I've turned into one of those dirty little fraggles I used to make fun of when I had my restaurant in Banff. They'd come in from a campground in the clothes that they'd slept in and their hair in knots and rave about the smells and have a bowl of soup and always-always-ask for more homemade bread. Yup. I've been sleeping in and living in the same clothes since I got to Whitehorse. My underwear is hanging to dry from the loops in my tent and the rest of my stuff is strewn about like my messy nieces' bedroom.

I've left Henk behind at the campground and walked into town the last couple of days for a couple of reasons. It's a really pretty walk into town along the Yukon River, which I found out yesterday flows at a steady 12 nauts, faster than the Queen of Chilliwack from Port Hardy to Bella Coola (I do love saying that), so if you want to "canoe" down the river to Dawson Creek, you need only sit and pretend to paddle. Some people actually tie their canoes together and play cards while the current carries them. Apparently there are some fantastic campgrounds along the way but you have to know when to anticipate them so that you can grab a tree and pull out, otherwise the current carries you downstream too quickly away from your dream site... hmm... isn't life just like that?

Henk also serves as a good watch horse. It looks as though I'm "home" when he's parked beside my tent. Two nights ago a young German lad three tents over had his knapsack stolen from his picnic table. He'd just been chatting with me about Henk, Germany, his hitchiking adventure across Canada. When he went back to his tent
around midnight, it was gone. Poor guy is hitchiking all the way to Inuvik and now has to get new cooking equipment. I'd been leaving my laptop in my tent-I wanted so badly to leave my cynicism behind-but now it comes with me everywhere, along with my passport, wallet, and motorbike key.

I receive a lot less attention when I travel without Henk. I'm able to blend in and go about my business relatively invisibly. I like that. I've been trying to shake off an annoying Brit who can't decide what he's doing and keeps trying to suck me into his decision-making. The Brits really have us beat, don't they, when it comes to being general sourpusses. I don't know what it is. He's really a very nice fellow and is trying very hard to be positive, but I actually think it's beyond him. He can't help being disappointed, disgusted, disgruntled. He's British. Just like I can't help wanting everyone to like me. I'm Canadian.

I woke up this morning (really) to an overcast sky and a cold nose. The nip in the air here gives me a bit of anxiety over impending winter. A local today told me that if the Yukon doesn't get a great June, which they didn't this year, then summer never really catches up. Nothing warms up enough to penetrate deeply and fall comes quicker.

I often wonder if my mood matches the weather or if it's the other way around. Perhaps we really do create our own weather. It's Saturday today and at "home" in Toronto on a Saturday of a long weekend, I'd be in bed with a big fat organic soy latte and a whole forest worth of trees in the form of two big fat environmentally-unfriendly Saturday papers spread out before me. Ron would be commenting on the state of the world and I'd be telling him to shut up so I could read in peace.

As it is, I have to wait until 3:30 when the plane gets in to get a copy of the Globe and Mail. It kindof loses its appeal by then, doesn't it? I understand how Yukoners live their lives at their own pace. "Yukon time," it's called. It's not appealing to me. The vast landscape is magnificent, yes. The colors at 11pm are magical, yes. The people (some of them) seem interesting. But today at Main and 4th, an Indian came bursting out of a bar spewing obscenities I hadn't ever heard and several others stumbled along with him, leading me to believe I haven't come so far. Queen and Bathurst, a block from where I lived in Toronto is exactly the same.