Category Archives: Profiles and People

The Eagle, Alaska checkpoint of the 1000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race is housed in the historic one-room schoolhouse. It’s a bustling place during the Yukon Quest sled dog race. Scarlett Hall has been Eagle checkpoint manager for “longer than I can remember – probably six or seven years.” She does it because she [...]

This past May (2011), when Dennis Fentie retired after fifteen years in politics, he was Yukon’s longest-serving premier. At the time, he was also the longest-serving premier in Canada.  Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way! This maxim – burnt letters on a small wood sign – hung on then-premier Dennis Fentie’s office door [...]

Presented to Heidi Festel on her 90th Birthday: February 19, 2009 at the Frohegg Restaurant in Bern, Switzerland Tonight, as we celebrate Heidi Festel’s 90th birthday, her son – my husband Ed – and I, have two gifts to present to her. Heidi calls me her daughter-in-love, instead of daughter-in-law, as most people say. I think [...]

I’ve always been in close touch, never away for very long from the Yukon. – Goody Born February 10, 1926 in Whitehorse, Yukon   Goody leans on her aluminum cane and looks through the picture window of her third-floor condo in Whitehorse. She gestures toward the Yukon Legislative Building on the opposite side of Second [...]

Veteran trapper, guide, and outdoor educator Alex Van Bibber is a living Yukon legend. At 93 years of age, the experienced woodsman still takes time to show younger trappers how to survive in the wilderness. Alex Van Bibber stands in front of 15 would-be trappers enrolled in the Yukon trappers’ education course. He’s wearing a [...]

Betty Taylor has a reputation for providing a warm hearth and a helpful hand to those in need. Betty Taylor sits in her daughter’s Whitehorse home, where she lives, and fumbles with a remote control, quieting the noise of an afternoon newscast. The frail 93-year-old turns to me and looks confused when I remind her [...]

Stanley Bridcut - Straight Ahead By Claire Festel At 1545 on May 24, 2008, the north’s signature bush plane flew low over the Watson Lake airport and dipped side to side in the bush pilot’s salute. A few minutes later Frank Close addressed the more than 200 people gathered to celebrate Stanley Bridcut’s life, a Yukon [...]