Whitehorse Day 4 - Tour Day 1

 August 20, 2023

Day 1 - tour

Italics - tour description
Meet and greet and transfer to your downtown hotel. En route, your guide will offer a city highlight tour that includes SS Klondike National Historic Site, the Old Log Church and the Log Cabin Skyscraper.

You’ll meet your fellow travellers and your guide will review the itinerary and your equipment at our group meeting this afternoon 5PM
The remainder of the afternoon and evening is free to explore the city and do any last-minute shopping. Accommodation: Whitehorse

We spend most of the day on our own. We had breakfast at Burnt Toast again.

The Historical Guest House is located in downtown Whitehorse close to all of the amenities the town has to offer. The 2 story log house was built in 1907 by Mike and Tony Cyr for the "real" Sam McGee.

We stopped into the cultural centre.

 The heads are facing toward the Yukon River. Using marble, Ken Anderson created the heads of Wolf and Crow, the two traditional clans of Yukon First Nations, and placed them atop two steel bases that have a wing jetting out from one side. According to Anderson, this piece symbolizes “the meeting of two different groups of people and two different lifestyles from a historical, present day and future sense.” 

A symbol of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people.

The monument depicts an Indigenous woman beating a drum. It serves as place for families and the public to reflect on MMIWG2S+ and pay their respects to the murdered and missing.

The S.S. Klondike rests today on the traditional territories of the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council and Kwanlin Dün First Nation in Whitehorse.




S.S. Klondike National Historic Site on the shore of the Yukon River. The S.S. Klondike had the largest cargo capacity of the 250+ sternwheelers that travelled Yukon waters from 1896 to the mid 1950’s. The ship has been carefully restored to how it looked in the 1940’s.
Long before and after the first steam-powered riverboat travelled up the Yukon River, Indigenous peoples have travelled the riverways of the Yukon. The arrival of paddlewheelers in the 1860s brought change to the territory, carrying newcomers and their ways of life, and until 1950 the riverboats continued to serve as the main link between the Yukon and the outside world.

Developed in partnership with Ta’an Kwäch’än Council and Kwanlin Dün First Nation, and with contributions from First Nations along the river, a series of new interpretive panels deepens and renews the perspectives and stories commemorated at this national historic site. For many years, riverboat history in the Yukon has largely been told from the white settler point of view. Thanks to collaboration with Yukon First Nations, S.S. Klondike National Historic Site is now sharing other perspectives.

As we first saw and learned in Newfoundland, in 2011, team members at Gros Morne National Park came up with the idea to place 18 sets of Adirondack chairs in lesser-known, but just as stunning locations, inviting visitors to enjoy and share on social media. Today, the iconic red chairs can be found in over 100 locations administered by Parks Canada.
Our red Adirondack chairs are made from 100% recycled plastic saved from Canadian landfills.

Click here to watch the National Film Board of Canada's In the Days of Riverboats, which was shown in the theatre.

Back to the hotel for 5 PM orientation, there are only 2 other women on the tour.. Leo is the tour guide. Once we go through the schedule, he takes us to the grocery store to pick up breakfast and lunch for the next day. We've never done this before,,,, however we grabbed bananas, yogurt and salads.

We then headed out to dinner. The Woodcutters' Blanket had a line up so we headed elsewwhere.

Log Skyscraper One, Log Skyscraper Two and lot are municipally designated for their historic and architectural significance.

The Log Skyscrapers are associated with events during and immediately after WWII, when Yukon transportation systems were being redeveloped and the City of Whitehorse was quickly growing to become the capital city. During the war, a large influx of military personnel and construction workers arrived to work on three major construction projects; the Alaska Highway, the North West Staging Route airports and the Canol Pipeline. After WWII, housing continued to be at a premium as Whitehorse expanded as the hub of Yukon's transportation system. Builder Martin Berrigan responded to the need in 1947 by constructing the Log Skyscrapers, the first privately built multiple-dwelling rental accommodation in Whitehorse. The Log Skyscrapers are in their original location, and continue to provide residences in an increasingly commercial neighborhood.

These two buildings are the only buildings of this type in Canada and their architectural significance lies in their unusual appearance. The multi-storied log construction has given them landmark status within the Yukon Territory. The cantilevered balconies with their pole railings, combined with the extended eaves of the low pitched roofs create a wrap-around, hanging, open lattice enveloping the upper floors.

 

We went to G and P for dinner, it is a very cute, tiny steakhouse kinda place. We had a great server, started with cocktails, the next thing we knew our dinners were in front of us. Happy? No. She realized it. She finally brought the wine, Food was good, she felt/knew she was wrong and saved us the last two crème Brule ( my fave, ever), she also comped the cocktails.