A borderline alcoholic welcomes a new world
I wrote this during the summer about a memorable night out. Apologies for the length, but I feel like the context is needed.

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A day's work, a day's disappointment. I'm not sure how it even started. However, the night left something promising. Towards town, we headed, past a fucking large airplane that claims to be the world's largest weather vane. Down along the airport, where American snowbirds and earlier practiced to the amusement of the rooted. Along the way one of our group of five dropped his wallet. "Jeff Addison, Jeff Addison!" an old, seemingly senile, old man cried out. While we did our best to ignore him, that was indeed the name of someone among us. As his belongings were returned, we learned this old man was also wise, who held fancy positions such as a lawyer, a member of the town council, and an unemployment counsellor. As a weird twist of events, he was a student at the Engineering building at our university, which shared the same name as our dormitory. The single, memorably, parting advice he gave all of us was, "You aren't hard enough to go to 98." As we were unsure of this place he as referring to, we only continued along our own way.

That night we visited only a few places. First we visited "Coasters." It was a small town hipster bar, with way more seats than it needed on a thursday night, a stage for a absent local band, and music that was way too loud. It was there that we paid for a pitcher of beer that, despite the cute waitress, was way too cheap for our student budge. Perhaps the most memorable part of that place was the free condoms in the bathroom. With beautiful local artwork on the front they reminded us, "Just because you're from Yukon, doesn't mean you can't get Aids." Not even the most remote, cold places of the earth can protect anyone.

From there we headed from the streets, desperate to find some place cheap to remind us of home. It was then that we stumbled across 98. It seemed to be on a forgotten dead-end road of town, with rusted cars and people milling about. Outside of the door, we hesitated, unsure if we were welcome or not. An aged woman outside warned us to keep our heads down and we'll be alright. Another, a welcoming soul, told us, "It's just a bar, come on in." And so we did. There, we found a long, crowded room, full of native americans. There were absolutely no seats for the 5 of us. To show more face than going in and out, we headed to the back of the bar. We heard cat calls, "Hey N'Sync!" "What are you doing in a native bar?!" and most kindly, "Who the fuck are you guest?" At the end of our bar, we saw our most likely allies, two old white men. Would they save us from a hostile crowd? Yeah right. We turned around and the mocking waitress asked us with a wink, "Leaving so soon?" Like hell we were. There weren't any seats, and we weren't asking for the price of a pitcher.

With that, we left looking for a kinder, more gentle place. Where else could that be found, with a few pit stops, than Boston Pizza? It was there that we found better food, along with cheaper beer, than Coaster's and probably any of the other bars in Whitehorse. The waitresses were nice, if not pretty, the lighting was clean, and as if to reassure us we had two officers in a booth near by. I had to fulfill the task of the tab among us, racking up quite a bit for a night. We received helpful tips for places to stay on the way, including the natural Liard Springs.

At closing time, feeling well and finished, our pockets drained, we headed up the hill, past the Alaskan highway, back to home base. There was one last stop to be made. The clay cliffs, which we had so casually walked down the stairs of, we had to climb back up. Not being ones to take the easy route, all of us clambered up the dry dusty hillside. With no looking back attitudes, dirt under our nails and hasty grabs for seemingly anchored holds, all of us safely made it to the top. It was there where we would all find our night's rewards.

It is above the town of Whitehorse, with an incredible view of a small proud town. There, was where we knew it was time to lit our Cigars. They were purchased two weeks earlier for pricey sums of twenty dollars each in a cigar shop in Vancouver. Hoarded carefully in a back seat pocket in the van, we knew they awaited an appropriate time, a time when they were needed. It was no when else but atop a vantage point that represented the whole trip that we had taken. Superfluous words were spoken among us, as we lit all our cigars on a windswept cliff. Each puff tasted of the promised Cuban tobacco, which was savoured so much more from the place where we were. In a drunken haze, nothing spoke more to any of us than the smoke in the air that lasted so short. With our embers dying out, we quietly retreated towards sleep, inside ourselves. Barely a car passed by as we crossed the Alaskan highway. Just a few minutes later I was in the blue volkswagen van that was my nightly home. In the pitch black, with an itchy wool blanket blocking out the Yukon cold, I knew that I was in love.
(Sco smokes crack often., Tue 10 Feb 2009, 17:58, 1 reply)

Yep
Sounds like Whitehorse all right.
(FleetlordVT, Wed 11 Feb 2009, 10:03, closed)