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WILD CANADA:
THE YUKON By Katherine Brodsky
A place where adventures happen, and humans can come face-to-face with untamed nature to find themselves. I have to confess, my idea of an adventure has less to do with jumping off cliffs and airplanes and more to do with exploring cobblestone side streets and quirky cafés, armed with a GPS and a healthy data plan. But when the wild calls to you, you answer. A bit of bug spray and a bear spray canister don’t hurt either. When Jack London first headed over to the Yukon’s Dawson City in 1897, he, like many other dreamers, was eager to try his luck at the gold rush game. Although his book, The Call of the Wild, still inspires many visitors to the region to this very day, nowadays, they are looking to find something else amongst the region’s fireweed – themselves.
Northern Lights in the Yukon
Yukon River
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EXTRAORDINARY EXP ER IEN C ES
You see, the Yukon, even in the face of modernity, offers visitors a different kind of experience. Still wild at heart, its untamed landscapes pit men (and women) against nature. Some choose to tackle the temperamental Yukon River, camping along the way. Others dare to survive unmarked hiking trails and the wild animals they encounter on their path, including grizzly bears, lynx, mountain sheep, and moose. While from a distance, they can be rather photogenic, up-close and caught off-guard, they can be dangerous. But the Yukon is where humans and wildlife intersect, and often the payoff is priceless. In the Yukon, there’s no shortage of mountains to climb and peaks to reach, with about 80 per cent of it being sheer wilderness – some well-trodden, the rest, unmarked. There’s no mistaking: This is the backcountry. Sheep Creek offers a day hike that pays off with a view into the
