A GERMAN TOURIST WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH THE YUKON.
AS A CHILD IN GERMANY IN THE 1960s, TALES OF POLAR EXPLORERS CAPTIVATED WERNER WALCHER. ‘ I WAS FASCINATED WITH THE YUKON WILDERNESS,’ HE WRITES. ‘THEN I FELL IN LOVE WITH IT.’ AND HE BEGAN TO CHRONICLE STORIES IN HIS NEW HOMELAND, THE PLACE HE CALLS ‘ MY
Thousands of German tourists visit the Yukon every year. I was one of them. But I stayed. The Yukon wilderness is magnificent. A treat for the eyes, but also the ears. A place so quiet you can listen to yourself — your breathing, your body, the blood pumping in your veins, the creaks in your joints.
The stillness is essential to what makes the place special. Essential to the adventure.
I came to understand this soon after I arrived in the Yukon for the first time. My guide Juerg had taken me into the heart of Kluane Country, a vast area of wide open spaces, Canada’s highest peaks, and endless snow. Ten days in the wilderness, and we didn’t see anyone else the entire time.
We started with some training runs to get me up to speed. Then one morning Juerg left camp early, leaving me alone with my dog team. I was thrilled. Here I was, alone in this immense and fascinating wilderness. Well, at least that was the illusion. In reality, Juerg was always waiting for me further up route, taking breaks to smoke his pipe and let me catch up. When he saw me coming, he’d start out again with his team to stay ahead. It was pretty funny, actually. Even when I couldn’t see or hear him, I smelled the smoke, hanging in the cold air, assuring me he was nearby.
Today, I’ve switched places. Now I’m the tour guide. The full-fledged Yukoner. Here not because of happenstance or hardship in my homeland, but because I was called to this landscape and this Northern way of life. And I want others to experience it the same way I did on my first visit.
My guests come from all over the world. They come for different reasons. For the space, the clean air and water, the Northern Lights, the sled dogs, the untouched nature, the freedom and the stillness.
My first question to them is always: What’s your dream of the Yukon?
My dream began in Germany in the 1960s. Even as a child I developed a longing for the North. The polar explorers, their adventures and hardships, the North Pole. Visits to my grandparents sparked my interest in dog sledding — I was captivated by the image of a dog pulling a cart on the door of their castiron wood stove.
In 1970, the first real sled dogs came to Europe from Canada. I got one, then another. Eventually my wife and I had a registered Siberian husky breeding kennel with as many as nine sled dogs. I began short-distance racing, and that soon led to mountain touring.
But I wanted more. I wanted a real sled dog adventure, away from civilization, people, streets. I wanted Canada. I knew a bit about the place. I listened to Radio Canada International on shortwave radio — I even had a Radio Canada Short Wave Club flag displayed proudly on my bike.
I’d never been to Canada, though. So I contacted a musher and tour guide in Whitehorse, and in February 1982, my dream came true.
To actually fly to the Canadian North. It was my biggest adventure ever.
Juerg revealed so much to me, constantly sharing details about the landscape and identifying its inhabitants through their tracks — moose, caribou, wolf, snowshoe hare, coyote, fox, lynx, otter. In the winter, the snow is like an open book.
I was fascinated by all of it — the wilderness, the loneliness, the stillness, the beauty. I fell in love with the Yukon immediately.
On subsequent trips, my wife and daughter developed their own appreciation for this place, and in 1995 the three of us immigrated to Canada for good.
To that point, filmmaking and photography had been just a hobby for me. But after settling, I began to pursue them professionally, telling stories about my new home. Stories about life in a remote fishing lodge or on a fly-in trapline in winter. Stories about a bush pilot, a woman with 130 Huskies, a “Family Robinson” living off the grid with their kids and animals.
Doing that work, I always felt like an ambassador for the Yukon, for “my Yukon.” I came to enjoy that part of the job so much, I eventually obtained my tour guide licence and started my own business. Now, decades after my first visit, I’m the one sharing unique experiences with visitors who may never have walked on frozen water or experienced below-zero-degree temperatures. People who may never have been somewhere without background noise: no cars, no planes overhead. Just nothing.
One winter night, I asked a guest from Hong Kong if he wanted to start a campfire — a common task in the Yukon, but something he couldn’t even imagine back home. I told him he had to start it with only one match, joking that “it’s the law in the Yukon.” He was thrilled to see the flames grow, the sparks flying into the dark night. Something many of us take for granted was magical for him.
Another time, a young woman from Calgary and I chased the Northern Lights for over 100 kilometres before settling into a snowy spot with our folding chairs and a cooler full of food. We sat in the middle of nowhere around a campfire sipping hot beverages in the cold Yukon night, telling stories and laughing. She asked me how my hands weren’t freezing without mittens at -15 C and smiled when I explained that the weather was actually quite mild. In the end, it didn’t matter that we didn’t get to see the Northern Lights that night.
I remember being nervous the day I took a family of six tobogganing for the first time in their lives. Sure enough, on the initial run, the older aunt was promptly flung off the sled and onto her back. I was certain she’d hurt herself, and rushed over to find she was smiling. Later, her sled turned around shortly after take-off and she flew down the hill backward. When she rolled off the sled and fell in a heap, I laughed so hard, I had to drop to my knees. She collected herself — smiling, of course — and told me, “Werner, up here in the Yukon I am getting younger every day!”
These experiences — this is what I love. Seeing how people encounter new challenges, showing them my world and learning about their lives and countries.
I want to transfer my love of the Yukon to all my guests, so this place stays embedded in their hearts. And one day, when they can no longer resist it, like me, they’ll be back.
THE STILLNESS IS ESSENTIAL TO WHAT MAKES THE PLACE SPECIAL.