seen so far is at Buy.com - they’ll pay you $15.01 to take a Sirius Stratus Satellite Radio Receiver and Car Kit away (after a $50 mail-in rebate). You of course need a Sirius subscription so they make up for it there, but you could get a few bucks for it at your next garage sale and still be $25-30 ahead! They also have RCA HPNC250 Noise Canceling Headphones for $14.99, though, and there’s no “catch” with that deal. Maybe I am in a buying mood after all (Edit: I just ordered 2 pairs of those headphones - they get good reviews and for that price they’ll be great on the 15-hour flight to New Zealand in February)
I just got an email from e-commerce solution company Volusion.com - the biggest online shopping day in history was Wednesday, December 13th, when consumers spent a whopping $667 million. This y Read more:Black
, Black Friday
, Friday
, Shopping
Customer Service - Are You Getting It? 2007-11-22 11:21:32 CBC Radio had a spot this morning that leads in interesting directions. CBC recently conducted a survey and tests of telephone call centres to determine the good, the bad and the ugly in the world of phone-based customer service.
The results are interesting, and I agree with the results for the few on the list that I’ve dealt with. I was hoping to see Navigo on the list, but perhaps they’re too small yet. Too bad, as I’d like to see if other people would give them a rating of “0″ on a scale of 100. Given their recent promotions, people need to know that their Internet service is very poor (nowhere close to what was advertised when we signed up a year ago), and their phone support non-existent. Not once have I ever gotten the promised call-back from my support requests. That’s not quite true - they have 2 levels of support, and the first basic level is good, but lots of luck getting a response to detailed questions or problems.
That leads to personal Read more:Customer
, Customer Service
, Service
The Murphy’s Laws of Moving 2007-12-01 08:12:04 The image below shows the “14 Day Trend” for Whitehorse at The Weather Network as of this morning. We’re moving tomorrow and Monday, when the high temperatures are forecast to be -21 and -24 respectively. Brrrrrr! What a wimp, eh?
Read more:Moving
, Murphy
You Can Take the Boy Out of the Country - For a While…. 2007-11-29 11:21:16 How much of who you are is defined by the space you occupy - by your office, your home, your community? How much of the character of those spaces can you define or at least influence? No doubt there are infinite variations in what occurs. The cycle that develops, though, can range from terminally destructive to mutually fulfilling, and I think it’s worth spending some time thinking about how to work towards the mutually fulfilling option.
I’m thinking a lot about such things right now because in 4 days, Cathy and I are moving again. It’s a short move physically but another huge move in terms of changing the character of the space we occupy as a family.
A year ago, I said and truly believed that I would never leave Carcross. I had created a space that I deeply loved, and I liked the person that cabin life had helped create. But it wasn’t a space that Cathy could function in - high on a list of challenges is the fact that the commute to her job in Whitehorse is ju Read more:Country
, hellip
The Hazards of Rotating Ads 2007-12-07 11:13:40 On the Anchorage Daily News site this morning, I pulled up the very sad story of 24-year old Stephen Cavanaugh, who survived 300 missions in Iraq and then was killed back home when his Camaro hit a cow moose. At the top of the page, the banner ad was promoting the newspaper’s 2008 moose calendar! If it wasn’t just a random hit in the ad rotation, that might be the worst example of poor-taste advertising I’ve ever seen (click on the image below to see a screen shot of the page I saw).
Read more:Hazards
, Rotating
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