Klondike Gold Rush fever spread through the world in 1898, bringing tens of thousands of dreamers, mostly Americans, into the harsh and frigid reality of the Yukon. Dawson City was its epicenter, but to get there those Klondikers had to endure a months-long journey against Mother Nature that was brutal beyond imagination. During its peak year, almost 90,000 people lived in and around Dawson City, where before there had been a tiny outpost and First Nations dwellers.
When the gold rush ended, gold mining by larger corporations continued until the early …

I’m back in Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon Territory, recharging my batteries, cleaning my equipment, doing laundry and running assorted errands before leaving for the Dempster Highway again to photograph the Fall colors and Northern Lights (hopefully). I thought it would be good to review with you the past week’s photo shoot and some things I learned from the experience.
For those of you following my progress on my interactive SPOT geo-tracking page, it will be inactive for the next two days. On Tuesday, my fellow photographer, Richard Hartmier and I …

Tomorrow I leave again for Canada’s Yukon Territory, my second trip up there this year. When I visited in February the temperature was minus 40F, so I’m in hopes that this trip will be a bit warmer.
Those of you who read my blog know that I have a love affair with the Yukon, with its abundance of wildlife, mind-blowing scenics and friendly people. With a land mass 20% larger than California’s, the Yukon has 30,000 residents, compared to California’s 33,000,000. Since 24,000 of Yukon’s residents live in the capital …

Rather than do a second post on Dawson City, Yukon- as wild and whacky and wonderful a town as you’ll ever see- I decided to reduce confusion and add details on places of interest, hotels and restaurants to the original blog. Here’s the link:
http://blog.lesterpickerphoto.com/2011/02/10/dawson-city-or-bust/
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Once photographers find out that I travel to the Yukon and Arctic Circle, I’m invariably asked about photographing the Northern Lights, technically known as the Aurora borealis.
There are tons of articles and technical publications related to photographing these miraculous lights that magically appear in the far north at certain times of the year. They are caused by solar winds brushing by the earth’s magnetosphere. The most common color for the lights is green, but under certain conditions the lights can be orange, teal, purple or a combination of these.
Rather than …

As Robert Burns so ably said: “The best laid plans o’ mice of men, gang aft agley.” Or, as my dear mother used to say: ”Man plans and God laughs.”
So, my trip up the Dempster Highway to the Arctic Circle to photograph the Porcupine caribou herd is now up in smoke. More accurately it is down in snowflakes, as in a blizzard with 90 km/hour winds and whiteout conditions that was expected to last for days. Two winter storms converged right over the Arctic Circle in Yukon territory, making the …

If you’re headed for a Yukon adventure, you’ll almost definitely stay in Whitehorse at some point in your travels. With a population of 25,000, Whitehorse is by far the largest city in the Yukon. In fact, if you subtract Whitehorse’s population, there are only about 8,000 additional Yukon residents occupying a territory nearly 20% larger than California (and that state has around 35 million people)!
Whitehorse, capital city of the Yukon, is really a lovely small city, the kind you can easily wrap your brain around. One of the things I …

Dawson City, Yukon, is like an itch under your skin. No matter how much you scratch, it’s always there. That’s how Dawson City is for me. I love this whacky, unpaved, raw hole in the wilderness, where the people are real and the frontier mentality is alive and well. When I’m gone for any appreciable time, I think of it and its zany character.

Dawson City was built nearly overnight, at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. During its heyday in 1898, Dawson had more than 40,000 people, every one …