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Yukon, North of Ordinary
From the offbeat to the extraordinary, we document life in and around Canada’s Yukon and offer deeper insights into the content in our award-winning magazine.
Hosted by Karen McColl
Produced by Karen McColl & Mark Koepke
Northofordinary.com
Yukon, North of Ordinary
Fall series | boats, bats, and badass ungulates
Have you ever realized mid-challenge that you're not cut out for it? Amy Kenny, editor of Yukon, North of Ordinary magazine, shares her experience in the Yukon River Quest. We also hear about Mark's "bat tenants," and highlight the athletic endeavours of Dall's sheep and mountain goats through the photography of Sonny Parker, who has turned his passion for documenting wildlife into a compelling tool for conservation storytelling.
Also mentioned in episode: Bats with big appetites.
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Give me that greasy intro.
Speaker 2:From Yukon North of Ordinary magazine. This is Yukon North of Ordinary, the podcast Sharing stories about life in Northern Canada, from offbeat to extraordinary to extraordinary. Welcome to the Fall Series. I'm your host, karen McCall. In our opening segment you heard a telltale sound of summer the start line of Yukon River Quest. This long-distance paddling race has a Le Mans-style start, which means the paddlers run a short distance from the start line in Rotary Park in downtown Whitehorse to their vessel, that being a canoe, kayak, voyageur boat or even a stand-up paddleboard. From there, it's nothing but sweat and tears until they reach Dawson City, 700 kilometers downstream. That event and summer feels like a lifetime ago now that the fall equinox is behind us. But more than two months after the conclusion of Yukon River Quest, some people who participated in the long-distance race are likely still feeling the effects.
Speaker 3:This year I'm going to paddle the Yukon River Quest. I'm going to train by just like sitting on the couch watching Netflix, I think.
Speaker 2:I know Amy Kenney, our esteemed editor of Yukon North of Ordinary magazine, might even still be having nightmares about the event. In our summer series opener co-producer Mark Kepke talked to Amy as she was wrapping up her training efforts for the race.
Speaker 3:It's good. My paddling partner bought like a brand new, very fancy, state-of-the-art like racing canoe, which I feel is perhaps too advanced for our skill level and our attitudes going into this. But we were both a little bit nervous that this thing was going to be impossible to paddle and so just getting it on the water and getting in and not falling out of it. We're feeling a lot better about things going forward.
Speaker 2:Today an update on how that went, and much more. Mark caught up with Amy just before she left on a big trip to Scotland.
Speaker 3:So you're heading out of town. We're going to Scotland for almost a month, so I had like it feels like three months of work jammed into the last month and my brain is mush. It's just for fun. We'll always have a pen and paper and a recording device with me, so we'll see what crops up, but right now I'm planning on not even taking my laptop with me, so I'm trying to stay as far away from work as possible.
Speaker 3:So it's all hiking and running and drinking whiskey, god no Zero hiking, because hiking is just the slow, boring version of running. But there will be lots of running and lots of scotch, I think.
Speaker 4:You have an itinerary, you know where you're going.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, do we have an itinerary? My boyfriend has every single booking reservation, whatever, printed out in a physical binder that he is bringing with him. Even dinners are planned, that's horrible. No, it's amazing, I don't have to think about anything or worry about anything, that's pretty awesome it's going to be great.
Speaker 4:Last time I talked to you, you were still in the throes of training for the Yukon River Quest.
Speaker 3:How did that turn out? Like joy, misery split is still a solid 70-30, where I'm having a ton of fun 70% of the time and questioning life choices only 30. But with RiverQuest I was miserable for 96% of the time and happy for 4%, and the 4% was exclusively during the time. Like two hours from pulling into CarMax when my partner texted me that the race had been canceled and I was so overjoyed to hear that we were not going to have to decide whether or not to get back in the boat and continue on to Dawson. It was like seeing the face of God in the sky. I've never been that happy in my life.
Speaker 4:Did you have to tamp that enthusiasm down? Because I imagine you were surrounded by a lot of people who are really disappointed and bummed out.
Speaker 3:Oh no, no, no, no. We were dead last. So I started like I just started singing and like power paddling my partner was kind of in a haze behind me like my paddling partner. I couldn't tell what his feelings on it were, but we were in dead last and I had such a boost of energy that we like bombed ahead and passed the second last place team. And I should have tamped it down actually, because when we passed them they were two British guys and I was like good news boys, the race is canceled, we're done when we get to CarMax. And they were kind of dejected to hear that because like they had flown from England for the race. But I think they were deep down inside kind of happy, also because they look as miserable as I had felt before I found out. The race was canceled, is it?
Speaker 4:type zero fun or is it moved into like type two fun?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'll never do that again. I'm glad that I did it and I learned a lot of things about myself and paddling, and one of the things that I learned is that I only like paddling if it's whitewater and super fast and fun, or if we're camping, where you're just like paddling to a campsite. You hang out, you eat things, you sleep, you paddle to the next campsite. That's my jam. Marathon paddle racing is not for me.
Speaker 2:Wow, that was quite the review from Amy. Before we get any angry emails from RiverQuest, I will say that my friend Carmen has done the race I don't know maybe half a dozen times, and she keeps going back for more, so there are some people who love it, or at least who have a love-hate relationship with the race. Whichever way you look at it, though, it has been a tough few years for the race. There was a COVID cancellation one year, then another year the race was canceled because of high water, and then this year it was fires that abruptly shortened the race from a 700-kilometer slog to a mere 300-kilometer slog Still long. While Mark was catching up with Amy, he also asked what's in the fall issue of the magazine, which is already on shelves, coffee tables and maybe even the backside of some toilets.
Speaker 4:All right, let's talk about the current issue. Who's in the Yukon questionnaire?
Speaker 3:It is Emily Farrell, noted producer of many music festivals and arts events all over the territory. Actually, she's been doing that for a long time and she answered the questionnaire this issue.
Speaker 4:Now in the last podcast series I believe we ran your Yukon questionnaire. Last podcast series, I believe we ran your Yukon questionnaire. If you get any feedback or blowback from your responses to that from friends public, I don't think so.
Speaker 3:I have one friend who always gives me grief about calling it the Yukon because he insists that it's this age-old thing between Yukoners. The fight is at Yukon or the Yukon, and in my opinion, the fight is between Yukoners and this one friend in particular, because he's the only person I know who calls it Yukon or the Yukon, and in my opinion, the fight is between Yukoners and this one friend in particular, because he's the only person I know who calls it Yukon. Everyone says the Yukon, so I got blowback from him but it's meaningless.
Speaker 4:Yes, so what else is in the issue?
Speaker 3:You want more.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:Oh, let me see Ba ba, ba ba. There's a photo essay from the Offbeat Collective photos of Kluane Park and region that is made up of photographers from the Yukon and photographers from outside the Yukon. So it's, yeah, different, different people's perspectives on Kluane. Manis Hopkins wrote a profile of Gavin McKenna, um, the hockey player from the Yukon. There is, um, an illustrated like DIY FYI column about winter camping essentials what are some good things to take and why? Uh, what else do we have? Uh, let's see.
Speaker 3:Emily Huffs wrote a for the Yukon adventure section. She wrote a story about a girl's back country trip along Slim's East, which most people I feel like when they head out there to hike towards Observation Mountain, they take Slim's West because it's way better signed and has legit campsites and East is kind of like a choose your own adventure style hike. So she wrote about that style hike. So she wrote about that. I wrote a story about the Yukon Observatory, which is amazing, just about the kind of programming they have there and the telescopes they have and the degree to which you can nerd out super hard on planets and science and, well, aliens I tried to get them to nerd out with me about but they're a little bit too logical for that, so they weren't as into discussing the possibility of alien visitations to the Yukon as I would have hoped, but still a good place to go and hang out and have a look at the sky in the winter.
Speaker 4:What do we have in terms of features, aside from the photo essay?
Speaker 3:One of the big features in the story is about little brown bats. Trina Moyles wrote that and we had a story a few years ago about little brown bats. That was more science I mean, there is science in this one, but it was more strictly science-based. And this one is about people in the Yukon living with bats and why and how they find their way into houses and kind of how we can coexist with them. So it's an interesting story and useful if you have a bat or bats in your house.
Speaker 4:I read that article on a recent flight back from Vancouver and it hit really close to home because I was battling bats. This May it was the end of a three-year battle to get bats out of my cabin at Marsh Lake. So I read that article with a lot of interest.
Speaker 3:A battle, if you will.
Speaker 4:I can't remember what the actual article was called, but on the front it was referred to as bat tenants, which I assume was a play on bad tenants. And I can tell you that that's accurate. I was not happily coexisting with these bats in my roof. There's nothing like going to bed and you hear the scratching and squeaking and wing fluttering of over a hundred bats, I would estimate.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's creepy.
Speaker 4:Seemingly five or six feet above my head in the ceiling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even just from the perspective of, like every night you go to bed thinking am I going to get bit? And I know they're not all rabid or whatever. But they tell you, like if you wake up and there's a bat in the room, that you should go get tested in case it bit you in the night. So it can be stressful.
Speaker 4:Well, fortunately, I was never worried about them actually being in the cabin. There was no sign of them ever inside the cabin. They were just up in the roof, in the insulation and that, and it was mostly just the sound. And then, of course, the concern about, like bat guano just accumulating over years and years and years, and I was actually really interested to read that article because she refers to you know how bats can get in an opening the size of a dime, because I was operating under the assumption that they could get in a space the size of a quarter. So maybe the bats that I'm dealing with were maybe a little lazier than the bats so far, so good.
Speaker 3:Oh good, Fingers crossed.
Speaker 2:As you'll learn if you read the article written by Trina Moyles, there are safe ways to evict bats that have positive outcomes for the bats and the people. Stop that Bats get a bad rap. But Yukon bats don't bite people unless you're handling them, which you shouldn't be, and they don't drink blood. There are bats that do that and they're called vampire bats and they live in South America, but they're mostly after cows and horses and pigs rather than people. In any case, bats are super interesting, which is why we have a podcast episode about these peculiar flying mammals. It's called Bats with Big Appetites. It's not our sexiest episode it didn't get the most downloads, but I re-listened to it the other day and it's really good. I relearned a lot. You can check that out it's linked in our show notes and learn all about how many mosquitoes these wonderful creatures can eat in one meal, and much more. Now back to Amy and Mark.
Speaker 4:All right, got anything to add?
Speaker 3:We have got a burning question in here. As I was on the mountain opposite, I swear he bombed down the hill in about nine seconds Like it was faster than Olympic gold medalists sprint the 100 meter and I have never been able to understand, like how they do that. So, yeah, I talked to somebody with YG, a biologist there, to kind of explain why and how they can move around the mountains like that.
Speaker 4:Well, have a great time. Happy travels.
Speaker 3:Oh, I should say this Sonny Parker, who did the photo for the Burning Question story about sheep and mountain goats and how they climb the way they do. Sonny was just named the Canadian Wildlife Photographer of the Year by Canadian Geograph. So that's cool. His photo is amazing. Cheers, amy.
Speaker 2:Go easy on the scotch. Sonny's wildlife photography is amazing and I was thrilled to hear about his Canadian Geographic nod. It also gave me a great excuse to catch up with him. As we say, a photo is worth a thousand words, and that's about how many we gave Sonny to tell us about his work and himself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I received some exciting and big news towards the end of August, driving back from Dawson with my partner after just finishing paddling the Wynn River actually and quick stop on the side of the road and check my emails and you know, scrolling through the emails after being out of touch for two weeks is kind of annoying and then one email is from canadian geographic and I actually kind of forgot that I had even entered this contest um a few weeks prior. So I was like, oh, I better check that out. And then, buried in the subject line it was kind of like a congratulations, you are the 2024 wildlife photographer of the year grand prize winner. So I was. I don't think I really registered it as I was reading it. It's kind of hard to describe. It felt kind of just surreal, I guess, overall. And then, uh, yeah, as it kind of set in, I guess, yeah, obviously super, super excited and surprised and, um, even to be honest, right now it kind of sounds weird saying it but uh, yeah, it was, uh, yeah, a pretty cool moment and really kind of helped help justify to myself kind of the extra money, time and effort that I've put into photography over the last few years. My name's uh, sonny parker.
Speaker 1:Uh, born and raised in Yukon, happy to call Haynes Junction and kind of the Kalani area my home now.
Speaker 1:I've always liked exploring the outdoors and been kind of interested in like wildlife and wilderness and how people use the land, and so I guess photography became a natural means to just kind of documenting cool things that I was seeing when I was out on adventures with friends. And then I guess it kind of slowly morphed into going from like documenting things to viewing things in kind of a more artistic mindset and just trying to figure out ways that I could use a camera to kind of tell little stories or show people really unique moments as we all know, like a photo is worth a thousand words and everyone to kind of tell little stories or show people really unique moments. As we all know, like a photo is worth a thousand words and everyone can kind of interpret it differently. So having a camera along with me just became kind of a unique way to tell stories and really help people relate to what I thought was, yeah, some really cool moments. So I guess in the past few years I've really started putting more time and effort into photography.
Speaker 1:I guess I started about you know 10 years ago or so, taking single photos kind of out of context, you know, like wildlife here and there and northern lights here and there, but they were never really connected or part of a bigger story or idea. So I've always been kind of looking to find out ways on how I can kind of take the next step in my photography career. I guess the most logical step was just trying to move towards like storytelling, so using a series of photos and spending maybe a year or two on a longer term project to really convey, you know, a story through a series of images. And I'm still kind of figuring out how that process works. But it's been fun and it's really given me a new motivation to take a deeper dive, I guess. And so I guess through that I really wanted to try to bridge kind of science and storytelling, because I think there's a lot of really cool things happening in the scientific world that either aren't accessible or aren't described or shown in a very like appetizing way, I guess, to the general public. So if photography can kind of be that bridge between science and storytelling and conveying important messages about conservation to the general public, I think that's where my current passion lies.
Speaker 1:So I have a shot in the fall issue of Yukon Orthodontics Magazine that kind of shows two dog sheep. They're almost kind of running straight down a sheer cliff face which, yeah, if you can imagine that it seems almost like they're going to plummet to their certain death. But they have kind of this unique ability to stand and run safely and quickly across these sheer cliffs. I thought it was kind of a cool photo because it's these two kind of white sheep on a kind of a a brown gold backdrop which is just a straight sheer rock face and and you're not really sure where, where one of the sheep it's kind of mid-air, mid-jump and it's kind of bounding towards the edge of the frame and it kind of leads viewers to to wonder kind of what's it going to do or where is it going to end up. Luckily the the road was, you know it's still probably a good 20 meters below the edge of the photo, but it took a a few kind of quick hops and bounds off of little pieces of rock before it ended up on the edge of the road shoulder.
Speaker 1:Actually I took this photo at the bottom of a techo doll or sheep mountain, as many uconners will know it, um, kind of on the edge of kalani lake there, which is, yeah, one of the best spots, I think, in the yuk, yukon and maybe even in the world really to have really good viewing opportunities of dull sheep.
Speaker 1:I'm still plugging away on kind of a bigger term dull sheep project and trying to tell the story about kind of the challenges they face related to climate change, industrial development and all the other things that they deal with across the range. They're kind of a special species because really, if sheep are healthy, it's kind of a good indicator that the ecosystem that they're in, which is kind of mountain, alpine ecosystems, are also healthy too. So they're one of the species that can kind of tell us that story of the greater ecosystem. So I want to try to tell using sheep as, like the characters kind of tell a bit of a story about you know, what they mean to the landscape and the people and hopefully get people inspired and get them caring.
Speaker 2:That's Yukon photographer Sunny Parker. Check out Sunny's photo of dolls sheep scaling a sheer cliff face on the North of Ordinary Media Facebook and Instagram pages. To check out Sonny's other work, which I highly recommend, go to sonnyparkerphotocom or find him on social media. Sonny Parker Photography. That's Sonny. As in S-O-N-N-Y, not as in the bright orb in the sky in the sky. Speaking of photographers, we have a couple more episodes to drop this series. We're going to have the Yukon Questionnaire with another prolific Yukon wildlife photographer, peter Mather. There's a lot of good nuggets in his answers. What is your favorite Yukon brand?
Speaker 1:Um Yukon. Are they a competitor?
Speaker 2:We'll also drop an Extraordinary Arts episode.
Speaker 5:The August Rival is the alias I perform under this new album. Hillsides took about a year to record. I would say start to finish. It does feel good to have this release coming up, but it's maybe the least enjoyable part of it. It's so subjective. Some people are going to like it, some people are going to dislike it. And I enjoy doing it and I think that's something that's different with age too. Is that the satisfactions and the doing? Yeah, I just enjoy doing it.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of a nice place to be and we might even revisit Mark's whole bat conundrum, you know, just in time for Halloween. Stop that. We'll have a full rollout for you in November. Talk to you soon. We'll have a full rollout for you in November. Talk to you soon. That's it for another episode of Yukon North of Ordinary. I'm your host, karen McCall. This podcast is produced by Mark Kepke and me for North of Ordinary Media. Our theme music is Slipin' by Major Funk. If you like what you hear, please subscribe and give us a rating. Check out our website, northofordinarycom, where you'll find stories from our magazine.
Speaker 4:You can also subscribe to the magazine and buy some swag. Thanks for listening. We'll be back soon, so I need you to give me a couple of stop, that's. You need to just say it kind of just like that, as if you're scolding a child that keeps interrupting you while you're, you know, trying to have a grown up conversation or something. I need it for editing.
Speaker 2:Stop that, stop that, stop that, stop that. I think they all sound the same. I was imagining my boyfriend annoying me because I don't have any kids.