Teslin/Whitehorse

I have to address the scale of everything here. Enormous. There are giant Mountains all around and the road stretches are really long. It's hard to get ahold of the magnitude of everything. I finally realized the true scale of what I was seeing when I could see a stretch of the road across Summit Lake where I stopped for a wildlife viewing area and a rest. I looked across the lake where I could see bits of the road I was on and which I didn't think was too far away. Then I saw a truck on the road, which not only had passed me what seemed like a while ago, but it also looked like a tiny little speck. Everything is really, really big. I've taken a million pictures, most of which I've been disappointed with because they look like tiny little mountains in the distance. They're not in the distance at all and they're not tiny. A lot of times I'll be climbing a hill and several times I'll think I'm almost at the top when I've really got a good distance to go. It's hard to tell when everything around you is so big and there aren't any other cars to judge the distance by. When there are cars ahead or behind I"m floored by the perspective it puts on the magnitude of things.

I've got a handle on what an amazing opportunity this is now. I'm just so lucky to be doing this. I really wish more people could do the same. I don't think I'll walk away the same person.

I really like Whitehorse. It's a cute little artsy city. I think it's big enough to be a city, but I'll have to check on that. I'm in a great coffee shop now that reminds me of this place Lindsey took me when we were in Saratoga. They don't roast their own beans, but the coffee is still damned good. They use Midnight Sun Coffee Roasters, so I'm assuming the place is near enough for the coffee to be consistently fresh, seeing as I'm in the land of the midnight sun as told to me by several highway signs.There is local art on the walls and I'm seriously tempted to buy one of the pictures.

I'm surprised by the accents I'm encountering. I came across some Native Americans when I was in Montana and I could barely understand them. It was like a Canadian Fargo accent on crack. When I got my oil changed in Dawson Creek I encountered a similar accent when I was talking to the mechanic. Well, he was talking and I was trying to pick out words and reply with neutral statements to make it seem like I knew what he was saying. It felt like an episode of Seinfeld. I think he was Native American, too, or some inuit descendent or something. Something aboriginal.
I'm finding a lot of aboriginal people, which I like. I stopped at a rest area in Teslin, YT and the owner was a Native American woman. She had such stunning features. The second you looked at her you knew she was native. Someone asked her how long she's been in the area and she replied, "forever," which I smiled to myself about. She could have said she'd been there her whole life or something like that, but she chose to say forever, which asserted her nativity. I liked it.
It was an interesting little place she was running, too. There was a gift shop and a wildlife display. I usually don't care much for some backwoods hicks' collection of stuffed trophies nailed to their wall. It doesn't bother me in the least, but I don't find it overly interesting so I wasn't about to go to the wildlife display. I did go, though, and was so surprised. It was museum quality and they had most of the native large animals. They were even set up in a display with the scenery the way they do it in museums. Like an action shot. There was even a moose, which was HUGE. I now understand why people say to brake for moose because it may save your life. They probably weigh more than my car. The other animals I can remember were arctic wolf, grizzly, black bear, polar bear (also HUGE), eagle, owl, beaver, wolf, caribou, rock sheep, and mountain goat. It was truly impressive. I should have asked how they acquired it because this was in the back room of your standard Alaska Highway No Mans Land rinky dink gift shop.