Whitehorse

In the Yukon Ashley and I stayed at Robert Service Campground in a town called Whitehorse, which is home to about 36,000 people or roughly two-thirds of all of the Yukon's inhabitants. Whitehorse is a town reminiscent of the Gold Rush with "gingerbread-fretwork" buildings that look like they're part of a Hollywood Western set.

The campground, "The World's Meeting Place," lies on the Yukon River and is a sort of campground/hostel hybrid with a tarped communal area referred to as the living room, which has a bookshelves and couches and where people from around the world (and "residents" of the campground) share travel tales and food and drink.

A poem by Robert Service, the famous Gold Rush era poet and the campground's namesake, sits on the desk of the office and coffee shop; it reads:

"A Rolling Stone"
To pitch my tent
with no prosy plan.
To range and change at will.
To mock at the mastership
of man,
To seek adventures thrill!
Carefree to be, as a bird
that sings,
to go my own sweet way,
to reck not at all what
may befall,
but to live and love each day.