Yes, you can fill your water bottle in the Yukon river and drink it! No filtering required!

10:30 pm and still plenty of light. There is still a month before the Solstice, so the days will get even longer!

Every time I drive back to the Yukon in the spring, my brain goes into high gear. I never know if it’s all the things to do all of a sudden because we’re back home (I have to buy a calendar just for my time in the Yukon!) or the super long days of light, but I feel totally caffeinated and hyperactive.

I don’t think you can really understand how wild this place is until you visit it. You truly are a guest here. For instance, there is a grizzly mom and her two yearlings living very close to our friends’ house right now. So, every time we go out of the house to get to the bus or vice versa (which are literally 50 feet from each other), you have to make noise so as to not surprise them. The other morning, as I drank my coffee by the lake, there was a golden eagle just on the shore. A canister of bear spray is a mandatory piece of equipement for our bike class, and it goes in the water bottle holder on the bike.

I also think that you can’t fully experience the wildness of the North by coming only for the summer. Winter is when the North is in its full element.

I love this time of year! The young leaves are just starting to open, the crocuses are slowly wilting and the lupines are just starting. The huge Northern mosquitoes are still slow and groggy, and the earth is just beginning to wake up from her long winter sleep. With all that light everything is happening so fast, it's crazy! No wonder I feel wired!