2017 Fly-In Fall Colour Workshop Deep into Tombstone Territorial Park
Jules Renard once wrote, “On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.”
Date of the Trip: September 3 to September 10, 2017
Maximum number of participants is 6 (Two Spots Left)
Included: Use of a private helicopter to take us out to Tombstone Territorial Park and pick us up. Local knowledgeable and insured guide with CPR and first aid certifications to be with us when we camp in Tombstone Territorial Park. Single Accommodation in Dawson City, Shared tent in Tombstone. Use of tent, use of sleeping bag, use of sleeping pad. Transportation via an approved Dempster highway certified vehicle. Camping fees. Meals while camping. Satellite phone with group while camping and traveling in Tombstone Territorial park.
Not Included: Extra nights if required, traveler insurance, dinner in Dawson city on day one and day five, items of personal nature, anything not listed as included above.
Trip Price based on 7 people in attendance is $5295USD.
$1000 to secure your spot and balance due May 3, 2017
Itinerary of Trip
Day One – September 3, 2017 – You arrive in Dawson City. I will pick you up at the airport and take you to our hotel in Dawson where you can get settled and spend the balance of the afternoon exploring the history of Dawson City before dinner.
That afternoon we will also sit down as a group with Tombstone Territorial Park Staff and our local guide, Jessie, for a briefing in the back country.
After a group dinner we will head down the Dempster Highway and stop at different locations to photograph the area from different locations in order to give you a glimpse into the landscapes that we will be flying deep into tomorrow.
Physically, Tombstone is just north of Dawson City, easily accessed by the Dempster Highway… as we will see today. But tomorrow we will enter the “Patagonia of the North” and return to the time when the only people here were the First Nations: the Tr'ondek Hwech'in, Na Cho Nyak Dun, Gwich'in First Nations, and the Inuvialuit people. Everything else was wildlife: Caribou. Moose. Dall sheep. Bears. Wolves. And the beautiful gyrfalcon.
This is the land where craggy, black granite pinnacles point to the sun. Where hidden valleys are settings for crystalline lakes. Where every summer the tundra explodes in a crazy carpet of colours that delight the eye and confound the camera. And where the only forces that have truly touched the landscape are wind, water, and glaciers—except in the northern Beringia areas where the glaciers did not form, and where mammoths, steppe bison, scimitar cats and other giants of the ice age roamed.
The unique landforms, life, and heritage found in this 2,100 km2 are now protected for all time.
Stay at Aurora Inn in Dawson City.
Day Two – September 4 - After breakfast on day two we will head to the airport to meet with our private helicopter charter that will take us 11km deep into the Tombstone Mountain range. Our destination is the Talus lake and Grizzly Lake area of Tombstone Territorial Park.
This pristine area is in the center of Canada’s version of Patagonia. The landscapes are otherworldly and the silence is deafening.
Because we are sleeping under the stars tonight we can keep our eye out on the skies for our very short window for northern lights. Sunset is at 11pm and it will not be dark until after midnight… Sunrise will not be until 5:45pm, which means twilight will be an hour before that. This gives us 3 ½ to 4 hours of dark enough skies to watch for northern lights while in one of the most remote areas of Canada, just a few degrees from the arctic circle.
Remote camping in tent.
Day Three – September 5 and day four - September 6 -We will hike to different vantage points through numerous side trips we can do from the lake, including Grizzly Pass and Mount Monolith / Twin Lakes viewpoint.
Our hiking trails will take us into different valleys to photograph some of the iconic mountain ranges that are part of Indian folklore before humans were keeping records.
Because we are sleeping under the stars during these nights we can keep our eye out on the skies for our very short window for northern lights. Sunset is at 11pm and it will not be dark until after midnight… Sunrise will not be until 5:45pm, which means twilight will be an hour before that. This gives us 3 ½ to 4 hours of dark enough skies to watch for northern lights while in one of the most remote areas of Canada, just a few degrees from the arctic circle.
Remote camping in tent.
Day Five – September 7 - After one last sunrise photo shoot we will get picked up by our private helicopter charter and taken back to Dawson City over the mountain ranges of Tombstone Territorial park.
We will return to Dawson City and check back into the Aurora Inn where you can clean up, grab a shower and we can grab some lunch.
In the late afternoon we will be taken to an abandoned mining town. This town, once pinnacle to the local gold mining was left abandoned. The buildings and machinery left and has been over taken by nature over the last half century.
After dinner you will have one final photo shoot as the sun descends over the meadows of the Tombstone area at one other location I know along the Dempster Highway.
There is still more area to explore in the Tombstone Territorial Park. After a hearty meal we will head back to the Dempster Highway and head farther into the Park to a few more hiking trails that will give you more photographic vantage points of the region.
Long into the night we will stay in the area to photograph into the Golden hour.
As we depart back to Dawson, keep your eyes on the skies. We will arrive back in Dawson after dark and there is always a chance that the aurora will be dancing over head.
Stay at Aurora Inn in Dawson City.
Day Six – September 8 – It’s a day of revisiting the Klondike Days with a trip to an abandoned mining town left standing a half century ago. Imagine photographing a town left standing 50 years ago… slowly nature has reclaimed the buildings and mining machinery…
Dawson City, Yukon is the heart of the world-famous Klondike Gold Rush. On August 17, 1896, three Yukon “Sourdoughs”: George Carmack, Dawson Charlie, and Skookum Jim found gold on Rabbit Creek (now Bonanza Creek) a tributary of the Klondike River.
Word of this find quickly spread to close to 1000 prospectors in local settlements, miners, Northwest Mounted Police, missionaries and others who called the Yukon home at the time. Local settlements were quickly abandoned as a rush to stake the best ground commenced.
These local mines played a huge rule in the mining of gold until 50 years ago when corporations came in and took over the mining.
These bustling settlements, once the heart and soul of the gold rush, still exist in some stage of decay, mostly advanced, and many have artifacts left inside, as though time has stood still.
After we have traveled back in time, we return to Tombstone Territorial Park for a sunset shoot along the Dempster Highway at one of the many spots I have scouted along this route.
Stay at the Aurora Inn in Dawson City
Day Seven – September 9 – We return to the face of Tombstone Mountain for one final sun rise. We will stand amongst some of the most photogenic valleys you will ever see and wait for the sun to crest over the mountains behind us and illuminated the face of Tombstone Mountain while the tourists stand behind us on the road wishing they could get close like we are... This is the iconic photo from Tombstone Territorial Park that you see on brochures and websites... the difference, our timing... we will arrive early in the morning while the mountain is under stars and wait for the color palette to appear before us.
The balance of the day will consist of other panoramic views of the ever changing landscapes as the sun passes over the mountain ranges.
Into the night we will stay for one last day enjoying the peaceful calm and scenery, and keep an eye on the skies for hopefully one last aurora show on our last night.
Stay at Aurora Inn in Dawson City
Day Eight – September 10 - You depart for home as your schedule dictates from Dawson City
If you see landscapes painted with crimson and amber by day and green and magenta skies at night in your future, click on the red tab below to contact us and we will see you in the last frontier
