My friend’s gobsmacked enthusiasm is exactly what Canada’s most famous traveling road show repeatedly inspires in its audiences.

The Cirque du Soleil (Circus of the Sun) - a company that evolved from “a band of colourful characters” who did street performances in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec during the early 1980s  - has now entertained more than a hundred million people around the planet.

The key to their epic success? Delivering unforgettable moments like, in the case of Amaluna, the water bowl scene – where contortionist Iuliia Mykhailova‘s playful and beyond impressive demonstration of “sinuous sexuality” stirs the collective senses of onlookers and leaves them literally breathless with excitement.

Amaluna / photo courtesy of Cirque du Soleil

The Cirque – renowned for its original live music performances, mind-bending sets and wildly imaginative costumes – consistently delivers jaw-dropping, eye-popping, heart-stopping acts that test human limits.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a die-hard fan of the company that re-imagined, courageously if you ask me, what a circus can look like. So much so that upon reflection, I can see that different shows punctuate the various stages of my life.

I was a newlywed in Toronto when I attended the life-affirming Alegria, an “ode to the energy, grace and power of youth.” The soundtrack to this show (which is currently touring Russia) is like nothing else I’ve ever heard and, almost 20 years later, it remains embedded in my mind.

Our firstborn was two years old when we traveled through Quebec City and stumbled upon a shop that sold authentic Cirque du Soleil masks. Of course, she fell in love with a black, gold and dragon’s blood red number that transformed her instantly into an exotic bird straight from the tropics. We had no choice but to buy it.

Our son, born three years later, would also quickly come to appreciate the whimsical, wondrous world of the Cirque du Soleil. He claims that Mystere – which bills itself as a “high-energy Cirque du Soleil classic” and which he attended with his Grandparents – is his favourite production to date.

A few years back, I traveled with “Toque” (Toque & Canoe co-founder Jen Twyman) on assignment to Las Vegas where we would see the aquatic masterpiece ‘O‘ – a rich and extraordinary feat from start to finish. When people inquire about the show, I have no words. I simply insist they need need to fly to Vegas, head to the Bellagio, and see it themselves.

All said, I just bumped into a yoga teacher in Calgary who had never attended a Cirque performance until she saw Amaluna a few nights ago. ”Given what I do, I understand body strength,” she announced excitedly. “What those performers were able to pull off is beyond human. I was blown away.”

Maintaining the wow factor in Cirque du Soleil shows – according to Mark Pawsey (Amaluna’s London-born artistic director) – is the company’s priority. ”We know it’s our duty to deliver something incredible and different to our audience with every production. This is our challenge,” says Pawsey – who, after he saw Saltimbanco in England almost two decades ago, knew he had to work for the Canadian circus company. ”I couldn’t speak. I was in a space I’d never been before.”

That’s the magic of the Cirque du Soleil. Performances have the potential to take you to new and exotic places and give you fresh eyes on the world.

Amaluna’s company manager Jamie Reilly said it best when I inquired about her life on the road with Canada’s coolest traveling circus. “You know what? We live in a difficult world,” she answered. “I’m so proud to be part of the Cirque because really – when you look at the bottom line – what we’re offering is inspiration and joy to the planet.”

As for my friend and her enthusiastic comments about Amaluna’s water bowl act?

Yes, I saw Mykhailova’s performance. Yes, she really DID do that. But why so surprised, I remember thinking smugly. We’re talking, after all, about ‘The Cirque” – a company that has always made the impossible possible.

***Toque & Canoe loves to get comments from our readers. Have you seen a Cirque show before? Do you have a favourite? Tell us about it!

***Amaluna plays in Calgary until May 19 before going to Edmonton where it will remain from May 29-June 23.

photo by mike aucoin

“Hit it with maximum speed,” our guide’s voice squawks over the radio. “I want to see you go big!”

I point my skis and sail off a perfect 20 foot cliff. The cool spring air rushes over my face as I touch down in a pristine field of powder – and a chorus of cheers from fellow skiers waiting below bounces off the Monashee mountain range towering around us.

This is Freeride Camp at CMH (Canadian Mountain Holidays) Revelstoke in B.C. Call it a big mountain skier’s boot camp complete with a helicopter to get you back to the top – and I’ve been waiting all year for this.

The concept behind ‘Freeride Camp’ falls under what CMH calls Powder University – a program that spans across their eleven different locations dotting the mountains of Western Canada.

Students – if you can call them that with a straight face – can start with beginner courses simply aimed at getting people comfortable in powder. And they can work their way up to expert classes targeted toward highly skilled skiers and riders who want to get into the steepest and tightest terrain out there.

Freeride Camp is about getting experienced guests onto big slopes, through tight trees chockablock with pillow drops around every corner and, yes, over the occasional cliff too.

The course launches with a meeting at CMH’s helicopter landing pad where we’re given a quick introduction to avalanche safety. It’s here where I meet Paul and Wauter – twenty-something year-old ski fanatics who’d painstakingly saved-up their Euros to get here from the Netherlands. And Tom, the owner of a Michigan-based office furniture company, who is treating his two young sons to a week of hard-hitting skiing.

As it turns out, I’m the only Canadian in the group. Me? I’m squeezing the last few days out of my twenties.

Before we know it, we’ve piled into a helicopter that lifts skyward and the 1500 square kilometre sandbox we’re about to play in for the week stretches across the horizon – spanning both the Monashee and Selkirk mountain ranges.

At one point, we get dropped onto a high alpine perch on the shoulder of Mount Copeland. A perfect 1600 metre north facing pitch rolls down to the valley floor far below. One by one, members of our group peel away down the slope – wisps of light powder hanging in the air behind them for impossibly long stretches.

I take a minute to soak in the view. CMH guide Mike Aucoin is the only person left at the top of the run with me. He must be able to read my awe. “We look at this terrain and the palette is just unbelievable – what we get to play on. It’s just ridiculous. I mean, if you’ve never been here, there’s no way to explain it,” he says with a grin.

And it’s true, run after run, as the helicopter delivers us to to the top of yet another amazing slope, I peer out the window at the tracks we’ve left in the snow down below.

Each of us brings our own interpretation to the mountain. Tight controlled turns by some. Huge high-speed racer carves by others. Ribbons of powder slashes that occasionally break away from the snow – a sign that a skier has defied gravity for a brief, beautiful moment of airtime.

As the week progresses, our guides are almost giddy with excitement. Freeride Camp (a new concept for CMH) has been beyond successful.

Students – after a little coaching here and there – are pushing the envelope. Guide Jeff Bellis beams: “We can see the progression. Even Jaap (a Dutchman in the group) who wouldn’t take air the first couple days, was hitting booters today. It’s awesome to see the energy in the group. Everyone’s just going for it.”

After each day of skiing, we return back to The Regent Hotel in Revelstoke. Without fail, over grilled steaks and beer, Paul –  a young guest from Amsterdam – exclaims yet again: “That was the best day of skiing in my life.”

Honestly? Each day outdoes the one before.

Throughout this incredible week, we get to sample a huge variety of terrain. We ski beneath dramatic overhanging teal-blue glaciers, through tight steep chutes and over spines of endless jumps, cliffs and pillows.

Towards the end of our final day, I look up, wide-eyed, at all the tracks we’ve laid into the mountains around us.

Guide Mike Aucoin, who doesn’t miss a beat, sees my reaction as an opportunity to point out that powder skiing is “British Columbia’s finest renewable resource.”

It’s true. In just a couple of days another weather system will blow through. And a heavy mat of new snow will refresh the canvas for the next lucky group of skiers.

photo by mike aucoin

Interested in knowing more about Powder University CMH-style – click here. Any thoughts on Paul’s story? Feel free to comment!

What about you? Where would you go, and why? Best comment wins a brand new (and seriously stunning) coffee table book from National Geographic called ‘Journeys of a Lifetime – 500 of the World’s Greatest Trips.’

We’ll be wrapping up this contest by April 30. Hope to hear from you.

Contest update: Congrats to Mona for winning a copy of National Geographic’s ‘Journeys of a Lifetime – 500  of the World’s Greatest Trips.’

Your take on why you’d travel to Vancouver – “where new restaurants keep sprouting like bamboo shoots after a rainfall” –  was something else. We could almost smell the cherry blossoms!

Meanwhile, thanks to everyone for your thoughtful and seriously patriotic comments. Your words are gold to us so please keep them coming! Stand by because we are planning more contests for the near future.

Not many hotels have a beware-of-dog sign on the wall between the breakfast café and the lobby.

It’s one of the many charms of the Sidney Pier Hotel & Spa. This warning is softened by the “muffin-eating canine” reference that follows – an introduction, if you will, to Dave, a rather chubby, six-year-old black lab that became the hotel’s mascot after failing the last of several guide-dog tests.

Guests can take him for a walk, certainly a perk for travelers like me who miss their animals, but the desk clerk tells me that Dave doesn’t always want to go for a stroll, and when he does, he plots his own course.

I wonder how many guide dog tests he actually passed. Are they being kind in saying he failed only one? It’s lucky he’s so endearing.

A hotel, of course, needs more than a pooch to recommend it. How about the etched glass panels on the walls by Coast Salish artist Chris Paul, the orchidaceous bouquets in the lobby, the elegance and practicality of the rooms. My husband and I delighted in our seafood specials in its classy Haro’s Restaurant, and the next afternoon in the hotel spa, our massages made us fall in love with our bodies again.

But maybe the best thing about this hotel is its setting.

Right on the harbour, the Sidney Pier Hotel & Spa is the last building on the north side of Sidney’s Beacon Avenue, if you don’t count the café and fish store at the end of the pier. Seven blocks long, Beacon is a shopper’s paradise with nine—count them—nine bookstores, and galleries, bakeries and one-of-a-kind boutiques—like Marmalade Tart (women’s wear),  Bubba Loo (children’s clothing), and Waterlily Shoes.

Bronze figures sit on bronze benches along the street, and other sculptures stand at the shore or greet you on the long sea walk. Part of the magic of Sidney is the small-town friendliness (population around 12,000) and the rarity of no mall in sight.

You’ve got to wonder why visitors to Vancouver Island bypass my hometown and head off to Victoria as if we didn’t exist. Sidney is less than ten minutes from the ferry and the airport. Restaurants, as well as shops, abound. Crowded with locals, Sabhai Thai is one of our favourites along with Haro’s. So is Maria’s Souvlaki. The food’s better at Maria’s than in Greece.

Then there’s the Star Theatre, a cinema that takes you back to childhood with its smallness, its old-fashioned lobby and inexpensive popcorn. And on rainy afternoons, you can spend the day at the Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre, a watery dream world of creatures from the Salish Sea.

Inside the small aquarium, I met creatures I’d never seen before, the nudibranch, for instance. A shell-less snail, it could be mistaken for a gorgeous, slightly wacky blossom. I learned that a barnacle has the largest penis in the world (not that it matters), if you take into account its body size. And that a wolf eel mates for life.

My favourite critter is one I long to sweep across a page if I could do that without harm. Called a sea pen, if it feels threatened it emits a cold green light. It looks like a quill, the kind Shakespeare used to create the beautiful Ophelia.

On our final day of three playing hometown tourists, we push off from Canoe Cove, ten minutes north of town, with Brian Smiley who operates EcoCruising Tours and Charters. His pontoon boat looks like a greenhouse that broke free from its moorings to embark on an ocean voyage. Because of its shallow draw, it can go where only paddlers venture. Brian calls it “kayaking from a couch.”

It’s a kind of Zen alternative to whale watching: we’re not heading out to see anything in particular. We’re going nowhere and seeing stuff along the way. Travelling on the water like this, sometimes drifting with the motor off, leaves the smallest sandy footprint.

We’re simply fellow creatures as we move slowly among seals, oyster catchers, cormorants and eagles. When the boat turns to head back to the cove, Sidney rises in the distance.

Eco-cruising is another way to see the town. Low along the shore, Sidney looks like an imaginary city the ocean made up – shimmering with moisture and soft, rain-coast light.

Soon it might vanish in the mist. There’s a fragility to its beauty, and right now, for this moment, we’re the only humans around. The only ones who see it from this perspective.

Everything seems in balance – the ocean and its creatures, the town, my husband and I, side by side, feeling the miracle of being here out of the chaos of crowds and cities.

In retrospect, maybe Sidney should be kept a secret a little longer. Don’t come here. You won’t like it.

“They were attached to a grizzly bear snorkeling along looking for salmon carcasses that were bouncing along the river bed,” explains McAllister.

“The bear clambered up onto a floating log for a rest and I was able to drift within twenty feet of him to take this picture (shown above). It was an amazing way to end a day in the Great Bear Rainforest.”

And so goes the life of one of Canada’s finest conservation photographers – a man who has been living in the heart of Canada’s most remote rainforest, which spans from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the Alaskan Panhandle, with his family since the late 90′s.

Lucky for Toque & Canoe and our readers, Ian agreed to share this selection of mostly unpublished images from his Great Bear Rainforest home – just listed by National Geographic as a must-see destination for travelers in 2013.

Photography – says the award-winning author of The Last Wild Wolves and co-founder of Pacific Wild - plays a vital role in the battle to protect Canadian wilderness.

“Human beings are a visual species. The right image can inspire people to act, to want to protect the planet. Finding that image is challenging in a landscape like Canada’s West Coast because the environment is dominated by rough weather, dodgy logistics, low light and lots of rain,” says Ian.

“So you’re dealing with all this on top of trying to photograph some of the most elusive wildlife in the world,” he continues. “Plus, I’m almost always alone, running my own boat, and every day there are calculated risks that need to be decided upon. The whole situation conspires to make tough image-making.”

We hope you enjoy Ian’s photos. We certainly did. The cutlines belong to him.

“The lifeblood of the Great Bear Rainforest, these pink salmon arrive on the B.C. coast in the millions and provide food for over 200 species. During this photo shoot, I lowered myself into a pool of fish inch by inch, so I wouldn’t spook them, and braced myself against some rocks as the water ran over me. It was a very cool moment, to be in the river with these fish that had just completed a miraculous journey having travelled thousands of miles through the open Pacific Ocean to return home to their natal river or stream. The collective wealth of over a thousand different salmon runs such as this one will be impacted by how Canadians choose to manage this sensitive area in the future.”

“The wolves of the Great Bear Rainforest have been sheltered by islands and remote wilderness for thousands of years. This genetically unique population may suffer the least amount of human persecution of any wolf population in the world. I have had to completely redefine my understanding of these highly social and intelligent animals as they give me access to their hidden world without aggression and fear. I think the ancient relationship that once existed between people and wolves is possible again, but not until the unwarranted notion that these animals are indiscriminate killers is wiped out. These animals deserve protection, not persecution.”

“Bat stars cling to a rock near Hakai pass, just south of Bella Bella. I was scuba diving with a tidal current running over me at seven knots. In order to grab pictures like this one, I had to brace myself in a rocky crevasse and try to be still enough to snap a shot. Not easy, but I was happy with this image because these stars were a kaleidoscope of exquisite colours.”

“This is a spirit bear cub trying to cross one of the countless rivers that flow through the Great Bear Rainforest. It was heartbreaking to watch this cub trying to get across the river. Because if it failed, and got caught up in the current, it would have gone right over a huge waterfall – likely drowning. Normally, I don’t get involved with wildlife. But I think I would have jumped in for this little fellow. I was like, ‘Oh God, I hope this doesn’t happen!’”

“An evolutionary close relative of the Grizzly, the Steller sea lion is as clumsy as a bulldozer on land and as graceful as a mermaid underwater. The second largest known colony of Steller sea lions in the Pacific Ocean is found along the B.C. coast. While diving along a proposed oil tanker route near Hartley Bay, I was visited by about 200 of these graceful swimmers.

“This mother grizzly and her two cubs would walk from the forest to a small island each day at low tide. I just had to sit way up high with a long lens to catch their daily migration. I really believe that if the world could see how special this place is, there would be no question that it’s worth protecting. Living in the Great Bear Rainforest is a like a dream come true. But it comes with a responsibility to give back. In this regard, I hope the conservation work I do, the images I take, will make a difference.”

photo by paul nicklen

If you like our Great Bear Rainforest post, feel free to share it on your social media channels as a thanks to Ian (shown above).

If you have an interest in ‘real’ Canadian travel culture, remember to ‘like’ Toque & Canoe on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. Or, alternatively, sign up for our free e-mail postcard. (Just enter your e-mail in the blue box found on the right hand column of our website.)

Finally, do you have any thoughts on this story? If so, please comment below.

We love to hear from our readers – no matter where you are in the world!

I’m cold. I’m not chilly – I’m freezing. My skin hurts and I can’t feel my feet and the howling snow is trying to pierce my contact lenses. It’s dark and I need to get indoors. Except there is no indoors. At least, no indoors as I’ve ever known it. This is the Ice Hotel and I confess I’m a little scared.

I used to love the cold. I was a four-season outdoorsman, in  fact, before I gave it all up, moved to the West Coast and went soft. Now, here I am: I have a Date With Winter. Not your shade-grown organic Vancouver winter, but the real thing. And where am I, exactly, rediscovering my inner snowman? Quebec, monsieur. Quebec.

Nobody owns winter like the people of this province. They bathe themselves in it. They devour it. They wear it as unabashedly as they do their luxurious fur coats. A wind chill of -42? Pas de problème – “Mets ta tuque pis let’s go.”

The Hotel de Glace is not a simple snow cave. Gothic archways, labyrinthine tunnels and sensuous flourishes carved in snow are accented with shifting colours, ethereal music and the warm laughter of people made of tougher stuff than I. Nervously, I make my way to the hotel bar and order a Nordique – a tart mix of vodka and Curacao and the blood of a newborn reindeer.

O.K. I may be exaggerating about that last bit. But this drink is served in a shot glass made of ice and it fortifies me.

Quebec City's Hotel de Glace / Photo by Tom Ediger

Later, I make my way to my hotel room. Outside, the windchill is -33, but here in my cozy chambre - a giant ice cube serving as my bed – it is a tropical -5 and I couldn’t be more grateful.

A single candle is my furnace and a four-inch mattress feels sinfully decadent. Add a state-of-the-art sleeping bag and I’m warm. I’m warm! Except for my nose, the only exposed part of my body, which is cold as a puppy’s. I sleep like a baby, and wake up feeling smug and alive and remembering why I so loved this season.

Next in my pilgrimage: Le Carnaval de Quebec. The Plains of Abraham are pulsing with colour, music and laughing children. Snow slides, maple syrup taffy pulls, dog sled rides, and not far away, a micro-brewery beer tasting tent. What a civilized people. And, overlooking it all, of course, is the ubiquitous beaming image of the festival’s patron saint, Bonhomme.

Carnaval de Quebec / photo by Tom Ediger

Quebec oozes artistry at every turn, and the carnival’s main allée is lined with snow sculptures. Teams of three compete to turn a garage-sized lump of white stuff into objects of wonder, and today they are doing so in a wind that will freeze exposed skin in a couple of minutes. I stop to ask one of the artists what they’re competing for. What fabulous prize could propel them toward such sacrifice?

“Une tape dans l’dos,” he says. A pat on the back, and the esteem of their fellow sculptors. I’m a little humbled.

The Nordique Spa et Detente / photo by Don Enright

Next, a purification of the body seems appropriate, and I make my way into the wooded Quebec countryside to the Nordique Spa et Detente, where my host Hugues invites me to take part in an aufguss, which I gather is a sort of German sweat lodge. Into the dry sauna we cram, where Hugues pours orange-scented water onto the rocks. The temperature skyrockets and I feel hot for the first time in days.

Our host leads us through his ritual, artfully directing bursts of scalding humid air at each guest with a snap of a towel until we can take no more. I need to cool down, and he points me in the direction of the Jacques Cartier River. It is frozen solid. He has kindly chipped a hole in the ice and installed a ladder and a cage to keep us from being swept away under the surface. Nice of him.

I brieftly calculate possible ways to get out of this plunge, mentally transporting myself somewhere, anywhere, else. But suddenly everybody is looking at me. So the next thing I know, I’m going in with an ungainly splash. Every pore in my body screams to life. It is glorious and terrible and I have done it. Panting and laughing, I climb from the water and feel the gentle breezes of the Laurentian hills against my cooling body. Ecstasy is a strong word but it’s not far off the mark.

Finally, to crown my Quebecois journey, I make my way to the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Not to immerse myself this time, but to witness the men and women who skid indestructible canoes over the jagged, terrifying ice of this tremendous river.

Carnaval de Quebec's Canoe Races / photo by Tom Ediger

The carnival’s canoe races must be seen to be believed. Their intensity is gladiatorial – canoes thunder and shriek against the shifting ice, as the athletes push, pull, row, leap and occasionally half-disappear into the icy deep. Thousands of screaming locals line the river, cheering on favourite teams. Though the end is never in doubt: once again the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac‘s team proves unstoppable.

Exhausted, sated and wind-burned, I make my way home to the lush green warmth of Vancouver. The long johns and toque will go back into storage. But the love of winter is mine again, and the warmth of Quebec and her people will sustain me until summer.

“It feels really cold out there” – a voice crackles ominously over the local radio station. My feet instinctively burrow into the heated floors of our kitchen as I steel my mind for stepping into the -35 degree Yukon morning.

My wife Devon and I have headed north to experience the treasure trove of winter adventure that the territory has to offer and damn it if we’re going to let a bit of cold stop us!

The first thing I noticed about the Yukon – as our Air North plane made its approach into Whitehorse a day earlier – was the light.

Even though we were flirting with the shortest day of the year, a gorgeous softly lit palate of purples and pinks reflected off the frozen lakes and mountains enveloping the city of just 25,000. Yes, northern winter days are shorter than we might see in Vancouver or Calgary. But there’s still plenty of light to play in from ten a.m. through five p.m. And sunsets and sunrises linger for impossibly long stretches – tinting the surreal landscape in the kind of light cameras don’t do justice.

It was in this morning glow that I first meet Claude Vallier – a Frenchman who, after visiting the Yukon on holidays, fell in love with the area and promptly moved his family here. “People think it’s really cold, but it’s not,” says Claude – an expert mountain man who formerly worked with the French military’s search and rescue division. In fact, the average winter in Edmonton is colder than those around Whitehorse. “And on those rare, really cold days – like below minus forty – I’m forced to take care of the things I need to do around the house,” he tells me with a sparkle in his eye.

Devon and I climb into Claude’s Landcruiser and we all make our way along Annie Lake road about half an hour out of the city. Claude promises to introduce us to the sport of skijoring – where sled dogs are harnessed, not to a sled but to a skier. Before long, we pull into Alayuk Kennels and the home of Marcelle Fressineau and Gilles Proteau.

Fifty some-odd Alaskan huskies greet us with a chorus of whimpers and whines as if saying “Pick me! Pick me!” These dogs are no slouches. Marcelle has competed with them multiple times in the grueling Yukon Quest. When she’s not training for her next event, she takes guests from around the world on dog sledding adventures ranging from short outings to full-blown expeditions.

We each choose two dogs, attach them to our harnesses and click into our skis. With a jolt, I’m silently gliding through the forest with “Wilma” and “Wind” leading me through a maze of trails cut into the forests just behind the kennels.

The power of these, really, rather small dogs takes me by surprise. Their legs find a lightning fast cadence – keeping the rope between me and them as tight as can be. These dogs are obsessed with forward momentum. No surprise that they burn around 10,000 calories a day when they compete in the Quest.

Besides helping them up the occasional hill with a bit of pole planting, I was free to just watch the pine forest drift past me. When I snow plowed to a halt so I could take a moment to soak in amazing mountain panoramas or inhale the crisp winter air, Wilma would yip at me as if to say: “Yeah. Yeah. Let’s get going! We have places to be! Races to win!”

If you’ve got basic skiing skills, skijoring is an amazing way to travel through the endless tangle of trails that weave their way through wilderness surrounding Whitehorse.

With the rush of this extremely cool experience still fresh in our minds, the next day Devon and I find ourselves in the Walmart parking lot (yes, even Whitehorse has one) for our next adventure.

Normand Leroux wheels up in a pick-up truck with gear for ice fishing in tow. He runs Yukon Fishing Adventure, a full service guiding operation that will take you via snowmobile to some of Normand’s favourite and most gorgeous fishing spots. Normand moved to the Yukon nine years ago from Quebec to fully realize his love of hunting, fishing and the outdoors. (FYI,  the north seems to attract a large Francophone contingent. Normand was about the twentieth french-speaking person I’d met on our short trip and, word has it, there are around 2,400 of them in the Whitehorse area).

With the help of his son, Langis, Normand informs us we’re headed to Scout Lake, about half an hour outside of the city. When we reach our destination, we unload the gear and boot across the lake on a snowmobile to our guide’s favourite fishing spot – marked by a tattered old red jacket flapping in the wind as it hangs from its perch on a nearby tree.

Normand’s hands – apparently immune to the cold blowing across the lake – expertly tie lures to tiny fishing rods while Devon and I settle into a heated fishing tent that was assembled for us in a matter of seconds.

We spend the next five hours staring down a small hole Normand had drilled through ice – eventually yielding five small, beautifully coloured Kokanee Salmon from the frigid water. But as evening wears on and the sky begins to fade to black, we decide it’s time to move on. Normand’s son escorts us “home”, leaving his Yukon-loving Dad to catch just one more fish and with a plan to fetch him later. Soon after, the delicate smell of Kokanee frying in butter would be wafting through the air.

A couple of days later, Claude agrees to meet back up with us for a day of backcountry skiing in nearby White Pass. The summit of White Pass is on the BC/Alaska border on the road to Skagway but the only way in is via the Yukon.

If anyone knows this remote area, it’s Claude. He’s spent the last five years exploring and gathering content here for his newly published guide book White Pass Backcountry Skiing. As we near the summit of the pass, we’re blown away by two things.

To our joy, the depth of the snowpack quadruples in a matter of kilometres and the landscape pops skyward with towering jagged peaks – all part of the massive Coast Range that stretches from Alaska down into Washington State.

We stick skins on the bottom of our touring skis and start to climb up to the Cleveland Glacier while Claude spouts his amazing knowledge of the area. The dense snow that blows in off Alaska’s west coast spackles cliff faces leaving them coated with what looks like a liberal layer of cake frosting.

The landscape doesn’t seem real. The perfect peaks and craggy cliffs lit by the low-slung northern sun seem more like a movie set than reality. Around every corner, the panorama proves endless and begs us to push on just a bit further with Alaska, British Columbia and the Yukon stretching over the horizon.

When we reach our summit, we’re the only souls in sight. Claude points out the famed Chilkoot Pass – the vital route taken by scores of gold prospectors into the territory in the late 1800s.

These days, this great expanse of white wintery wilderness sees fewer and fewer gold-crazed fortune hunters. More often than not, it’s hardy winter sports enthusiasts like us in search of our own Yukon treasure tucked in the mountains, lakes and tranquility of this storied region.

When we eventually depart for home in Calgary – our plane peeling away from the tarmac and then lifting off – I look out over the lakes and mountains below. To be honest, searching for that next hidden powder stash or pulling one more silvery Kokanee from frigid northern water can be as addictive as hunting for another nugget of gold.

As the territory disappears behind us, I’m certain we’ll be back.

***Have you been to the Yukon during winter? What other activities would you suggest for our readers? We’d love to know!

Congrats to Julie for her winning comment (see below). Your Roots Canada-made leather bracelet is in the mail!

“We love the winter – in fact, when given the option of heading South this past Christmas my kids said, ‘What? Why would we waist a perfectly good cold winter going somewhere hot?’ Our family loves hockey, skating on our backyard rink, cross-country skiing, shinny on the community ice rink, beautiful blue sky/white snow Alberta days, chinooks when you can build snowmen in your tshirt, playing board games when it is too cold outside, hot chocolate, crock-pot spaghetti and meatballs, hearty soups and homemade bread. All of these things make up our winter. It also makes me love spring all the more when it gets here.”

Well, our little blog about ‘real’ Canadian travel culture is growing in leaps and bounds.

Given that we can’t be everywhere all the time (as much as we’d like to be!) – we’re occasionally sending trusty and informed Toque & Canoe correspondents into the field and we’re thrilled with what they’re bringing home for us.

Since last Christmas, we’ve brought you a wide range of stories – including posts on Canucks in Turks and Caicos, the gorgeous Skoki Lodge (for you backcountry skiers), an interview with traveling filmmaker Leanne Allison and a snapshot of Canada’s Islands on the Edge of the World (a.k.a. Haida Gwaii).

We covered the Stampede Centennial celebration here in our hometown, dipped for dungeness crab on Saltspring Island, fell under the Spell of the Yukon, and experienced Montreal from Bixi Bikes to Baguettes.

If that wasn’t enough, we also flew high in Fernie, B.C., indulged our senses in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, dished on a little Swanky Panky in the Okanagan, did some Diner Dashing in Winnipeg, paid hommage to The Land of Anne (Canada’s littlest province) and checked out the internationally renowned Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival.

We hope you’ll join us for another awesome line-up of stories coming down the pipe for 2013!

In the meantime, we also hope you enjoy our O-Canada Foothills Buffalo – brought to you by the talented  Timothy Wilson Hoey, our friend and follower from Victoria, B.C. and an artist who, like us, has a giant crush on all things Canadian.

We will see YOU in the New Year!

Toque & Canoe

*Contest update. Thanks to Liz for her winning comment on a stress-free Christmas at the Delta Kananaskis – her new family tradition. Your bracelet is in the mail Liz!  And to everyone else, we appreciate hearing from you. Your input means a ton to us!