Day 7: June 24th
Destination: Whitehorse, Yukon Territory
Driving Through: Yukon Territory (what…it’s big)
Day 7 was a fairly nice drive. It was short, maybe seven hours. Compared to the hauls I’d been making, it was a nice little break.
In the morning, as I was heading out of Watson Lake, I found a cute little place called “Sign Post Forest” and I had to stop.
Let’s throw it out to Frisco Macae in the field, Frisco.
For more pictures, look at my facebook album from the drive.
I got to Whitehorse before I could even check into my hotel, it was around 1pm I think. I was hungry, but I hadn’t much coffee and I saw a starbucks.
I’ve still yet to get homesick (and…I’ve been in Anchorage for almost 10 days now…sorry…I know I’m getting behind), but there are certain things that kind of make you feel…well, out of place for lack of a better phrase. When you’re away from everything you know, it’s almost exhausting after a while, especially in another country (not that Canada is drastically different.. but it’s the little differences. For instance, at McDonals they don’t have a Quarter pounder with cheese…they use the metric system, they wouldn’t know what the fuck a quarter pounder was, they call it a royale with cheese.)
But seriously, there are crazy little differences. So I see the starbucks and I go in. I order a doubleshot and they say:
“You want just…like a doppio?”
Me: “No…no, sorry, you guys don’t have the strarbucks double shot on your menu?”
Girl: “uhm…no, what’s that?”
BUH. So I have to explain it to her. I kind of walked into starbucks thinking, it would be nice and kind of…comforting in a way to get the drink that I always get in Texas. Wrong. Now I’m a fucking Barista. I guess it’s a good thing I know how the drink is made.
Maybe I should have ordered moose piss. (Easy, Frisk, now you’re just being vindictive)
All and all Whitehorse is an AWESOME little town. If it wasn’t in Canada, I could totally live there (Yeah, that was a stab…specifically at Levi).
It’s a pretty hip town. I think it has about 27,000 people. Not too bad. Their little downtown is kind of like being at a larger version of the square in denton, with a few more roads. There’s homeless, there’s hipsters, there’s moose..well…okay so denton lacks that as well as the cold and the view of the mountains, but it’s still similar.
One thing I noticed is that the homeless are cute. There was a girl playing a guitar, barefoot, for money. Super cute. Sleeves, septum ring. Homeless. It’s a rough world out there, guys, I’m just living in it.
Then I go to subway, thinking, well starbucks failed me, subway HAS to make me feel like home.
Nope.
Bread: different
Toppings: Different
Dressing: DRASTICALLY different.
When will people learn that the American way is the way everything should be done?
AND WHERE’S THE FUCKING CHIPOTLE IN THIS GODDAMNED TOWN!
I check into my hotel, it’s fairly nice. Kind of old…but so are all of them. After a while, I get bored of sitting in my room and blogging and I head out to the bar that’s in my hotel. It’s my last day in Canada and I’ve still about 4 beers to try….but when I get to the bar I found out that Yukon has two of it’s own brewing companies.
Take that 4 and add about 10 more. Let’s show’em how Big Tex does it.
I thought this one was too cool not to take a picture of:
Lead Dog Ale
So I start drinking some beer. I ordered a Bison burger. And I talk with the bartender, who’s a cute, tall redhead. Her name is Natalia She’s fairly frail. I only point this out because she tells me later that she’s a prison guard full time during the week.
I get my bison and Natalia warns me about the ketchup. She says it’s Canadian and it tastes complete different. Alright…sure…different ketchup.
No…she’s serious:
It’s actually really good. It’s like our ketchup, but quite a bit sweeter. It’s good for boring fries…like all of the ones in Canada.
(For another difference, in Canada they watch the NHL draft…and it’s a huge deal)
As I’m eating, I meet Tim.
Tim comes in with dirty jeans and a dirty shirt with holes in it and says: “I’ll take a blue, please.”
(He means Labatt blue).
We get to talking and Tims says
“I’m probably what you’d call a Redneck, ay.” And…it’s funny because of his thick Canadian accent, but I know what he means. He truly is a Canadian redneck. He’s a fisher and a hunter and he likes his Blue. I tell him I’m crossing the border back into the U.S. tomorrow and he regales me with a story I’ll recreate for you now.
Tim and a good amount of his friends go across to the U.S. every year, sometimes multiple times. They hunt and fish in Alaska…not to mention complain about the ‘pussy beer’ (but….when you’re drinking Labatt Blue, I don’t know that you have room to talk). Well, apparently, even though they do this all the time, they get hassled by the border…everytime.
A bunch of hard-ass looking Canadians with beards carrying the maximum amount of beer per person along with shotguns, riffles and ammo probably raises some warning flags…actually that’s an outdated image, let’s say it pops up warning indicators on their computers.
Anyway, Tim and his two or three car loads of buddies go across. Apparently one of their guides buys a little weed and they go through most of it in Alaska, but not all of it. The rest, he hides in one of Tim’s bags.
On the way back across the border, for whatever reason, the Canadian side decides to take everything apart and of course, they find the weed. It’s not even enough to get you a ticket in the states, but the panic at the border.
Apparently the way it works is that they can suspend you. Now Tim cannot come back into the U.S. for 10 years.
Yeah…10 fucking years, because he had a joint in his bag. This is the U.S. policy.
I asked Tim how much he and his friends would spend over in Alaska on an average trip and he said anywhere from 6-10 thousand collectively on rentals and beer and food and everything else.
That’s a large sum of money to keep out of your country. Tim swears he’ll never go back to the states again after the way he was treated.
Good going.
So there’s my sob story. I’ll leave diplomacy to the guys who are good at it.
Natalia invited me down to the hotel’s after party and I went. I was there before her and I was drunk so I walked up to the bar and through on an accent. Not a Texas accent. Looking back, I don’t even know what it was, but I walked up to the bartender and said:
“I’ll take a blue please.”
He paused, looked at me, nodded, then grabbed me a Labatt Blue and I sat at the bar and drank it until Natalia came down.
I can’t remember the rest. Maybe I sat at the bar looking like an American douchebag, or maybe for a little bit I was just part of the crowd. I had spent the entire day trying to find things to make me feel at home, but maybe, in the end, all I had to do was pretend I was at home.
No. Fuck that. I want my goddamned Chipotle, they can keep their stupid fucking sweet ketchup and dumbass bison burgers.
Tags: beer, Canadian beer, Canadian Ketchup, Driving through the Yukon, Driving to Alaska, Frisco, Frisco Edwards, Frisco Macae, homesick for chipotle, long drives, road trip, Road trips, Sign Post Forest, The Alaskan Highway, the alcan highway, Watson Lake, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory
