We are still in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.   We love it here.   This morning we wandered around town, found a grocery store and purchased snacks for our room.   Yep…Humans and ducks love to snack.  Now we are heading to Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center.

Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center

This is a great cultural and historical place.   We didn’t go inside, we just looked at and admired the vast outdoor exhibits.   Never enough time to do everything.  Meet Woolly Mammoth.

Woolly Mammoth

He used to live here.   Doesn’t he remind you of a shaggy elephant with smaller ears?   I think so.   Oh look.

Young Woolly Mammoth

This Woolly Mammoth is closer to our size.     Can we go for a short ride little Woolly Mammoth?   Apparently not.   The sign says carcasses of Woolly Mammoth have been discovered here.  Carcasses, complete with hair, skin and internal organs have been preserved in the Beringia permafrost.   These giant animals lived here tens of thousands of years ago.   They survived periods both hotter and colder than today’s temperatures.   This is the biggest beaver we have ever seen.

Giant Beaver

These giant beavers lived in the Yukon’s Old Crow basin region.  They were 8 feet (2.5 meters) tall and weighed 480 pounds (218 kilos).   These giant beavers roamed this area 130,000 to 60,000 years ago.   Now what is this?

Pay phone

A pay phone?   Once very popular and common in the United States, it is rare to find a pay phone at home.   Now most people carry a cell phone.   We like to see phone booths.   Here is an Eskimo in his canoe, or kayak.

Eskimo

The common way to travel the Yukon River and other bodies of water during the summer when the water is not frozen.   OK, what other animals formerly called this Beringia area home?

Statues of former residents

We recognize this musk ox.  We ducks are in front of him.  He resembles Africa’s Cape Buffalo.   Notice that these animals all need heavy skin and thick coats to survive the brutal Yukon winters.   We like seeing animals.   There are many signs here explaining the permafrost.   The ground never thaws a short distance from the surface.   One result is surface water cannot penetrate the permafrost, so the soil above permafrost is quite wet.   If the permafrost does melt, due to natural weather or human actions, the melting permafrost causes the ground to be unstable.   This place makes us think about so many new things.   Also, signs show how to read the story of climate change in riverbank layers.

Riverbed layers of earth

We can see several layers in this riverbank.   These are natural layers, not things cemented together.   So much to learn.   So little time.   We are now headed to the Yukon Transportation Museum.   We will show you what we find next time.