Tales From the Yukon

This weekend I headed over to Faro to partake in the Sheep and Crane festivities. I managed to see plenty of wildlife (cranes, grouse, squirrels) and yuppies but not a singular sheep. Seems as by the time I made it out to the sheep viewing station, they had decided that they had had enough of everyone staring at them and went incognito.

Mountains heading towards Watson Lake

On my way to Faro, I decided to drive down the other direction of the road for a couple of clicks heading out to Watson Lake (just out of curiosity). Beautiful scenery out there, and if I had another person traveling with me or another vehicle in the pack, I am sure I would have gone out a little further ... but I didn't want to get stuck out there with no rescue.

Once in Faro, I headed down to the school where there was a BBQ going on that was hosted by the school. After chowing down on a burger and some potato salad, I headed over to the library for a bit, then to the Kettle Cafe for a latte and then out for a drive towards the Mine (to which I had never been to before). Not much to see other than the mine, and the sludge pool below the mine.

The next morning I was up bright and early to head out on a nature walk out to the falls. On my way there I passed a large group of Cranes.





There was quite a large group of us heading out (head count was 65 people for the 9:30am hike). On the hike we learned about some of the flora and fauna of the Yukon and what is present in Faro and what some of the plants were and are still used for. Pretty amazing to think what some of the plants in the forest were used and are still used for.



At the end of the hike we made it to the water falls. Weren't quite as spectacular as I thought that they were going to be, but still impressive all the same. I just enjoyed the walk through the woods more than anything.



Prior to 1957, the official flower of Yukon was the Crocus ... however, Manitoba also had it as their official flower as well and were quite upset that Yukon wanted to use it as well ... so in 1957, Yukon changed its official flower to Fire Weed.





And of course, we have mysterious paw prints .... our theory (mine and Julie's) is that it was Big Foot carrying Hasselhoff on his back.