Sunrise? Sunset?

Our quick trip to Whitehorse. This is the viewpoint looking up river from five finger rapids.

Views from the ride home

Montague House

This way home? No, no this way back to Whitehorse.

... my honey at Five Finger Rapids

Aurora Borealis

Tonight we saw the most super spectacular northern lights either of us has personally ever seen. We went out for a hot tub just past 10:30pm and as soon as we're in the hot tub the sky lights up in narrow ribbons and streaks. We are at a loss to describe the way they danced and whipped around-almost drawing pictures or writing messages in the sky. We've never even seen pictures showing the lights as we saw them tonight. We've found a website that helps to indicate when we should be able to see them http://www.aurorasentry.net/ so next time we'll try to take pics.

Hope you all are as well as we are.

Love Lynne and Scott

Opening presents is so fun when you're a grown up with no kids to get you up at 6am- it was 11:30, we'd had breakfast, it was great. Thanks everybody for all the wonderful, thoughtful gifts!

Check out the gorgeous sweater!

I always wanted elf slippers that sing!!!

It Really Is A Merry Christmas

this says it all...

Tonight we went to a party at a fellow teachers home outside of Dawson. It was the most magical Christmas Eve party ever. This pic just can't do them justice but it shows the bonfire in the background and one side of the hockey rink. They also had made a beautiful braided, candled promenade for walking and skating . Another teacher lives next door and they had a candle lit path to lead the way. Thanks so much Helen and Rod and Liz and Bob for inviting us to such a fabulous evening.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Wishing you all the magic of the holiday.

Christmas eve (day) up the hill

Sun Seeking

We spent the morning looking at fog in the valley so around 3:05pm Scott asked if I wanted to sled up the mountain to see if we could catch some sunset. Down in town they see no sun right now, even here we only get a couple of hours of it if there are not too many clouds and because the weather has been so warm it seems Dawson is cursed with perpetual fog. It's only just less than seven km to the top of the second dome-only takes us a few minutes and the payoff is often spectacular, as it was today. Unfortunately the brilliancy of the oranges didn't show up in the pics (my hands were cold, I was taking them fast) but it's pretty nonetheless. Gotta love Christmas vacation.

Acceptance

Hi Everybody, I know this site is mostly pics and commentaries of what we've been up to for the benefit of our family and friends but now that I know that there are lots of people looking at our blog I want to take the opportunity to touch on a subject that is very important to both Scott and I. I'm talking about acceptance and tolerance, specifically of same-sex marriage.

In a recent discussion the subject of Sir Elton John's marriage to David Furnish came up. A lady who has been very nice to us blurted out something about her opinion being that they were not really married at all. I thought that being against equal rights was something people kept to themselves these days! Both Scott and I managed to keep our mouths shut out of respect for the host and hostess, especially since these are people we hardly know and have to work with but it was really hard I tell you and now, looking back, I feel bad that I didn't say something.

People have to know that promoting hate is no longer acceptable in our society. The folks we were talking with were all church going people(aren't you supposed to love thy neighbour?)! And we aren't! God shouldn't have anything to do with it, regardless. Somewhere along the lines the people decided that church and state should be kept separate, and rightly they should! Besides, it's utterly ridiculous to think that marriage is specifically a Christian union. Marriage, if not by that specific title, has been around much longer than Christianity and currently takes place in many societies that are not predominantly Christian. One day I hope to marry Scott, and when (and if) that happens we will not stand before God and yet the end result will still be recognized by our government as marriage.

I have a new idea for a kind of all around, general rule/law that we should all abide by: Thou shalt do anything thy wants so long as it DOESN'T HURT ANYBODY ELSE! Promoting hate does hurt. It was not that long ago in history when it was acceptable to look upon a person of another race as being less of a person-we've moved away from that, haven't we? What is different about denying a person basic rights like marriage and benefits because the person they love happens to be of the same sex? What about equality and freedom? Are only those of us who are white and straight entitled to those basic rights? That's unreasonable and as far as I'm concerned-if you think this way then you are an ignorant hick who should yourself be denied of these rights so that you can understand how it feels.

For the record: we are very lucky to have family and friends who are good people and are both accepting and tolerant-this rant is not aimed at you guys! It just breaks my heart that a person should be punished in any way just because they fell in love. People should be judged by their deeds not their sexual preference. Get over it. And if you agree with me please do not vote Conservative on the Jan 23 election. That is not the kind of country we want to live in!

p.s. If you want to hear more on this sensitive subject read the comments, I have a feeling it's going to get very interesting:)

My girl is gorgeous.

Today we went snowmobiling. The following three pics and the pic above were taken on the way.

Snowmobiling

Can you tell who this is? lol.

top of the second dome

top of the midnight dome

Happy Holidays!!!

It Must Be Christmas

Tonight we decorated the tree, had a few drinks, and listened to carols. Earlier today we saw Santa arrive to town by helicopter, landing on the dike. It must be Christmas.

A beautiful Saturday morning.

Lots of visitors today!

It got so warm today (-8) that we had an unexpected visitor. He tried repeatedly to drill holes into the bamboo blinds on the porch.

A wicked pic of Dawson we took from the Top of the World highway earlier this fall. If you look at how there is much darker water entering from the right side of the pic-that's the confluence of the Klondike and the Yukon. The cleaner, darker water belonging to the much smaller Klondike. When you enter the lighter water of the Yukon in a canoe you can instantly here a strange hissing sound which is the massive amount of silt in the Yukon hitting the canoe. Of course, nowadays it's all one big mass of snow and ice. People cross it on foot and on snowmobiles. Crazy.

A cute fox we saw in the early fall just down the highway. We saw him near there several times over the course of a couple of weeks. Looks a little like Khan, one of our cats:)

The Promised Wolf Picture

This was taken on the Mayo road in the fall coming back from a night of camping. Wish we'd had the digital zoom then! We first saw 3 black shapes and then a grey one that was clearly a wolf (we were close enough by then to see) cross the road as we were coming down the hill. We stopped just past where they disappeared into the trees and this one,obviously the alpha male, came and just stood in the road behind us until we drove away. This was an unforgetable experience though it only lasted 2 or 3 minutes.

The fog this morning seemed to come down out of the Tombstones, spilling over into the Klondike Valley.

Here we are again.

The Tombstones in December. Holy shit.

Taken up the Dempster this morning, just this side of the Tombstone campground.

Click on this. Taken today in pea-soup fog, it's a fat moose cow.

3:30pm this afternoon on the Dome road (this is only a couple hundred yards from our driveway).

This is our driveway. Try not to be too jealous.

More meat than a turkey.

Our Nearest Neighbours

A Gorgeous Sunset

These pics of our sunset were taken yesterday from our front porch.