The need for an efficient mode of mass transit in the Yukon was answered by the all mighty tour bus, bringing not only people, but valuable supplies up the 1387 miles of Alaska Highway starting from Mile Zero in Dawson Creek BC to Delta Junction Alaska. This once infrequently driven highway, is considered by many as a bucket list adventure, and the rubber tire traffic of tourism still abounds during the summer and quite often winter months with people wishing to experience the extremes of endless daylight in the summer, and the Aurora Borealis during the darkness of winter.

Today's guest, Petra Hankinson, has been driving this special highway and many more since she was old enough to get her feet onto the pedals and just tall enough to peak over the dashboard. Having a driver's license back in the day was of little concern to her when she first arrived to the Yukon back in the 60's, and ironically enough, she's now a driving instructor teaching those wishing to pursue driving a bus/commercial transport vehicle as a career. From no license, to fully certified, experienced and equipped to teach you how to roll a 50 ft vehicle through the twists and turns of a city or any number of far off destinations. Oh how life seems to have come around full circle.

Join us on "Tales from the Yukon Tour Bus" as we learn about Petra's early times as a homesteader living well off the grid for many years and learning how to survive and thrive in a land that can teach you lessons on a daily basis. Her humorous wit is sure to have you laughing and shaking your head in disbelief as she drives us down memory lane through the often times bumpy road of growing up in the Yukon during the good old days.

To listen to the full M.A.Y.L. podcast show series, please click on MyAmazingYukonLife.com where you’ll find each weekly podcast link along with show notes and pictures related to each of the episodes. You can also download each episode from Buzzsprout or wherever you get your podcasts from. While you’re there, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment on what you’d like to hear next on the show.

I encourage you to become a member of the My Amazing Yukon Life Facebook Groupwhere our stories can come together as we build upon the collective memories of one another, recording and preserving personal stories of the Yukon's rich history and colourful life adventures. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and I thank you for joining me as a "M.A.Y.L. carrier”, as we proudly deliver our amazing Yukon life stories to the outside world.  

Cheers 

“Trapper Dan your Renaissance Man”

Daniel Halen

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Living in the wilds of Canada's Yukon Territory, Norm Winther has carved his life out of some of the most rugged and demanding parts of the territory, while living each and every day as an authentic trapper. With this diverse lifestyle comes the development of skills that are ever changing and as vast as the landscape that surrounds him.

The urgency of the moment to live in this frozen environment, has tested Norm's mettle time and time again, as he clawed his way from the icy waters on the brink of death, to the high likelihood of starvation, being delayed in the bush by extreme weather for many weeks on end.

The measurement of a person's determination, grit and tenacity, can only be tested under the extreme conditions of a - 50 Yukon winter, and this Winther has proven he is as determined as they come.

Join me in "The Last Trapper's" cabin on Jackfish Lake as we discuss but a few of Norm's adventures and how a random job as a mechanic along side a Nicholas Vanier documentary years prior led Norm Winter to star as himself, on Vanier's future movie, "The Last Trapper"

Click here to watch The Last Trapper on IMDp https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395514/

To listen to the full M.A.Y.L. podcast show series, please click on MyAmazingYukonLife.com where you’ll find each weekly podcast link along with show notes and pictures related to each of the episodes. You can also download each episode from Buzzsprout or wherever you get your podcasts from. While you’re there, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment on what you’d like to hear next on the show.

I encourage you to become a member of the My Amazing Yukon Life Facebook Group where our stories can come together as we build upon the collective memories of one another, recording and preserving personal stories of the Yukon's rich history and colourful life adventures. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and I thank you for joining me as a "M.A.Y.L. carrier”, as we proudly deliver our amazing Yukon life stories to the outside world.  

Cheers 

“Trapper Dan your Renaissance Man”

Daniel Halen

Support the Show.

Support the show

Artist Jim Robb has been a staple of the Yukon's art scene since the mid 1950's and is best know for his "Colourful Five Percent" books which are available in local Yukon bookstores and galleries.  His works capture the quality and uniqueness of the many varied and colourful character and places that many would argue, have made the Yukon a little more colourful than anywhere else in the north.

https://yukonart.ca/collections/jim-robb

https://yukonart.ca/products/colourful-five-percent-book-volume-1

Jim's earliest artwork was primarily done on raw moose hide. The hide would be stretched into all kinds of different shapes, most often by Annie and Harry Silverfox along with their son Billy, and drawn in pastel and charcoal. Harry's knowledge and friendship led Jim to become the first person to use the insides of snowshoes as frames.

Dawson City, the summer of ‘61, saw Jim beginning to use pen, ink, watercolour and photography as his mediums of choice as he continued his artistic development. In 1971 he started writing & illustrating a column, "The Colourful Five Percent", for the Whitehorse Star, which primarily dealt with the life of historical buildings and 'Yukon characters'.

Over the years Jim has had 3 books published, and yes, 'they are read in all the better cabins'. They are comprised of short stories, photographs and drawings mostly about interesting and colourful Yukon personalities, the 'Colourful Percent'. The first volume has been reprinted and is available here. https://yukonart.ca/products/colourful-five-percent-book-volume-1

In 1975, well known anthropologist Julie Cruickshank, with Jim's participation, put out a book on the Yukon's First Nation peoples. In recognition of Jim Robb's magnificent contribution of gathering and preserving Yukon history he was awarded Canada's highest honor "The Order of Canada" in 2003.

Jim Robb and the Colourful Five Percent- Video by Mike Rudyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXz06y8DKMM

To listen to the full M.A.Y.L. podcast show series, please click on MyAmazingYukonLife.comwhere you’ll find each weekly podcast link along with show notes and pictures related to each of the episodes. You can also download each episode from Buzzsprout or wherever you get your podcasts from. While you’re there, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment on what you’d like to hear next on the show.

I encourage you to become a member of the My Amazing Yukon Life Facebook Group where our stories can come together as we build upon the collective memories of one another, recording and preserving personal stories of the Yukon's rich history and colourful life adventures. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and I thank you for joining me as a "M.A.Y.L. carrier”, as we proudly deliver our amazing Yukon life stories to the outside world.  

Cheers 

“Trapper Dan your Renaissance Man”

Daniel Halen

Support the show

Support the show

At the top of the world in the Yukon and Alaska wilderness of northwestern North America, the Yukon Quest 1,000 Mile International Sled Dog Race, an epic winter sports event takes place every year on the first Saturday of February.

One might ask, how many tries does it take to win the Yukon Quest Dog Sled Race?  Much of the answer lies in your own personal conviction and dedication to the sport, along with your ability to build an incredible connection with your dogs and support team. Years of dedication are needed if a musher hopes to even complete, much less win, and that's certainly the case for Veteran Yukon Musher Frank Turner.

As written in the February 23rd 1995 edition of the Whitehorse Star,  "It took him 12 tries to do it, but at 4:40 this morning Alaska time, Frank Turner finally won his first Yukon Quest. He did it in record fashion. No other winner has ever turned in the 10-day, 16-hour, 18 minute performance that the 47-year-old Whitehorse resident did".

Turner's  record setting time stood for the next dozen years, just recently broken by the late dog musher Lance Mackie, who crossed the finish line nearly six hours faster than anyone else in history.  To Turner's legacy, he was also entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as "the musher with the most times to take part in the annual Yukon Quest sled dog race is 23 by Frank Turner (Canada) between 1984 and 2008", a record that has yet to be broken. 

To listen to the full M.A.Y.L. podcast show series, please click on MyAmazingYukonLife.comwhere you’ll find each weekly podcast link along with show notes and pictures related to each of the episodes. You can also download each episode from Buzzsprout or wherever you get your podcasts from. While you’re there, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment on what you’d like to hear next on the show.

I encourage you to become a member of the My Amazing Yukon Life Facebook Group where our stories can come together as we build upon the collective memories of one another, recording and preserving personal stories of the Yukon's rich history and colourful life adventures. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and I thank you for joining me as a "M.A.Y.L. carrier”, as we proudly deliver our amazing Yukon life stories to the outside world.  

Cheers 

“Trapper Dan your Renaissance Man”

Daniel Halen

Support the show

The Yukon Quest Dog Sled Race of 2023 is currently underway and heading north from Whitehorse to Dawson City, Yukon.  Under the watchful eyes of a bevy of volunteers, race officials, and dog handlers, this 450 mile race traverses some of the most picturesque and harsh environments in Northern Canada.

Hearty groups of eager dogs, mushers, handlers, and volunteer support groups along the way, make this one of the premier wilderness contests in the Yukon, and has long standing tradition of bringing communities and people together. This year, the weather has been delightful for all participants, and the teams are quickly advancing towards the finish line in Dawson City.

In this podcast, I spoke with Gaby Sgaga, who is based out of West Dawson, and has been one of the many Quest volunteers operating the Dawson City checkpoint/Finish Line.  Between her involvement with the Yukon Quest, the Dawson City Humane Society, her own dog team, and a plethora of other Yukonesque activities, I was lucky enough to have her sit down for a few brief moments and bring us up to speed on the current race details.

To listen to the full M.A.Y.L. podcast show series, please click on MyAmazingYukonLife.comwhere you’ll find each weekly podcast link along with show notes and pictures related to each of the episodes. You can also download each episode from Buzzsprout or wherever you get your podcasts from. While you’re there, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment on what you’d like to hear next on the show.

I encourage you to become a member of the My Amazing Yukon Life Facebook Group where our stories can come together as we build upon the collective memories of one another, recording and preserving personal stories of the Yukon's rich history and colourful life adventures. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and I thank you for joining me as a "M.A.Y.L. carrier”, as we proudly deliver our amazing Yukon life stories to the outside world.  

Cheers 

“Trapper Dan your Renaissance Man”

Daniel Halen

Support the show

June 21st remains a significant day for a great many people in Canada as the long daylight of the Summer Solstice transits into its next seasonal phase.  A sense of time, mortality, humility and gratitude, often accompanies this pivotal day, especially for the  people living in Canada's North.

June 21st also marks National Indigenous Peoples Day since 1996.  It's a special occasion and opportunity to learn more about the rich and diverse cultures, voices, experiences and histories of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples as they celebrate their heritage.

On this celebrated day of June 21st, 2022, the Tr'ondek Hwech's First Nation received a gift from their ancestral lands with the unearthing of a baby woolly mammoth at a remote Klondike Placer mine site under the astute eye of an excavator operator.  The operator, Travis" couldn't believe what he had unearthed, and to this day is overwhelmed with emotion when speaking about it.

During the next several hours, Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin First Nations Elders, a plethora of scientists, and the entire mine site crew and owners stood by in awe and wonderment. The sky's literally opened up with rain, wind, lighting and thunder as Nun cho ga came back into the world with all the energy of the natural world by her side.

Nun cho ga, "big animal baby",  in the traditional Han language, made her entry back into the world after being mummified in an icy layer of Steppe sediment estimated to be 35000 years old. She's been nearly perfectly mummified in the frozen Klondike Gold Fields and has retained her soft tissue, hair, toenails and internal organs, offering evidence of the ancient flora that sustained her during her brief life. 

For now, Nun cho ga will remain where she is, on the traditional territory of the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin, as scientists and the First Nations people continue to work cooperatively, balancing the cultural significance of her place in the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin community, and the scientific community.

To listen to the full M.A.Y.L. podcast show series, please click on MyAmazingYukonLife.comwhere you’ll find each weekly podcast link along with show notes and pictures related to each of the episodes. You can also download each episode from Buzzsprout or wherever you get your podcasts from. While you’re there, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment on what you’d like to hear next on the show.

I encourage you to become a member of the My Amazing Yukon Life Facebook Group where our stories can come together as we build upon the collective memories of one another, recording and preserving personal stories of the Yukon's rich history and colourful life adventures. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and I thank you for joining me as a "M.A.Y.L. carrier”, as we proudly deliver our amazing Yukon life stories to the outside world.  

Cheers 

“Trapper Dan your Renaissance Man”

Daniel Halen

Support the show

Like so many others who came up to the Yukon for just two weeks, Hank Karr quickly realized that Whitehorse Yukon would be the place he'd grow his roots down deep, and "stay a while". That decision came quickly, when he first travelled from Ketichcan Alaska to Whitehorse Yukon in the mid 1960's to play his guitar and sing on the stage at the local Whitehorse Inn.  Sixty plus years later, he's still doing what he loves to do. Singing, writing music, and performing on one of his many guitars more than a half century later, Hank Karr has long become a staple of the Yukon music scene and is adorned be countless people locally and internationally.

Karr pays tribute to his predecessor Al Oster, who was also enamoured with the magic of the Northern landscape, the lives of the common people he surrounded himself with, and the rich history and character of the Yukon. This quickly became a palate of themes and stories ripe for the picking. Both Oster and Karr were prolific melody writers and accomplished wordsmiths who could weave characters into a song within minutes.

Oster went on to recorded Karr's first album in the 1960s, and the two of them would perform together in the Canadian Pavilion during Expo 67 in Montreal. CBC recorded the Expo 67 performances and later put them on an LP called The Yukon Stars.

Karr remained a fan of Oster's writing long after he moved "outside" of the Yukon, and  Karr continued to perform several of Oster's songs during his concerts, and eventually, recorded much of his material over the years, presenting it as only Hank Karr could. With a Baritone/Base voice, and a performance stature that rivals any professional musician around the world, Karr was a natural from the moment he picked up his chosen instrument.

To purchase one of Karr's  CDs, DVDs, or Books, please visit the local Maximilian's Gold Rush Emporium on Main Street, Whitehorse or Dawson City. https://www.maximilians.ca/  Orders can also be placed online or through most digital music download sites.  Simply search Hank Karr on Google and you'll find several options available.

To listen to the full M.A.Y.L. podcast show series, please click on MyAmazingYukonLife.comwhere you’ll find each weekly podcast link along with show notes and pictures related to each of the episodes. You can also download each episode from Buzzsprout or wherever you get your podcasts from. While you’re there, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment on what you’d like to hear next on the show.

I encourage you to become a member of the My Amazing Yukon Life Facebook Group where our stories can come together as we build upon the collective memories of one another, recording and preserving personal stories of the Yukon's rich history and colourful life adventures. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and I thank you for joining me as a "M.A.Y.L. carrier”, as we proudly deliver our amazing Yukon life stories to the outside world.  

Cheers 

“Trapper Dan your Renaissance Man”

Daniel Halen

Support the show

The world was abuzz with the discovery of gold in the Klondike on August 16th 1896. 

Hordes of prospectors, entrepreneurs, adventure seekers and a wide variety of "entertainers" rallied for their stake in what was to be one of the last great gold rushes of the century.

For those entertainers who were unable to make this great adventure to Dawson City, a new medium of entertainment would relay their talents through what was then termed "moving pictures technology." With the discovery of a treasure trove of ancient films literally frozen in time on a construction site within Dawson City itself, came the last remaining artifacts of an era captured in time. 

Michael Gates was curator of the Klondike National Historic Sites beginning in 1978 and was immediately on the scene like a forensic detective searching for historic clues to an era. Along with the director of the Dawson City Museum, Kathy Jones (now Gates), the two of them worked for years piecing together the story of the incredibly vibrant social life Dawsonites enjoyed.

Michael's new book, Hollywood in the Klondike, reflects not only on the entertainment in Dawson City during the Gold Rush era, but the variety and magnitude of entertainers featured throughout the world. Actors, actresses, live footage of the gold mining activities in the Klondike and the affect that film was having throughout the far reaches of the planet is summarized in Gate's newest works. 

Hollywood did indeed come north to the Klondike, and this historical reflection is a must read for those with an interest to learn more about what has become one of the most influential technologies of our time."

The first of two book launch parties will be held on Sunday, September 25th at The Oddfellows Hall in Dawson City, sponsored by the Dawson City Museum and KIAC (Klondike Institute of Art and Culture) and Harbour Publishing. The doors will open at 6:30, and the admission is free. There will be a book signing (books available courtesy of The Dawson City Museum), a short reading, and the screening of some of the films found buried in Dawson in 1978.

The event in Whitehorse will be in the Grey Mountain Room at The Mt. Mac Recreational facility on Tuesday, October 4th. The doors open at 6:30 and the program is free. Everybody is welcome There will be a book signing (books available courtesy of Mac's Fireweed Books), food and refreshments, door prizes, musical entertainment, a reading and screening of some of the films found buried in Dawson in 1978. Sponsored by The Yukon Historical and Museums Association, Mac's Fireweed Books and Harbour Publishing.

To listen to the full M.A.Y.L. podcast show series, please click on MyAmazingYukonLife.comwhere you’ll find each weekly podcast link along with show notes and pictures related to each of the episodes. You can also download each episode from Buzzsprout or wherever you get your podcasts from. While you’re there, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment on what you’d like to hear next on the show.

I encourage you to become a member of the My Amazing Yukon Life Facebook Group where our stories can come together as we build upon the collective memories of one another, recording and preserving personal stories of the Yukon's rich history and colourful life adventures. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and I thank you for joining me as a "M.A.Y.L. carrier”, as we proudly deliver our amazing Yukon life stories to the outside world.  

Cheers 

“Trapper Dan your Renaissance Man”

Daniel Halen

Support the show

JANUARY, 1950: SKYMASTER FLIGHT #2469 DISAPPEARS OVER THE YUKON. IT’S NEVER BEEN FOUND.  VIEWERS JOIN THE SEARCH WHEN SKYMASTER DOWN PREMIERES ON documentary CHANNEL SUNDAY JANUARY 16, 9 p. m. ET/PT

Tune in to CBC February 25th at 8:00pm ET 2024 to watch

 Documentary filmmaker Andrew Gregg has made many films in Canada’s North often examining some of its great secrets.  But there is one very puzzling story that has eluded him for years-- what happened to the US military Skymaster plane that disappeared over the Yukon more than seventy years ago?  No trace of the plane or its 44 passengers has ever been found.   Their families are still waiting for an answer.  Gregg examines this fascinating aviation mystery in his latest film SKYMASTER DOWN which premieres on documentary Channel on Sunday, January 16 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.  
 

Over 500 planes are known to have crashed in the Yukon but the Skymaster is one of only a few that’s never been recovered.  It was on a routine flight from Anchorage, Alaska to Great Falls, Montana. Nothing should have gone wrong. For a few weeks after the disappearance US Air Force planes searched but soon gave up.  The US military has since shown little interest in finding the plane.  That has certainly hasn’t pleased the passengers’ relatives.  

In SKYMASTER DOWN viewers will meet those relatives still awaiting news all these decades later. Among them is Judy Jackson whose mother was pregnant with her when her father Clarence Gibson took that flight.   Jackson even went to the Yukon to see the vast landscape where her father vanished.  “I walked out there one morning by myself,” Jackson told Gregg, “looked around all those mountains and I thought, ‘Oh Daddy, what happened to you?’  To just have something to bury beside my mother—that’s what I would like to have for her.”   

Especially poignant is the case of Robert Espe---his pregnant wife Joyce was the only woman on board, travelling south with their toddler son.  Espie spent the remainder of his life trying to find his wife and child.  
 

NOTE:   Subsequent broadcasts on documentary Channel are at (at ET)  midnight and 3 a.m. on the night of January 16.  On Tuesday, January 18 at 9 a.m., 2 p.m., 7 p.m.; Sunday, January 23 at 8 a.m., 1 p.m. 6 p.m.; Friday, January 28 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.                                                     

To listen to the full M.A.Y.L. podcast show series, please click on MyAmazingYukonLife.comwhere you’ll find each weekly podcast link along with show notes and pictures related to each of the episodes. You can also download each episode from Buzzsprout or wherever you get your podcasts from. While you’re there, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment on what you’d like to hear next on the show.

I encourage you to become a member of the My Amazing Yukon Life Facebook Group where our stories can come together as we build upon the collective memories of one another, recording and preserving personal stories of the Yukon's rich history and colourful life adventures. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and I thank you for joining me as a "M.A.Y.L. carrier”, as we proudly deliver our amazing Yukon life stories to the outside world.  

Cheers 

“Trapper Dan your Renaissance Man”

Daniel Halen

Support the show

#023 – “A Yukon Game Warden’s Stories” by George Balmer

Retired Yukon Game Warden, George Balmer, humorously recounts more than 40 years of incredible outdoor adventures during his patrols to some of the territories most stunningly beautiful places. Reflecting upon his chance meetings with wonderfully unique people along the way and the occasional “day gone sideways” mishap, George’s newly published book,          A Yukon Game Warden’s Stories, is soon to be a Yukon “must read classic”.

As a consummate “bushman”, George has flown, skied, snowshoed, hiked, boated, cycled, quadded, and literally crawled his way through some of the most remote parts of the Yukon Territory while patrolling thousands of kilometers of land as a Yukon Game Warden. Realizing very early in his career that the stories being shared with him from the incredible Yukon people he met day to day were so unique, that George began taking pictures of both the people, and the places he was visiting. 

It was during the COVID 19 pandemic that George began chronicling his memoirs based on the slides and notes he had taken over his career.  Born of a world wide pandemic outbreak, "A Yukon Game Warden’s Stories" provides readers with a historical, humorous, and wonderfully reflective 228 page journey through the 1970’s  & 80’s halcyon days of the Faro, Ross River, Haines Junction, Dawson City, Teslin and Whitehorse area. The overwhelming theme of the book pays tribute to the people living traditional and non-traditional lives amongst the hustle and bustle of the Yukon’s second mining boom.    
 

To purchase your copy directly from George, you can email him at [email protected] and he’ll send a copy your way.  You’ll also find a list of additional sources to purchase your copy at MyAmazingYukonLife.com
Episode 23 – A Yukon Game Warden’s Stories with George Balmer.

To listen to the full M.A.Y.L. podcast show series, please click on MyAmazingYukonLife.comwhere you’ll find each weekly podcast link along with show notes and pictures related to each of the episodes. You can also download each episode from Buzzsprout or wherever you get your podcasts from. While you’re there, hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment on what you’d like to hear next on the show.

I encourage you to become a member of the My Amazing Yukon Life Facebook Group where our stories can come together as we build upon the collective memories of one another, recording and preserving personal stories of the Yukon's rich history and colourful life adventures. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and I thank you for joining me as a "M.A.Y.L. carrier”, as we proudly deliver our amazing Yukon life stories to the outside world.  

Cheers 

“Trapper Dan your Renaissance Man”

Daniel Halen

Support the show