Saturday, September 19, 2009

Yukon & Alaska: Wilderness and awesome landscapes in the last frontier!






















So, I went there and I came back! I survived the Yukon wilderness!!

What can I say about my 5 days up there... well, only one word: Awesome!

The real Canada is there, is not anywhere else. The beauty of this huge country is exactly that: the nature and the landscapes. It’s written everywhere, in every travel book you could buy and read, in every review of past travellers, in every article that you can find.

Canada is a young country, there isn’t so much history over here and when I mention history I’m just referring to something old. And that “something old” is simply possible find it just in Europe and Asia. I’m talking about old buildings, old stuff like the one that you find in Rome or in London...

The oldest settlement in Canada is St John’s in Newfoundland and is around 450 years old but pretty much nothing of that period is still standing and therefore u have to go to Quebec City to see something quite old.. but the majority of visitors that come up here they simply come to stare the landscapes and the nature that surround you everywhere you go after you leave a city...

So.. the Yukon... I just chose it instead of the Northwest Territories just because of money reasons. You guys have not idea about how damn expensive is go up there. Thanks to my ability to look for and usually find a good deal with the airfares I was able to have a roundtrip flight for 340 CAD that is really an awesome price! To go to Yellowknife, NWT they were asking 900 CAD... I just can’t afford it!

I arrived in Whitehorse and I stayed around the city for the first 2 days. What can I say? It has 24000 inhabitants! All the city is jut 8 streets! There is pretty much nothing! Even if the city itself is surrounded by the Yukon river and awesome mountains that give u an idea about what this huge territory can offer.

So the first 2 days have been just city exploration walking around. Unluckily the summer season is already over and a lot of museums are closed but was nice anyway.

On Monday I got my ride, a Ford Fusion (not to be confused with the European model, this is a completely different one) and the real exploration started... I drove to the Yukon Wildlife preserve along the Alaska Highway.. this visit gave me an awesome chance to take a look to the amazing wildlife that is impossible meet up there: elks, caribous, muskoxen , strange sheeps... I wasn’t able to see a moose :(

The day after was surely and actually the best one! I drove by myself 400 km along the Alaska and the Klondike highways, surrounded just by trees.. really only trees! For all the time that I drove I think I met just 25 cars, nothing else. Driving with the automatic speed is ridiculous and the absence of traffic allows you to watch around and wonder... I drove through Carcross, a village in the Yukon that seems something jumped out from the past and I arrived in Alaska! So I touched my 2nd American state! And surely one that is not so easy to visit. I was in Alaska just for half day but is so cool say: I’ve been there! Well, to see the real Alaska is a Into the Wild experience that someone has to do but for me was just a visit, short but cool somehow. I went to Skagway.. the city itself is nice but is just invaded everyday by tons of cruise ships tourists.

I think that is useless tell what I think about this kind of tourists: the same that I think about the ones that go to the resorts. Stay at home cause that is not travel. Is throw away your money. Cruise ships are even worse: overpriced and half day in every port to buy some crappy souvenir made in China or El Salvador. NO comment!

I was forgetting: I was even able to watch the Northern Lights. The organized excursion that I bought (125 CAD for 6 hours) was pretty cool. With an Australian family we went to a cabin in the woods. We stayed there for exactly 6 hours, external temperature -2° C and around 2 AM until 4 AM we watched this amazing phenomenon! The sky is just dark and then is green.. green curtains that move up and down.. something unbelievable. Like unbelievable is the number of stars that is possible see staring the sky.. thousands... u can even see clearly the Milky Way.

Since I just have a point & shoot camera the results of the photos are terrible... the aussie guy told me that is going to send me his photos (he had a 5000 AUD camera!!).. let’s see if he remembers!

So now I came back over here in Vancouver after a pretty terrible flight (bad weather on Whitehorse and the plane was shaking like hell... first time that I got pretty scared in 59 flight did in my life) and I’m counting down the days.. Yes.. is almost over guys... after 5 months and 13 days not so much time is left! When the Canadian custom officer on my way back crossing the border asked me: “So you have the plane ticket to go home?” I just realized that I’ve just 16 days left!

Thanks to Luighi my backpack won’t be too heavy but think about pack everything isn’t something that I really wanna do.. here is my house now, is my city... when I came back from Whitehorse I was just thinking.. I’m going back home.. Vancouver!

I still have a couple of things that I wanna do: see the UBC, Whistler and go to a Canucks game! The last one will happen Monday 21st : Canucks vs Calgary. 56 $ and my place is booked. The rest hopefully will be done as well.

A question that someone could ask me: Would you leave in Whitehorse and in the Yukon?

My answer: No! Or you really have a good reason that simply means a good job that brings you a lot of money or no way. In winter goes down till – 30° C and my opinion is that you can feel really lonely up there sometimes. But a visit is damn worth!

C ya

1 comment:

  1. Ciao!
    Non mi conosci, ma girovagando per il net ho trovato il tuo blog, e me lo sto leggendo tutto. CHE FANTASTICA AVVENTURA!
    Mi piacerebbe fare anche a me 6 mesi in canada, ho sempre sognato quel paese.

    E le foto di questa pagina, come dici tu, AWESOME! Soprattutto quella dell'aurora boreale, che VOGLIO assolutamente vedere. รจ qualcosa semplicemente indescrivibile, vero?

    Veramente bellissimo blog, complimenti ;)
    McLvsio (venetogenovese.wordpress.com)

    ReplyDelete