August 8, 2025 – Historic Carcross and Yukon Wildlife Preserve, Yukon
2025 Yukon & Northwest Territories
We have breakfast in Ricky’s at the hotel, take our bags to the lobby for loading on the bus and depart Quality Inn heading south on the Alaska Highway. We stop at beautiful Emerald Lake and arrive in historic Carcross on Bennett Lake mid-morning. We have over an hour on our own to explore this interesting historic town, where the gold rush miners arrived after having built their own boats to cross Bennett Lake on their way to Dawson City (hundreds of miles further overland).
We stop at the Carcross Desert, which is the smallest desert in the world, and what remains of a glacial lake. A few of our group hike to the top of the dunes before we hit the road again, heading north to our lunch stop at Bean North’s cafe.
The Yukon Wildlife Preserve in the Macpherson-Grizzly Valley not far from Whitehorse is our final stop of the day. This experience gives our group a unique opportunity to see Yukon’s wildlife, which is otherwise hard to spot in the wild. It is owned by the Yukon government and is operated by a non-profit. It is very well run by dedicated staff who are very mindful of the wild animals’ needs. It is 283 hectares (700 acres) in size, so the animals have lots of space to roam, graze, hide, and interact with each other without humans being in the way. I’m not a fan of zoos or game farms, however this preserve is a wonderful experience – JoeTourist recommended!
Our group split into two: those who wanted to walk the access roads on foot, and those of us who preferred a narrated Group Tour on our bus, but with stops along the way. We had almost two hours here, which allowed us to not be rushed.
List of wildlife I observed and photographed:
- Mule deer
- Elk herd
- Moose in the distance
- Thin-horned sheep
- Musk ox
- Arctic ground squirrel
- Elk males
- Thin-horned sheep
- Woodland Caribou
- Billy goats on the ridge
- Moose
- Bison
