Driving the Dempster in Late Summer: What to ExpectLate August and early September on the Dempster Highway is arguably the best time to drive it. The tundra is turning, the crowds are thinning, and the light is exceptional. Here's what to expect.
What Closes After Summer in the YukonPlanning a fall or shoulder-season trip to the Yukon? Here's what's open, what closes, and what you need to know before you go — so you're not driving 500 km toward something that isn't there anymore.
Best Time to Visit the YukonThe Yukon is open and visitable year-round, but summer is when most visitors go — and for good reason. Here's how the seasons break down honestly, so you can decide when to go based on what you actually want.
Best Time to Visit Dawson CityDawson City is open year-round and interesting in every season — but the best time to visit depends entirely on what you're there for. Here's how the seasons actually break down.
Dawson City in Summer vs Fall: When Should You Go?Summer in Dawson City means midnight sun, full services, and crowds. Fall means golden tundra on the Dempster, quieter streets, and the real possibility of seeing the northern lights. Both are worth your time — but for different reasons.
Best Yukon Road Trip Route for First-Time VisitorsThere's no single right Yukon road trip route, but for first-time visitors, one sequence makes the most sense: Whitehorse north on the Klondike Highway to Dawson City. Everything else branches from there.
Yukon in 7 Days vs 10 Days vs 14 Days: Which Is Right for Your Trip?The Yukon rewards time. A week gives you the core — Whitehorse, the drive to Dawson City, a few nights in the Gold Rush capital. Ten days adds the Dempster or the Alaska Highway. Two weeks starts to feel like you're actually seeing the territory.
Is Tombstone Territorial Park Worth Visiting?Tombstone Territorial Park sits on the first 100 km of the Dempster Highway. It's one of the most spectacular landscapes in the Yukon — and it's often overlooked because people are thinking about the Dempster, not about the park it passes through.
Should You Drive the Dempster Highway?The Dempster Highway is 671 km of gravel connecting the Klondike to Inuvik. It's one of the great drives in North America. It's also one of the most demanding. Here's how to decide if it's right for your trip.
Dawson City vs Whitehorse: Where Should You Spend More Time?First-time visitors to the Yukon often try to figure out how to split their time between the two main destinations. Whitehorse has the logistics. Dawson City has the character. Here's how to think about it.
The Best Books About Yukon and the KlondikeWhether you're planning a trip or just want to travel north from your armchair, these are the books that will put you in the middle of the Klondike Gold Rush.
Driving the Dempster Highway: Dawson City to Inuvik and TuktoyaktukThe Dempster is Canada's only public highway to cross the Arctic Circle — 736 kilometres of gravel from near Dawson City to Inuvik, now extended all the way to the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk. Here's what to know before you drive it.
What It's Like to Drive the Dempster HighwayThe Dempster Highway is one of the most remote roads in North America — 800 kilometres of gravel connecting the Klondike to the Mackenzie Delta. I drove it solo and came back changed.
Dawson City at Its Peak: Life in the Paris of the NorthAt its height in 1898, Dawson City had a population of 40,000. It had electricity, running water, telephones, and an opera house. How this impossible city emerged from the wilderness.
Gold Rush Photography: Tips for Photographing Dawson CityDawson City is one of the most photogenic towns in Canada. The combination of preserved historic buildings, dramatic river setting, and extraordinary northern light creates conditions that reward any photographer.
Dawson City Travel Guide: Everything You Need to KnowDawson City is unlike any other place in Canada — a Gold Rush boomtown preserved in amber at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike rivers. This complete guide covers what to see, where to stay, where to eat, and how to make the most of your time here.
Eating Well in Dawson City: A Restaurant GuideFor a town of 1,400 people, Dawson City punches significantly above its weight when it comes to food. Here's where to eat, what to order, and one local ritual you absolutely must participate in.
The Night They Found Gold on Bonanza CreekOn the evening of August 16, 1896, a group of prospectors made a discovery in a small tributary of the Klondike River that would redirect the flow of human history. This is the full story of that night, and the weeks that followed.
Dredge No. 4: The Machine That Ate the KlondikeAfter the individual prospectors came the corporations — and the dredges. Dredge No. 4 on Bonanza Creek is the largest wooden-hulled gold dredge in North America.
Chief Isaac and the Survival of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'inWhen the gold rush arrived at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers, it found a people who had lived there for generations. Chief Isaac led the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in through the most devastating disruption in their history. This is his story.
Whitehorse Travel Guide: Your Complete Introduction to the Yukon CapitalWhitehorse is home to three-quarters of the Yukon's population and the starting point for nearly every journey into the territory. Here's how to orient yourself, what to see, and how to use the city as your base for the north.
The Women of Dawson City: Stories the History Books Left OutThe standard account of the Klondike Gold Rush is almost entirely about men. That account is incomplete. Women were present at every level of Dawson City's society, and their stories are among the most remarkable of the rush.
Robert Service and the Spell of the YukonRobert Service never went over the Chilkoot Pass. He arrived in Dawson City in 1908, a decade after the rush, and found a quiet, declining town. What he did with that material — and why his poems still define the Klondike for millions of people — is a story about the power of language and the nature of place.
The North-West Mounted Police and the Making of the YukonWhen gold was discovered in the Klondike, Canada had one crucial advantage: the NWMP were already there. How a handful of red-coated officers helped prevent the chaos that consumed earlier rushes.
The Steamboat Era on the Yukon RiverBefore the roads came, the Yukon River was the highway. For nearly seventy years, from the first steamer in 1866 to the last commercial run in the 1950s, the sternwheelers carried everything that moved into and out of the Klondike. This is the story of the most important transportation system the North ever had.
Watson Lake Travel Guide: The Sign Post Forest and Gateway to the YukonWatson Lake is most visitors' first stop in the Yukon — and home to one of Canada's most unusual landmarks. Here's your complete guide to Watson Lake, what to see nearby, and what to know before you continue north.
The Chilkoot Pass: The Most Difficult Path to FortuneThirty-three kilometres from Dyea to Bennett Lake, with a 1,000-metre elevation gain in the final three kilometres. In 1897 and 1898, roughly one hundred thousand people attempted this route. Perhaps sixty thousand made it. This is what the Chilkoot Pass was really like.
The North-West Mounted Police and the Miracle of OrderEvery other gold rush in North American history produced chaos, violence, and vigilante justice. The Klondike produced neither. The reason was the North-West Mounted Police, who arrived ahead of the stampede and held the line. How they did it is one of the most remarkable governance stories in Canadian history.
The Yukon's Historic Sites: A Complete Visitor's GuideFrom the gold rush boardwalks of Dawson City to a sternwheeler frozen in time on the Whitehorse waterfront — here is a region-by-region guide to the Yukon's most significant historic sites.
Haines Junction Travel Guide: Gateway to Kluane National ParkHaines Junction is a small community with an outsized position — it sits at the edge of Kluane National Park, home to the largest non-polar icefields in the world. This guide covers the town, the park, the cultural centre, and how to make it your base for the southwest Yukon.
The Moosehide Gathering: Revival of a TraditionEvery two years, thousands of people gather at the village of Moosehide, three kilometres downriver from Dawson City, for one of the most significant Indigenous cultural events in northern Canada. The Moosehide Gathering is a revival, a reunion, and a statement of survival. This is what it means and why it matters.
Swiftwater Bill Gates: The Most Colourful Character in the KlondikeHe arrived in the Klondike with nothing, struck it rich on one of the best claims on Eldorado Creek, and became the most extravagant spender in a place full of extravagant spenders. The story of Swiftwater Bill Gates is the gold rush reduced to its most essential elements: luck, excess, and the inability to hold onto either.
Tracing Family Roots to the Gold Rush: A Research GuideMillions of people have ancestors who made the journey north in 1897 and 1898. Here's how to research whether your family was part of the Klondike Gold Rush — and what you might find.
The Permafrost Beneath Dawson CityDawson City sits on permafrost — ground that has been frozen for thousands of years. The permafrost shapes everything about the city: how buildings are constructed, how sewers are laid, how roads behave in summer, and what kinds of ice age animals have been found preserved in the hillsides above the town.
Dawson City in Winter: What Remains When the Tourists LeaveEvery September, the last tourists leave Dawson City and the population drops from several thousand to under two thousand. The ferries stop running. The river freezes. The days shorten to five or six hours of pale light. What is left is the real Dawson — a small, cold, intensely alive northern community that knows who it is and why it stayed.
Carmacks Travel Guide: Midpoint on the Klondike HighwayCarmacks sits at the halfway point of the Klondike Highway, on the banks of the Yukon River. Its Five Finger Rapids were once the most feared obstacle on the gold rush river route. Today the community is a practical stop with a beautiful campground and an important cultural heritage.
The Dawson City Museum: Keeper of the Klondike StoryIn a building that once served as the territorial administration centre for the Yukon government, the Dawson City Museum holds the physical evidence of one of the most dramatic events in Canadian history. This is a visit worth making slowly, and knowing what you are looking for before you go.
Jack London in the Klondike: How the Yukon Made a WriterJack London arrived in the Klondike as a 21-year-old adventurer looking for gold. He found something more valuable: the material that would make him the most widely read American author of his generation.
Mayo Travel Guide: The Silver Trail and Keno CityMayo is the hub of the Yukon's Silver Trail — a region shaped by a century of silver, lead, and zinc mining. From the Binet House interpretive centre to the atmospheric ghost town of Keno City, this is one of the the Yukon's most rewarding and least-visited routes.
Jack London in the Klondike: Six Months That Changed LiteratureJack London arrived in the Klondike in the fall of 1897, twenty-one years old and broke, looking for gold. He found almost none. What he found instead — the cold, the landscape, the men, the dogs, the specific quality of northern existence — became the material for some of the most enduring fiction in the English language.
The Klondike Nugget: Dawson's Newspaper of RecordAt the height of the gold rush, Dawson City had two daily newspapers competing for readers and advertising dollars. The Klondike Nugget was the more conservative of the two — and the more enduring. What the newspapers of the rush recorded, and how they recorded it, shaped the story the world told about the Klondike for generations.
The Tlingit Trade Networks Before the RushThe gold rush did not arrive in a vacuum. The mountains and rivers of the Yukon were already mapped, traveled, and understood through trade networks that the Tlingit and their inland partners had maintained for generations. Understanding those networks changes how you understand everything that came after.
Teslin Travel Guide: George Johnston, Tlingit Heritage, and the Long LakeTeslin stretches along one of the longest lakes in the Yukon, and its community holds one of the territory's finest small museums — dedicated to a man who photographed his Tlingit community through decades of change, and who once built his own road on the ice just to drive his car.
The Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in: The Original People of the KlondikeLong before the first prospector set foot in the Klondike, the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in lived at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike rivers. Their story is inseparable from Dawson City's — and far older.
The Dominion Creek Discovery and the Second WaveMost people know about Bonanza and Eldorado. Fewer know about Dominion Creek, the third great Klondike discovery — richer than Bonanza in some sections, more remote, and worked by a second wave of miners who arrived after the best claims on the famous creeks were already taken.
Burwash Landing Travel Guide: Kluane Lake and the Mountains BeyondBurwash Landing sits on the eastern shore of Kluane Lake — the Yukon's largest lake — with a natural history museum, the Kluane First Nation community, and one of the finest mountain panoramas in the territory. Here's everything you need to know before you visit.
The Dredges: Industrial Gold Mining in the KlondikeBy 1905, the individual miner with his sluice box was largely gone from the Klondike creeks. In his place came the dredge — a floating factory that ate the valley floor and deposited it, gold removed, in long windrows of cobble. The dredge era lasted fifty years and transformed the Klondike landscape permanently.
Dawson City's Chinese Community: The Forgotten PioneersAt the height of the Klondike Gold Rush, Dawson City had a substantial Chinese community — merchants, launderers, cooks, prospectors — living and working in conditions of legal discrimination and social exclusion. Their contribution to the city's survival is largely unacknowledged. Their story is finally being recovered.
Displacement and Survival: How the Gold Rush Changed Yukon First NationsThe Klondike Gold Rush brought 30,000 newcomers to Indigenous lands. The consequences for First Nations communities were devastating — and the story of how they survived is one of the most important in the Yukon's history.
The First Winter: Surviving 1897-98 in the KlondikeThe winter of 1897-98 was the most dangerous season in Dawson City's history. The town had grown faster than its food supply, and by October it was clear that there were not enough provisions to last until spring. What followed — and how the crisis was managed — is one of the most dramatic stories of the rush.
The Champagne and Aishihik First Nations: Guardians of the SouthwestThe Champagne and Aishihik First Nations have lived in southwest Yukon and northwest BC for thousands of years. Their territory encompasses Kluane, the St. Elias Mountains, and the Tatshenshini River system.
The Midnight Sun: What Perpetual Light Does to a PersonIn Dawson City at the summer solstice, the sun does not set for several days. This is not a metaphor. The light is real, constant, and disorienting in ways that take time to understand. What the midnight sun does to the human body, the mind, and the social rhythm of a northern community is one of the strangest and most specific things about the Yukon.
Old Crow Travel Guide: Yukon's Most Remote CommunityOld Crow is the only Yukon community with no road connection to the outside world. Accessible only by air, it sits above the Arctic Circle on the Porcupine River — home to the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation and one of the most extraordinary landscapes in Canada.
The Dog Teams of Dawson: More Than TransportationBefore the roads and the snowmobiles, the dog team was the only way to move through the Klondike in winter. The relationship between the mushers of the rush era and their animals was not sentimental — it was practical, intense, and defined by the shared experience of survival in extreme cold.
Kluane National Park: Where the Mountains BeginKluane National Park and Reserve protects the largest non-polar icefields in the world and some of the highest peaks in Canada. Here's what you need to know before you visit.
Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in Self-Government: A Modern MilestoneIn 1998, the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in signed a final agreement that gave them self-government and settled their land claim. After a century of dispossession, the First Nation had reclaimed the right to govern themselves. Understanding what the agreement means — and what it took to get there — is essential to understanding Dawson City today.
The Teslin Tlingit: Keepers of the Five ClansThe Teslin Tlingit Council represents a Tlingit people who migrated from the coast into the interior of Yukon. Their clan system, oral traditions, and governance structures survived colonization and now form the foundation of one of Canada's most distinctive self-governments.
The Palace Grand Theatre: Dawson's Most Ambitious BuildingIn 1899, at the height of the gold rush, a man named Arizona Charlie Meadows built the most elaborate theatre north of Seattle. The Palace Grand Theatre was a statement about what Dawson City intended to be — and what it became, briefly, before the rush ended. The building still stands.
The Vuntut Gwitchin and the Porcupine Caribou: A Bond Spanning MillenniaThe Vuntut Gwitchin of Old Crow have lived alongside the Porcupine caribou herd for thousands of years. The herd is not simply a food source — it is woven into the fabric of Gwitchin identity, spirituality, and governance.
The Signwriters and Sourdoughs: Art in the Gold Rush EraThe gold rush produced a remarkable quantity of visual art — photographs, paintings, engravings, and the skilled lettering and signage of the commercial district. Some of it was documentation, some of it was commerce, and some of it was something harder to categorize: an attempt to make sense of an extraordinary experience through visual means.
Tombstone Territorial Park: The Patagonia of the NorthTombstone Territorial Park is one of the most dramatic landscapes in Canada — a jagged horizon of dark granite peaks above open tundra, accessible via the Dempster Highway north of Dawson City.
George Carmack, Skookum Jim, and Tagish Charlie: Who Found the GoldThe question of who actually found the gold on Bonanza Creek in August 1896 has never been fully resolved. George Carmack received the official credit. Skookum Jim Mason believed he was the one who made the discovery. Tagish Charlie was there. The full story is more complex than any single name on a claim document can capture.
Dawson City's Libraries: Books at the Edge of the WorldIn the depth of the gold rush, Dawson City had a Carnegie library, a subscription reading room, and a population with a serious appetite for books. The tradition of reading and intellectual life in this remote northern community has persisted for a hundred and twenty-five years. This is the story of Dawson's libraries.
Ivvavik National Park: Wilderness at the Edge of the WorldIvvavik is one of Canada's most remote national parks — accessible only by charter aircraft and covering the northwestern corner of Yukon along the Beaufort Sea coast. For serious wilderness travellers, it's extraordinary.
The Dawson Dike: How the City Was Saved from FloodingDawson City sits at the confluence of two rivers, on a flat that floods. Every spring since the city was founded, the same question has been asked: how high will the water come this year? The answer, for most of the city's history, has been managed by a dike that is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in the north.
Vuntut National Park and the Old Crow FlatsVuntut National Park protects the Old Crow Flats — a vast wetland north of Old Crow that is one of the most important waterfowl breeding areas in North America and a place of deep significance to the Vuntut Gwitchin.
The Yukon Quest and the Spirit of the Sled Dog TrailThe Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race runs 1,600 kilometres between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, crossing some of the most remote terrain in North America. It is considered the world's toughest sled dog race. Understanding why it exists — and what it means to the communities it passes through — tells you something important about the Yukon.
The Carcross/Tagish First Nation: People of the Southern LakesThe Carcross/Tagish First Nation are the original people of the southern Yukon lake country — a region of striking beauty where boreal forest meets mountain, and where one of the world's most endangered languages is being kept alive.
The Territorial Administration of the KlondikeCanada created the Yukon Territory in 1898, specifically to govern the gold rush. The territorial administration that was established in Dawson City — with its Gold Commissioner, its courts, its appointed council — was one of the most ambitious governmental undertakings in Canadian frontier history. How it worked, and who it served, is a story about the nature of colonial governance.
The First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun: Big River People of the StewartNa-Cho Nyäk Dun means 'big river people' in Northern Tutchone — a name that reflects a deep relationship with the Stewart River drainage, a landscape shaped by silver, caribou, and thousands of years of continuous habitation.
The Tombstone Mountains and the Dempster HighwayNorth of Dawson City, the Dempster Highway runs for 740 kilometres through some of the most spectacular and remote terrain in North America, beginning with the jagged peaks of the Tombstone Range. This is a drive that requires preparation and rewards it absolutely.
Stories from the Stampede: Personal Accounts of the KlondikeThe gold rush was experienced by tens of thousands of individuals, each of whom carried away a different story. The diaries, letters, and memoirs that survive give us access to the texture of individual experience in a way that no general history can. This is a selection of the voices from the rush.
The Dawson City International Short Film FestivalEvery July, filmmakers and film lovers from around the world gather in Dawson City for three days of short films shown in heritage venues including a transformed outdoor venue and the Palace Grand Theatre. The Dawson City International Short Film Festival is one of Canada's most distinctive cultural events.
The Kluane First Nation: People of the Lake and the MountainsThe Kluane First Nation are the Southern Tutchone-speaking people of Kluane Lake and the southwestern Yukon — a people whose traditional territory encompasses some of the most dramatic mountain landscape on the continent.
Sam Steele and the Order of the KlondikeSam Steele was the North-West Mounted Police officer who commanded the Yukon during the height of the gold rush. His methods were direct, his authority was total, and his tenure produced a degree of order in Dawson City that astonished outside observers. He was also an instrument of colonial policy whose legacy is complex.
The Klondike Highway: From Skagway to Dawson CityThe Klondike Highway traces the original stampeders' route from Skagway, Alaska to Dawson City. It remains one of the most historically rich and scenically dramatic drives in North America.
The Permafrost Films: The Dawson City Film FindIn 1978, workers excavating for a new recreation centre in Dawson City discovered five hundred and seventy-two film reels buried in permafrost since the 1920s. The films — many of them silent-era features believed lost — had been preserved by the cold for fifty years. It is one of the most significant film preservation discoveries in history.
The Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre: Heart of Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in CultureThe Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre sits at the edge of the Yukon River in Dawson City and serves as the primary cultural institution of the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation. A visit there is one of the most important things you can do in Dawson City — and the most often overlooked.
Kwanlin Dün First Nation: People of the Fast-Running WaterKwanlin Dün — 'people of the fast-running water' — are the Southern Tutchone-speaking First Nation whose traditional territory includes the city of Whitehorse. Their presence at Miles Canyon and the Yukon River canyon predates the territorial capital by thousands of years.
The Leaving of Dawson: When the Rush Became a Ghost TownIn 1899, gold was found in Nome, Alaska. Within months, tens of thousands of people who had been in Dawson City were gone. The most dramatic depopulation in Canadian history happened in a single season. What it looked like — and what it left behind — is one of the most poignant chapters of the rush.
The Liard First Nation: Kaska People of the SoutheastThe Liard First Nation are the Kaska Dena people of the Watson Lake area in southeastern Yukon — a people whose territory straddles the modern Yukon-BC border and whose language and culture tie them as closely to the Dene of the Northwest Territories as to their Yukon neighbours.
The Forty-Mile District: The Rush Before the RushBefore anyone had heard of Bonanza Creek, there was Fortymile. The small settlement at the mouth of the Fortymile River was the centre of Yukon mining for a decade before the Klondike discovery, and the men who worked there were the veterans whose knowledge made the rush possible. This is the story of what came before.
The Gwitchin of Old Crow: The Northernmost CommunityOld Crow sits at 67.5 degrees north latitude, above the Arctic Circle, accessible only by air. It is home to the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation — one of the most remote Indigenous communities in Canada, and one of the most determined to maintain both their traditional way of life and their political sovereignty.
The Gold Commissioner's Office: Reading the Land ClaimsEvery gold claim in the Klondike passed through the Gold Commissioner's office. The records it kept — the staking notices, the transfer documents, the disputes and appeals — are one of the richest archives of the rush era. They tell a story about the economics of the boom that the more dramatic accounts often miss.
The Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation: People of the MidpointThe Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation are the Northern Tutchone-speaking people of the middle Yukon River — a community at the geographic midpoint of the Klondike Highway whose relationship with the river, the rapids, and the land long predates the road that now runs through their territory.
The Yukon Field Force: Canada's Military in the RushIn the spring of 1898, the Canadian government sent a military force of two hundred soldiers overland to Dawson City. The Yukon Field Force was not sent to fight anyone. It was a statement — that Canada was in the Klondike and intended to remain. Their march north was one of the most remarkable military movements in Canadian history.
Heritage Preservation in a Living CityDawson City has one of the most significant concentrations of late-nineteenth-century built heritage in Canada. Preserving it while the city continues to function as a community — with all the development pressures and practical needs that implies — is one of the most challenging and interesting ongoing projects in Canadian heritage management.
The Midnight Dome and Dawson's ViewpointsThe hills above Dawson City offer views that explain the place in ways that the streets below cannot. From the Midnight Dome, you can see the confluence of the two rivers, the city, the mining valleys, and the subarctic landscape that gives the gold rush its context. This is a guide to the high ground above Dawson.
The Ross River Dena Council: Kaska People of the Upper PellyThe Ross River Dena Council are the Kaska-speaking Dene people of the upper Pelly River in central Yukon — a remote and resilient community whose territory was transformed by one of Canada's largest open-pit zinc mines and whose path to self-government remains unfinished.
The Return of the Salmon and Yukon River RestorationThe chinook salmon that runs up the Yukon River each summer has been in crisis for decades. For the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in and other First Nations, the salmon decline is not just an environmental problem — it is a cultural emergency. The fight to restore the run is one of the most important ongoing stories in northern Canada.
The Selkirk First Nation: Keepers of Fort Selkirk and the Middle YukonThe Selkirk First Nation are the Northern Tutchone-speaking people of the middle Yukon River, centred at Pelly Crossing. They are the stewards of Fort Selkirk — the abandoned Hudson's Bay Company post that stands as one of the most evocative historic sites in the territory.
Dawson's Brothels, Saloons, and the Ethics of the StampedeThe gold rush was not a morally simple event. The same social conditions that produced Dawson City's extraordinary energy also produced exploitation, discrimination, and a commerce in human misery that the standard narrative of the rush tends to euphemize. A clear look at what the saloons and brothels of the rush were and meant.
The Klondike Highway: Driving the Rush Route TodayThe Klondike Highway runs five hundred and thirty-five kilometres from Whitehorse to Dawson City, following the Yukon River through some of the most spectacular country in Canada. Driving it is a different experience depending on the season. This is what the road is, and what it offers to anyone willing to make the trip.
The Ta'an Kwäch'än Council: People of the Lake at LabergeTa'an Kwäch'än — 'people of the lake' — are the Northern Tutchone-speaking First Nation whose traditional territory includes Lake Laberge, immortalized in Robert Service's most famous poem. Their homeland encompasses the upper Yukon River and the outskirts of Whitehorse.
The White River First Nation: Upper Tanana People of the Western YukonThe White River First Nation are the Upper Tanana Athabascan people of the far western Yukon — one of the smallest and most remote First Nations in the territory, whose traditional territory straddles the Alaska-Yukon border and whose language connects them as much to Alaska as to the Yukon.