Yukon

The Yukon offers wild river paddling, backpacking, wildlife watching, fishing, and brilliant northern-lights viewing. Kluane National Park (with Mount Logan and vast icefields), the historic Chilkoot Trail, the Yukon River, Tombstone Territorial Park, and the Dempster Highway to the Arctic anchor it.

Summer (June–August) brings near-endless daylight for paddling, hiking, and the highways; fall is brief and golden. Winter is dark, intensely cold, and superb for aurora viewing and dog sledding.

Grizzly and black bears, moose, caribou (the Porcupine herd's great migration of over 200,000 animals), Dall sheep, wolves, and the rare wood bison inhabit the Yukon, one of North America's wildest regions.

Boreal forest, alpine tundra, the immense icefields of the St. Elias, and arctic tundra in the north make up the Yukon's ecology — vast, intact, and sparsely peopled wilderness.

The St. Elias Mountains in Kluane hold Canada's highest peaks — 5,959-m Mount Logan — and the largest non-polar icefields on Earth, while the Yukon River, the Tombstone's jagged granite, the boreal forest, and arctic tundra to the north define the land.

The Yukon First Nations — including the Tlingit and various Athabascan peoples — have lived here for millennia. The 1898 Klondike Gold Rush brought a stampede to Dawson City; the Yukon is a territory.

Yukon First Nations cultures, the enduring Klondike Gold Rush heritage of Dawson City, and a frontier, paddling, and aurora-tourism identity define the outdoors.

Anchoring the northern end of the Yellowstone-to-Yukon vision, the Yukon's conservation centers on protecting vast wilderness, the Porcupine caribou herd, and Indigenous-led stewardship.

Whitehorse (YXY) is the main hub, reached by air or the Alaska Highway. Kluane and most areas are reached by the territory's highways; some wilderness is fly-in. Distances are vast.

Bear country requires spray and food storage; wild rivers demand real skill, and extreme cold, remoteness with no services, and changeable weather all require serious preparation and often guides.

Parks Canada manages Kluane and the Chilkoot Trail (which requires a reservation); Yukon Parks manages Tombstone.

Carry bear spray, and store food properly in the backcountry.

Paddle the Yukon River to Dawson City, hike Tombstone's golden tundra in late August, and explore Kluane's icefields by flightseeing. Visit in summer for daylight or winter for the aurora; carry bear spray.

The Yukon borders the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, and the U.S. state of Alaska, linking Kluane, the Klondike, and the Alaska Highway.