A trip to Whitehorse, in the middle of the summer, for my friend’s brother’s wedding I was not invited to, can only be a plan that resulted from drinking several bottles of wine, with said friend, on a rooftop terrace. This is how crazy trips are born. 

About a month before the trip I become obsessed with a CBC podcast series which surprisingly prepared me nicely for this adventure. One season was about a serial killer and the next was about a plane that blew up on its way to Whitehorse. Perfect pre-trip listening. We were headed to the great North where 2 serial killer fugitives were currently on the run after killing several people and we were going up there on a smaller plane. How much more of an adventure could we have gotten ourselves involved in. This is the first trip that I have ever felt compelled to pack a very sharp, buck knife (which I did). Heading to the land of serial killers and bears, this felt necessary. Before I left work for my Whitehorse vacation, I started a count down on the whiteboard in my cubicle indicating the amount of days I was safe on my vacation (from serial killers, bears, plane crashes, whatever really) and asked my coworkers to update it daily. 

As we left for the airport I checked my passport, wallet and cell phone 17 times. My travel buddy, Katie, started to worry. I was, of course, so hormonal, that my brain cells were all napping in preparation for my monthly lady purge. This is normal. In the Uber I checked everything another 100 times in a very intensely OCD manic cycle. I also prepared Katie for the fact that even though I had worked at the airport for a short time, I tend to have no idea what to do when I get there. Do I check in? Have I checked in? Where do I go? It’s one of those places that I walk into, have a mini stroke and just hand my passport and travel information to anyone even remotely interested in taking it (or wearing a vest, vests are rare unless you work for an airline).

Since we had already checked in (apparently), all we had to do was a self service luggage drop off. The first way I put my bag down on the conveyor belt, the machine could not read the tag. The Air Canada woman can over and helped me. It still didn’t work. I rearranged it again and she came over again to help. It would not go. As we started on the third and really only last possible suitcase position, I asked her how this self service area was working out on saving labour as she had just spent more time with me now then if I had just lined up and they had done it for me. She confirmed that this station was not working out as it was intended.

On the other side of security we grabbed a quick glass of wine. We wanted water but it was so expensive that we problem solved. We could buy wine AND get free water. Win. Win. And fairly genius. Sure we hadn’t eaten all day but wine was the priority as we had a long day of travel ahead (and I of course had several emergency travel scones in my purse, as per usual). While we were having a drink I told Katie that there had been a hole in my $15 Joe t-shirt I was wearing but I was committed to wearing it for the trip because it was extremely comfortable. So as I had packed and listened to my murder podcasts, I made a solid attempt at sewing the hole in the cheap shirt, which was consequently very obviously located on my chest (in a third nipple kind of way). It looked terrible but I figured it was travel day and looking mildly homeless was acceptable as long as I was comfortable. During the drinks I started reacting to something. My eyes became red and endlessly itchy. This terrible shitless version of shit eye (red eye) had taken over. So I started the trip tipsy, wearing I shirt I had tried to mend terribly and with what appeared to be red and leaky shit eye. Let’s do this!!  

We flew to Montreal, ate a meal (with more wine) and then boarded a flight to Vancouver that had been delayed several times. Three quarters of the way through the plane trip we realized we were cutting it very close to our connecting flight to Whitehorse. We were on a plane that was packed, had a thousand babies on it and had the slowest drink cart service known to mankind. This was our vacation. Having to wait 2 hours into the flight for a glass of wine was rough. 1st world problems indeed. Katie wondered if she could order several at a time but was too embarrassed to ask, as was I. The guy sitting next to me slept the last half of the plane but kept breathing in my direction with the most atrocious breathe I have ever smelled. It smelled like a mouldy fart. It was horrendous. What had he possibly eaten?!

We ended up purchasing the magical in flight wifi so we could get the Air Canada updates on our connection. It was perfect. As we started our descent into Van, we watched on the AC APP as our connecting flight took off. Yay!

When we landed we ran over to the Air Canada customer service desk. As we neared the front of the line a man yelled out that he had two more Whitehorses left. I replied by yelling, we are the last Whitehorses!! And lovingly galloped to the front of the line. 

They were going to have to put us up in a hotel in Van. I was so pumped! Vancouver! Yassss. Let’s go out!! Adventure! By the time we got our vouchers, got to the hotel and finally checked in, it was past 10pm and it registered that I was too old and too tired to go discover downtown. WHAA?!! Lame. We were tired and hungry, but luckily they gave us some food vouchers for the hotel. We asked the concierge what we could use the voucher on. He replied food and drink. So we threw our luggage in our rooms and came back to the bar. We ordered wine and then were told we were too late for food. But…we were handed this food voucher like 5 minutes ago. At least it would cover the wine. The waiter explained to us that the voucher did not cover alcohol and the only way to order food at this point was through room service. Could we not just order room service food here? Or did we need to be in the room? And we were told this voucher covered drink. He continued to explain that yes we needed to be in the room to order food and that the concierge was Buddhist, so food and drink to him meant something non alcoholic. We were dumbfounded, paid for our wine and ran up to my room to order food. When I reached customer service I ordered a couple things for the room. The voice on the other line said it would go perfect with my pinot. I was talking to the exact same guy who would not let us order food at the bar. Hilarious. So we waited, regretted out decision for ordering food because we were so tired and ultimately had to be at the airport at 6am. We were laughing about how there seemed to be only one person working in the whole hotel when there was a knock on the door. And who was it? The bartender, the guy who served us wine, then took our room service order and here he was delivering it. It felt like we were in a scene from Fawlty Towers and John Cleese was playing every character that we encountered. 

The next morning we raced to the airport late. We were cruising on about 5 hours sleep. We took a cab instead of the shuttle and when someone asked if they could go in front of us in the airport line to stay with their tour group we hard no’d them. We were LATE. As we lined up for security we realized we were looking at the boarding time and not the flight time and had PLENTY of time. After breakfast we finally boarded our plane to Whitehorse! My seat was in the row that divided first class from the peasants and it was the craziest amount of leg room I have ever seen. I couldn’t even reach my screen – weee! The whole flight the guy next to me watched Two and a Half Men and very loudly laughed out loud to it. Really? Weird. I sensed that show does not actually provoke lol moments. The couple in front of me (miles away) had 3 kids with them…in first class. I wondered most of the flight what they did for a living. Like how??

As we started our descent into Whitehorse I got a good look out the window. It looked like a typical, Canadian, small rural town. I am from a small rural town so I had a quick pang of, I am so glad I just spent an uncomfortable amount of money to travel to a different small town a million miles away – yay! But I would soon get over that. We landed, went into the tiniest airport I had ever seen and picked up our shitty Nissan rental car that lacked all acceleration balls and made me angry. In our overly tired, semi delirious state we went right to the wedding venue to be helpie helpers. When we arrived the bride and groom asked how comfortable I felt setting up a bar. Do you know who you are asking? Could I have had a better job?I have managed bars, bartended and am a full-time bar attendee. I took my job very seriously, demanded that all alcohol was laid out before me so that I could see what I was working with and went to work. I was so proud of my setup that I took the soon to be groom on a magical tour of my tiny, canteen size bar. He was impressed. I asked if they needed help bartending the reception. They told me they had a liquor licence where people could help themselves. What? I immediately texted my significant other to say not only was it an open bar but it was a serve yourself. He wrote back that I no longer had to be concerned with the serial killers because I would probably kill myself at this open bar. I agreed. Katie would set something up and then casually try to nap, but I would call her out and she would get back to work. I spent the next hour cleaning all of their wedding favour glasses that I knew I would steal several of, after the wedding. 

When we both felt so tired that we might die, we ventured off to go find our Airbnb. This, unfortunately, would be the theme of our trip. Missing the flight to Whitehorse and having very little sleep would ruin us for most of the trip. There was no bounce back. There was just many guilt naps and lie ins that would take place here. And thank god the lady that lived on the first floor (above) our Airbnb was not there. Not only were we terribly tired but we were also loud, drunken assholes followed by hungover, tired assholes. We had come to the land of nature, mountains, hiking and wildlife and we napped and drank a lot. #nailingit. To be fair, it was also a family events. It was like a family reunion for someone else’s family that I was not invited to but just casually watched on the sidelines while trying to chameleon in like a distant, loud, fun cousin. By night two I had adopted Uncle M and Aunt C as my own. At the family BBQ we all took turns leaving the huddle to find more wine. They were my people. That BBQ eventually resulted in late night drinking, emergency pizza delivery, a drunken facebook video and a rude hangover. Then the day of the wedding came. We were still hungover and slept in and, for the third day in a row, cancelled our day plans to bum around our AirBnB.

We called a taxi to get into town for the wedding. He showed up blasting traditional African music with the windows rolled down. All good. We were dressed to the nines. The whole way into town he kept changing the music until he landed on the most vile gangster rap I have ever heard. So we entered the town, looking super cute and all done up with a cab blaring the music that was detailing sexual acts with the windows all the way down, which was also 100 percent ruining our hair. Weeeee.

The wedding was not only at a ski hill, the ceremony was taking place at the top of the hill. This would require all the guests to ride up on a ski lift. I, for one, was terrified. I do not partake in winter sports. Winter is for giant sweaters and fireplaces and hot toddies, not outside sporting events. No sir. Especially the kind where you go to a mountain and throw yourselves down said mountain at warp speed with little control. Hard no. So I was stressed about the ski lift. I am also afraid of heights. This was going to be great. At least I was not the worst ski lift rider that day… As we went up I quietly sang sound of music to myself that no one really appreciated and attempted to take a video on my camera but I was shaking too hard. I sounded like a person trying to disassociate into their happy place, where Julie Andrews was quietly stroking my hair and singing. When we got to the top my dismount off the lift looked more like I was being chased by a chair that was trying to kill me. We walked over to where the ceremony was being held. The view was spectacular. It was very high up, basically on the edge of a cliff, but beautiful and very, very cold. As it was sinking in that my polka dot dress was not adequate clothing for the top of a mountain I saw the ski lift stop. Something had happened. I saw someone run over and put a coat on someone. I looked closer and then yelled to Katie that something terrible had happened to Uncle M!

This would turn out to be the story of the trip. Somehow, as Uncle M got onto the chair lift, he kept his feet under the chair lift and as his wife and son also sat down onto the chair and it crushed both of his ankles. This was not immediately apparent so he had to endure going all the way up the mountain with the painful notion that something was terribly, terribly wrong. When he got to the top, he was going into shock. A wedding guest who was a paramedic took him down and called an ambulance. What a crazy way to start a wedding! What a terrible way to lose my favourite wedding drinking buddies! These things should happen after you have drank too much!

The wedding was great. I drank just enough to adopt a German woman as my new Grandmother. She spoke no English so I sang Sound of Music to her which she recognized and then said the name of my German face care which she also recognized. We were practically soul mates. I drank just enough to cry out loud when a woman I was in a random conversation with told me I should never have children. I drank just enough to take a shuttle home that was full of people but blast Queen on my phone and scream along to it (you are welcome for the free entertainment shuttle guests). And I drank just enough to casually steal the glasses (as planned earlier) and additional bottles of wine from the wedding. 

Sure we never got the natural hot springs like we planned. No we did not canoe down the beautiful Yukon River like I wanted. And no we definitely did not hike the most beautiful wilderness in the world but by god, we did however get to visit the Whitehorse hospital. How many people can say they have done that? As we entered Uncle M’s Room, before I could say anything, he says, I think I might just make it into your blog. Which to me sounds like permission so yayyy, you were correct! This story needed to be told! But really…RIP your ankles Uncle M. RIP. 

We rounded out the trip by actually getting out and doing something – yes! We don’t suck! We got in our little sad sack rental and made the great trek to Alaska. And let me say something now. Fuck Alaska. The one town we went to was a commercial, tourist pit of satan where tons of gross cruise ships docked slowly leaking their fossil fuels into the beautiful waters. The real magic was the Yukon and BC. Holy shitttttt. This is all. Oh and we saw a bear and were not killed by serial killers. Yes!

On our way home we had a layover that was long enough to leave the airport so we made a beeline for downtown Vancouver. We saw nothing of the city but ate an incredible lunch (more wine) and then we booted it over to the Whole Foods…BECAUSE I NEEDED TO SEE IT. I know, I know. I no longer work for that corporate health food store on steroids but I needed to see Cambie. And then we went back to airport.

On the flight home I was behind an older lady and her son. They got into a weird fight right before taking off and then the son started hitting on the girl sitting next to him. Classy. The older immediately put her chair all the way back and then flipped her over the seat so that it looked like my tv screen was wearing a wig. Then the lady across the aisle from her took off her shoes (why does the always happen) and then took her reading glasses out of a crest toothpaste box. Godddd plane etiquette people! Why is everyone crazy? I had a hard time reaching for my shit under the seat because this woman was basically lying in my lap but I needed to retrieve my wallet. I precariously reached down and put my face hard against my screen (the back of goldilocks chair) and reached down as far as I could and that was when I guess the son decided it was time to use the loo and used the seat back to steady himself which in turn smashed my face and my awkwardly strained neck. We made it through the wilderness, the land of serial killers, windy mountain roads, abundant alcohol and bears and I nearly died getting my neck broken by an airplane chair. Don’t worry Uncle M. I didn’t want to top your medical emergency story. Not this time.