The allure of this remote and rugged territory includes Canada's highest peak, 5,959-metre Mount Logan, glaciers more than 3-km wide in places, and Dawson City, arguably Canada's most colourful town.
I had my first taste of the Yukon in a week-long trip last August. Riding in a brute of a SUV called, appropriately, a Yukon, a group of us made a 1,500-km loop from Whitehorse to Dawson and back.
Here's a purely personal list of favourites, surprises and disappointments.
BEST ACTIVITY
A helicopter flight over the glaciers in Kluane National Park. Every turn of the head and every increase in elevation brought into view more of these ice rivers that give birth to liquid ones. Pilot Ben Drury told me he doubted the virgin snow below had ever seen a footprint, or ever would. This was one of my all-time top travel experiences.
An hour's ride in a Trans North four-passenger Bell Jet Ranger IIIs worked out to $225-$350 per person. Sifton Air was charging $150 a head for a similar flight in a small plane.
BEST SCENERY
Kluane National Park, bordering Alaska and British Columbia. The jumping-off point is Haines Junction, two hours' drive west of Whitehorse. Parks Canada staff do guided hikes three days a week and a Sunday campfire talk from late June through August.
FAVOURITE TOWN
Dawson City, with its board sidewalks and frame buildings that either date to the early 1900s or look it.
ODDEST STOP
Chicken, Alaska. Seems the early arrivals wanted to name it after their favourite game bird, the ptarmigan, but couldn't spell it so settled for chicken. This is a chance to buy a "Cluck U -- Grade AA education" T-shirt or a fridge magnet proclaiming "I got laid in Chicken.''
BEST VALUE
Parks Canada's interpretive programs in Dawson. I joined a walking tour, visited an old sternwheeler and learned about the life and poetry of Robert Service (The Cremation of Sam McGee, among others). A pass for any three of seven attractions is only $13.70.
WORST VALUE
A Holland America-Gray Line self-drive jeep tour of the Dawson goldfields, poorly narrated via two-way radio, for $94 per person.
BIGGEST SURPRISE
Consistently good food. I half-expected hot hamburg sandwiches and got seared tuna and risotto, washed down with Yukon Gold lager, marketed as "beer worth freezing for." Some menus feature caribou and Arctic char.
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
Not seeing any wildlife, unless you count gophers.
FAVOURITE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
Sundog Carving School in Whitehorse, where government-sponsored programs help young people become self-supporting artists. Visitors can watch the kids work and shop for carvings and prints. All proceeds go to the artists.
MOST FUN
Watching -- and becoming part of -- the floor show at Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall. It's run by the Klondike Visitors Association, so the profits go toward community attractions and visitor services.
I loathe casinos but Gerties, with its lack of glitz and its 10 cents slots, is good fun.
Male patrons are routinely dragged on stage to dance with the can-can girls. I escaped that only to have the lead singer stroll over, clasp my face to her bosom and demand to know if I'd "broken the heart" of anyone else in the audience. Two women -- strangers, I swear -- raised their hands. So did one man. And that definitely called for another drink!
