The garage sale on Saturday was a success. We have lots more room in the house and garage, and had a few hundred bucks in my pocket. "Had" because we spent it all on Sunday (and a lot more), on a new bike for Cathy, a bike rack for the Outback, and helmets because of the Whitehorse bike bylaw (some people just can't mind their own business ). I replaced both tires and tubes on my bike that hadn't been ridden in about 5 years, but about 50 feet into the first ride, my derailer snapped. So today I have to decide how to deal with that – repair my old bike or buy a new one. Repairs will be costly and will take quite a while because the bike shop is buried in work. If the derailer snapped because of neglect-corrosion (likely), what else is wrong – would I just be putting good money into a bad project?

Yesterday, we loaded Monty and Kayla into the car and headed down to the White Pass on a bear-hunting expedition. We saw fresh bear scat on the highway along Tutshi Lake, so the bears are out of bed, but there was a lot of traffic (by South Klondike Highway standards) so we saw nothing furry. On Dail Peak there is still too much Indian snow to pick out the Dall sheep and mountain goats (Indian snow – a patchy here and a patchy there ).

Carcross is still the demarkation line between Spring and Winter – south of the village it got pretty ugly, with lots of snow squalls, and the temperature fell from 4°C to 1° (from 40 to 34° F). The picture to the right was shot at the Bove Island viewpoint on the way north (click to enlarge it). Yes, the lake is still totally frozen.

We went as far south as the new Yukon Suspension Bridge project, to see how it's coming along. They have a long way to go before the doors can open (there are no doors yet – or walls). We had a good look at the layout from the road. If the rumours are true about admission being around $20, they'll have a very hard time attracting anyone driving by – the market will be cruise ship passengers who don't know what they're getting, and where the price is buried in a package price. I noticed in the Yukon News that they've changed their "help wanted" ads to include mileage as well as wages. With accommodations virtually unavailable within 90 miles, that may not help much; finding help at any price may be their biggest problem of all.

We have funny seasons in the southern Yukon. Spring and Fall are so brief and indistinct that it's easy to just say that we have 2 seasons, Summer and Winter. It's late Winter now, but it feels like Summer will be here shortly. Scattered pussy-willows can be seen along the roads, but the crocuses (possibly the most eagerly-awaited of our wildflowers) are still hiding from the below-freezing nights. Trumpeter and Tundra swans are already leaving Marsh Lake, Lake Bennett, Fox Lake and the other few stretches of open water in the Whitehorse area, headed for their nesting areas in the interior and far north of the Yukon, NWT and Alaska.

Not only the swans are on the move. One of the reasons I love this time of year is that many of our neighbours can be seen along the roads. Last week, I got very close to caribou, mule deer and a wolf along the South Klondike Highway between Whitehorse and Carcross (click to enlarge the caribou photo taken last week). Any day now, black and grizzly bears will be out alongside the roads, eating the first green vegetation to get their digestive systems back in order after a long winter. A sow grizzly and her cub(s) of the year used to spend 2-3 weeks at a mineral spring a couple of hundred yards from my bedroom window, but a project to clear a firebreak ended that, as it removed her cover. I truly miss them this time of year – they were always good neighbours to me, though one of the cubs from previous years became a danger in the village (charging people at the daycare) and had to be shot last summer.

Tourism is an important part of the economy of both the Yukon and Alaska, and the pace of preparations for the summer is rapidly picking up day by day. In Skagway in particular, the sounds of saws and hammers echo through the still-dusty streets as new buildings go up to house those with ideas on how to separate some cruise ship passengers from their pokes of gold (that sounds like the days of Soapy Smith – this is completely legal separation, though!). As in every previous summer, one of the toughest aspects of running a business is finding enough help. Countless ads are running across North America to get young people up here, but there's always a shortage. If you ever want a working holiday, there are a lot of business people here who would like to make you an offer. Check out the job boards at http://www.explorenorth.com/jobs-ak.html and http://employmentyukon.ca/

Another unmistakable sign of Spring is the start of Garage Sales. Cathy and I are having one at our Whitehorse house tomorrow, and I have a lot of work still to do to get ready, so I had better quit typing and start sorting!