Whitehorse 7 June

Whitehorse is the capital of Yukon. It has a population of about 25,000 people. Since Dawson City has about 2,300 and the entire province of Yukon has about 30,000. It doesn’t leave many other folk to spread out over a large area. 

The journey from Carmacks, a pleasant and pretty little town, was unspectacular but interesting in that, as we travelled south, the trees were bigger and the varieties changed. Further north it was almost entirely white and black spruce with occasional deciduous trees. By Whitehorse the spruce had been joined by lodgepole pines and there were lots of deciduous trees, especially poplars and trembling alder. The trembling alder are named as such because their leaves move in the wind, giving the impression of trembling.

The best part of our trip was about 15 km before we got to Whitehorse. We turned off to the Yukon Wildlife Preserve. It began in the 60s as a game park to breed animals for zoos and other game parks. It also took in rescue animals. The animals there now are all descendants of the original animals or rescue animals.  Merryn found a little log cabin on the prairie.

We did a short walk and saw some elk, bison and muskox.

We then took a 2 hour bus trip in the reserve and saw several other animals.

Mule deer. They have large ears like a mule’s.

Thin horned sheep. The white sheep are Dall’s Sheep. They are white because they typically live at the snow line. The Stone’s Sheep are brown and live among the rocks.

There was also a mountain goat and his harem of seven females.

We saw some caribou, the only deer whose females also have antlers, although they are limited to two prongs. They are in velvet at present.

We were lucky to see the two lynx, a mountain cat, quite large and moves like a leopard. They were next to some arctic fox who seemed to be teasing them by standing in full view and mimicking, “you can’t catch me”. The lynx were on high alert. Our guide said they do this most days and both species seem to enjoy it. (How do they know?)

Lastly we saw two red foxes, one of which was silver but the colour is seasonal. They were quite active. The red fox is a rescue animal and is missing a leg.