Getting the flavor of...Crossing the Yukon

Crossing the Yukon

The Yukon tundra is “truly a magical place,” said Lester Picker in The Baltimore Sun. Last August, five friends and I explored Canada’s westernmost territory when the colors of fall were already in full blaze. After flying to the capital, Whitehorse, we drove eight hours on the Klondike Highway to Dawson City, “a throwback to the 1890s” with many buildings still standing from its gold-rush past. From there, we took the “legendary” gravel-and-mud Dempster Highway toward the Arctic Circle. Rain slowed us, but the night sky provided the “clearest star show one can possibly see.” Soon we learned that the mere act of throwing a lure into a river “was guaranteed to land us dinner.” We never did get in the frigid water ourselves. Still, “few vistas in this world are as spectacular as the land above the Arctic Circle.” Herds of caribou graze in the distance, “grizzly bears are ever-present,” and the winds across the mountains “whisper” of the icy winter to come.

Diving the Gulf of Mexico

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“Some of the world’s best scuba diving” can be found right off the coast of Texas, said Melissa Gaskill in Men’s Journal. The Fling, a 31-bunk passenger boat, makes overnight trips from Freeport to bring groups of weekend divers to the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, located 100 miles offshore. The Flower Gardens are a “little-known diver’s paradise,” home to invertebrates, sharks, rays, more than 20 kinds of coral, and hundreds of species of fish. Joining 21 other divers out for a two-night adventure, I’m floored when we make our first dive. “While the diversity of species isn’t quite what it is in the Caribbean, you’ll see more of every creature anywhere you look.” Coral covers half the reef’s floor, compared with about 6 percent in other scuba hot spots. At night, we dive with lights, causing fish to “freeze like deer in headlights.” Back at the boat, we swap stories over beers before resting up for the next day’s dive.