Yukon Territory

The name Yukon evokes images of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896. Drawn by dreams of adventure – and particularly of striking it rich – thousands of people set out for the far northwest of Canada. Dawson City, which was at the heart of the Gold Rush, is a colorful town with boardwalk-lined streets, historic buildings, and about 1,251 residents – but at the height of the Gold Rush, it had a population of more than 30,000.

Although the rush ended in 1899, the legacy continues. A popular three to five day hike (with medium to hard hiking) is along the Chilkoot Trail – a living museum of Gold Rush history. And you can still pan for gold in the many streams and rivers. Don't want to pan or hike? There's also kayaking, mountaineering, rafting, horseback riding, dog sledding, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, skiing, camping, fishing, and hunting.

The Yukon is sometimes called Canada's True North, and, as such, the fact that it can be very cold in the winter is no surprise to anyone. The average January temperature in Whitehorse is approximately -19C (-2F) and in July 14C (57F). Of course, summer days can reach 32C (90F), and the record coldest temperature, from the winter of 1947, was -62.8C (-81F).

The Yukon is sparsely populated, with most of its 28,674 inhabitants (19,058 people) living in the capital city of Whitehorse. At more than 483,450 square kilometers or 300,000 square miles (about the size of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland combined), Yukon is much smaller than the other two Canadian territories. The Yukon is about 25% the size of Nunavut and about 40% the size of the Northwest Territories. Perhaps its size – and its nearness to Alaska – have contributed to the fact that it has more roads – approximately 4,681 km (2,900 miles) – than its fellow territories.

But like the other Canadian territories, the Yukon has a breathtaking landscape. The territory is a world of high mountains, ice fields, and treed valleys with tundra in the far north. The area contains the Yukon River, the second longest river in Canada, running almost 2,000 miles (3,185 kilometers) from northern British Columbia to the Beaufort Sea.

The Yukon is the home of the Kluane National Park and Reserve, which is one of a group of parks (Kluane/Wrangell-St. Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek) in Canada and the United States that was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. Kluane is rugged, with mountains and ice making up 82% of its surface area. Kluane is home to Canada's highest and largest mountains, the St. Elias Range.

Among Kluane's mountains are the world's largest non-polar ice fields, which continue to accumulate snow. Many valleys contain glaciers, such as the Lowell Glacier, which is about 40 miles (65 km) long. When these glaciers move, the results are spectacular. The Lowell glacier has been known to block the Alsek river resulting in large glacial lakes – the most recent, Lake Alsek, is said to have drained in two days in the mid-1800s. It's not surprising that the Lowell glacier, known as Naludi by the local native population, is the subject of many of their traditional stories.

The Yukon and its parks are home to a wide range animals: grizzly bears, elk, muskox, mule deer, caribou, Dall's sheep, lynx, fox, wolverines, and wolves. In Kluane alone, there are 118 species of nesting birds.

With all this, it's no wonder that scheduled air service flies directly to Whitehorse from Frankfurt, Germany!

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