Your source for Yukon, Northern
British Columbia & Alaska Information

The solitude, the scenery, the sights – take in our wide open spaces and enjoy the Yukon’s stress-free, relaxed atmosphere.

The Yukon is located in northwestern Canada, next to Alaska. Drive the Alaska Highway from British Columbia, take a ferry up the BC/Alaska Inside Passage, or fly direct on daily jet service to Whitehorse. Scheduled flights depart Vancouver, Calgary & Edmonton, as well as Alaska, the Northwest Territories, Ottawa (via Yellowknife) and Frankfurt, Germany. Flying to the Yukon is as easy as any other major travel destination.

Once in the Yukon you can camp under the midnight sun. Fish at a four-star lodge. Float the Yukon River. Mush a dog team. Enjoy world class musicians and artisans. Relax on the deck of a secluded log cabin. Catch the gambling nightlife in Dawson City. Take home a “made in the Yukon” treasure. Whatever your Yukon dream, our site will provide you with the information, tips and ideas that will help make it a reality.

A Few Facts and Some Yukon History:

• Four species of amphibians are known to live in the Yukon: the boreal toad, wood frog, spotted frog, and boreal chorus frog
• The oldest archaeological site in North America is found in a set of small caves overlooking the Bluefish River, near Old Crow in the northern Yukon. Tools dating to between approximately 10,000 and 13,000 years ago have been unearthed in the caves. Also discovered were tiny flakes of flint, the by-products of stone-tool manufacture, dated to between 15,000 and 20,000 years ago. The Bluefish Caves were obviously used by generations of early First Nations peoples, for more than 10,000 animal bones, including those of woolly mammoths, have been found here.
• The northern parallel of latitude at 66° 33’ north forms a boundary known as the Arctic Circle. South of this line of latitude the sun rises and sets daily. North of the line, the sun remains above the horizon at midnight at midsummer and never rises during midwinter.
• The highest temperature recorded in the Yukon is 36.1° Celsius, recorded on June 14, 1969 at Mayo. The lowest temperature is -63.0° Celsius, recorded February 3, 1947 at Snag.
• The greatest annual snowfall, of 452 centimetres, was recorded at Tuchitua in the winter of 1971-72.
•  The wettest period ever recorded was at Watson Lake, where it rained, drizzled, or snowed for 186 days in 1966.
• On July 10, 1919, prospector Louis Beauvette staked out a claim identified as Roulette on Sheep Hill near Mayo Lake. He renamed the hill Keno, after a form of bingo game that was popular in North American mining camps. The hill contained rich deposits of silver and lead. Beauvette, as was true of many prospectors, lacked the finances to develop the claim, so he turned to Yukon Gold Company (YGC) engineer A. K. Schellinger, who convinced the company to invest in establishing a mining operation. When word of the YGC deal leaked out, a minor rush was sparked and more than 600 claims were filed in 1920 on and around Keno Hill
• Mayo is situated at the 53-kilometre point of the Silver Trail highway, which extends through what was once one of the richest silver mining regions in Canada. The first mining undertaken here, however, was for gold, discovered at the mouth of the Mayo River in 1902. Silver was discovered at Keno in 1919 and then at Elsa in 1929.
• Haines Junction stands at the crossroads of the Haines and Alaska highways. It is also the headquarters for Kluane National Park Reserve and provides an access point to Tatshenshini-Alsek Wilderness Provincial Park in British Columbia. Overlooking the community are the towering peaks of the St. Elias Mountains.
• Herschel Island Territorial Park In July 1987, the 100-square-kilometre expanse of Herschel Island became the Yukon’s first territorial park, created out of the settlement of Inuvialuit land claims. The park is maintained by the Yukon government in cooperation with First Nations peoples of the region.
• The community of Carmacks is named after George Washington Carmack, one of the co-discoverers of the gold that sparked the Klondike Gold Rush, Carmacks is located on the shore of the Yukon River 175 kilometres north on the Klondike Highway from Whitehorse.
• Woolly Mammoths once roamed throughout the Yukon before becoming extinct about 11,000 years ago. The mammoths grew to approximately three metres high at the shoulder, or about the size of today’s Asian elephants. They also had a similar dental structure, with massive cheek teeth.