Whitehorse

This blog entry is a doozy! As it should be, though. It's not every day that the first Grandchild comes into the family. Meg Rose Papenfus is the newest addition to the family, on Holly's side. Holly and I were overdue on a visit to Whitehorse, and given we hadn't seen Amanda or William since before we left for Korea, it was high time we went.



Holly and I drove to Calgary to catch our flights to Whitehorse, and on the way drove through a beautiful storm that had to be photographed. Sask has some of the most breathtaking skies on the planet (well, compared to the limited number of places I've visited!).



Calgary was a perfect lead in to the vacation, as we spent a night at the spa (i.e. Joni and Colin's house), where we were treated to excellent company, and Joni's highly regarded cuisine.



We didn't have much on the itinerary upon arriving, just quality visiting and catch up time. Not to mention meeting Meg. As you can see in the pictures, she is a beautiful litte baby, with a set of excellent parents! William and Lecia opened up their home for the rest of us, in return Holly and I introduced them to the best show ever...the Office!! Aside from nightly installments of the office, we spent a lot of time explorng the town, hitting up the coffee shops, and getting out to some of the very scenic spots out of town.



Early in our stay we tackled the Chilkoot trail. It's a pretty historic trail. Many people came up to Skagway, Alaska, in the gold rush days (1898ish) and took this route to get into the Yukon in search of gold. The hike starts in the northern tip of the temperate rainforest near Skagway, rises to a barren-looking glacial/alpine meadow setting, and gradually drops to a sandy, boreal forested finish. Although it only took us 2.5 days, people would historically take weeks or months to do this (did I mention that federal law stated they had to haul in 1 tonne of provisions to enusure that they wouldn't die of starvation?).



We also made a friend from Japan who, for ease of pronunciation, had given himself the nickname 'Hickory' in replace of his actual name. Our meeting involved Hickory taking a handful of Bill's wasabi-peas, throwig them all in his mouth, and proceeding to gasp and drink most of his water to aleviate the burning... I do not need to explain the irony here. Hickory ended up hiking with us for one and a half of the days. It was a blast.

Following this hike, we caught a train back to Skagway and then drove back to Whitehorse. It was a privelage to see such a beautiful part of the continent. I have also added pictures from a few other little hikes we did. You can see the beautiful fall colors that covered the landscape.

Did I mention that Whitehorse is maybe the coldest place in Canada?!?! Or at least it is according to Holly. She set the record for the most layers worn by one person at one time (10). I think I may have married an ectotherm! In her defense, it was reaching the 30ies when we left Regina... it was less than half of that in Whitehorse! Temperature aside, it is truly an enchanting area. Thanks so much Brenda for helping to get us there!