Summer 2008

Inside

Editor's note

Learning the Yukon

Letter from Joe Sparling, President of Air North, Yukon´s Airline

Vuntut Development Corporation

My journey with carving

Miscellanea

Your letters

North of Ordinary trivia

Mapping the Yukon & Salmonoid factoids

Travel the Yukon

Hoofing it!
Hiking ideas for easy strolls or overnight trips

Where are they now?

Catching up with Fred Aylwin and the Lotenberg-Frid family

Extra! Extra!

Yukon newsmakers

Venture north

Interviews with Klondike Spirit Boat Tours, Blue Roof Studio
and Dawson Peaks Adventure Company Ltd.

Yukon spotlight

Four on the floor: Discovering rare Yukon plants

The Yukon has big mountains and moose, and spectacular northern lights, but some of our most unique sights are hidden and small. Our territory is home to a quartet of rare and protected plants not found anywhere else in Canada. But they aren't on the roadside. In fact, you may not even see them in your lifetime since each of the four plants has a population of less than 20. "These populations are remnants from pre-Pleistocene times," says Jennifer Line, a rare-plant botanist with the Yukon Department of Environment. READ MORE IN THE SUMMER 2008 ISSUE OF YUKON, NORTH OF ORDINARY.

Citysnap calendar

What's going on in the Yukon, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Inuvik.

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Features

Cover story: Meeting of the river peoples

By Louise Freeman with Lily Gontard

It's a warm summer's day, the temperature close to 24ºC, and I'm sitting in a six-metre aluminum boat helping Dennis Frost, a Vuntut Gwitchin citizen from Old Crow, Yukon, check his salmon net on the Porcupine River, north of the Arctic Circle. One end of the gillnet is set on shore, and Frost has guided his boat to the other end, anchored 20 m out in the slow-moving current. He easily pulls in a section of net heavy with salmon, and I volunteer to remove a female chinook caught by its gills. A man of few words, Frost says, "About played out, that one."

Each spring and fall, chinook, chum and coho salmon enter the mouth of the Yukon River at the Bering Sea. Following ancient migratory routes, the salmon battle against the current to settle in their spawning grounds: tributaries in the Yukon Territory, like the Porcupine River to the northeast, and as far as Nisutlin Lake in the southeast, 3,027 km from the sea . READ MORE IN THE SUMMER 2008 ISSUE OF YUKON, NORTH OF ORDINARY.

Reaching the top

By Wayne Potoroka

Tracing, cutting, lining, sewing, beading: Eldria Christiansen will put nearly 35 hours' worth of work
and 16,000 plastic beads smaller than grape seeds into creating a moosehide vest for Steve Ryen Kocsis. "I was thinking little forget-me-nots beside this flower in the middle," says Christiansen, pulling a mock-sinew thread through the sharp-smelling home-tanned hide. "There'll
be a long feather going down from the top of the shoulder toward the middle of the chest. I'm going to bead Steve's name into the feather, to make it personal."

Christiansen is a White River First Nation artist living in Dawson City, who beads in the traditional way she was taught by her mother. "I mix the beads up; all the different colours." Her latest project will be presented to Kocsis as a gift once he graduates from high school.

Before Kocsis slips the vest onto his shoulders, however, he'll have to make it through his final semester. READ MORE IN THE SUMMER 2008 ISSUE OF YUKON, NORTH OF ORDINARY.

We know "The Shadow"

By Mitch Miyagawa with notes from Dave King

From his childhood in the Yukon to his years as a Holly-wood movie star, Victor Jory always celebrated his birthday on the wrong date. His mother Joanna had moved to the Klondike from Oregon in 1898 with her husband, Edwin Jory, a prune grower. After losing money to a claims speculator in a failed horse business in Skagway, Edwin yearned for prunes again—but his adventurous wife didn't. Joanna decided to stay in the North and run a boarding house called the 60 Below Bonanza, near Dawson City

After Edwin left, Joanna became pregnant. In an effort to convince Edwin that he was Victor's father, she switched Victor's birthday to nine months after Edwin's departure.

So, Victor always blew out the candles on November 23rd,
even though he was born in April.

Victor's life began with lust, lies and dreams lost on a cold frontier. What else could such a debut lead to but a career in Hollywood? READ MORE IN THE SUMMER 2008 ISSUE OF YUKON, NORTH OF ORDINARY.

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Travel Outside

Outside highlights

Five things to do if you're travelling to Vancouver, Edmonton, Inuvik, Calgary or Fairbanks this summer

Runners' Choice

Yukon adventure racers and marathoners tell us which are their favourite race venues in the gateway cities, by Jessica Simon READ MORE IN THE SUMMER 2008 ISSUE OF YUKON, NORTH OF ORDINARY.

R & R

The boreal chef: Quartetto delizioso

This appetizer doesn't have a name, but combining honey, nuts, mushrooms and melted cheese is a specialty in the Tuscany and Umbria regions of Italy. Miche Genest adapts this traditional dish to a Yukon kitchen using local ingredients. READ MORE
IN THE SUMMER 2008 ISSUE OF YUKON, NORTH OF ORDINARY.

Of note: Fabian's reach

Brenda Barnes meets a 13-year-old musician whose mastery of no-less-than six instruments makes him a local talent to watch. READ MORE IN THE SUMMER 2008 ISSUE OF YUKON, NORTH OF ORDINARY.

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Carrying all to Beijing

Champion weightlifter Jeane Lassen shows us what she packs in her carry-on luggage when travelling to a competition. READ MORE IN THE SUMMER 2008 ISSUE OF YUKON, NORTH OF ORDINARY.

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Yukon, North of Ordinary: In This Issue