canadian DESTINATIONS Canada’s Yukon Strike Gold or Discover Your Own Remote Oasis THE ROSSEAU RESORT A Muskoka Winter Wonderland Experience! TORONTO GETAWAY The Ultimate Romantic Couple’s Getaway Weekend! Fall / Winter 2008 PLUS International Feature! A Whole Lot of Craic in SouthernIssue Ireland.1 - 2007 1 Departments 3 EDITOR’S NOTE 44 TRAVEL TECH Canadian Destinations presents it’s TOP 10 Picks for 2010! 45 INTERNATIONAL FEATURE Ireland Playground: A Whole Lot of Craic in Southern Ireland features 6 CANADA’S YUKON So Far Away, But Yet Oh So Close! FALL / WINTER 2008 29 THE ROSSEAU RESORT A Muskoka Winter Wonderland Experience! 37 TORONTO GETAWAY The Ultimate Romantic Couple’s Get away Weekend! Canadian Destinations 2 22 Canadian Destinations editor’s note e are very pleased to offer Canadian Destinations as a travel guide for our home. Canada offers a unique diversity in scenery and culture, with rich history and passionate people. The goal of Canadian Destinations W is to highlight places of interest within the country to make travel in Canada a more informed vacation choice. Each issue provides information on destina- tions, resorts, hotels, spas, restaurants, and more, giving the reader travel tidbits which are helpful when deciding on places to go and what to see. This issue features a variety of some great known, and perhaps not so known, Canadian Destinations. First we feature Canada’s Yukon: So Far Away, But Yet Oh So Close! As we experienced first-hand it was hard not to miss the numerous grizzlies near Haines Junction and the beautiful rugged remoteness of The Golden Circle. We then take you to the Muskoka’s for a one-of-a-kind winter wonderland at the new Rosseau Resort. To top it off we share a Ultimate Romantic Couple’s Get away Weekend in Toronto! We are pleased to bring you a new International feature where we highlight some of the travel offerings available to Canadians wanting to venture out of the country to Southern Ireland. Starting in Dublin we sent our photojournalists to Wexford, Tramore, Ardmore, Waterford and more. We hope you will enjoy this feature which is outside the lines of what is normally featured in our magazines: Canada. -Nathalie Ellison Issue 1 - 2007 3 Canadian Destinations 3 canadian. DESTINATIONS PUBLISHER Canquest Media Publication Director Chris Ellison [email protected] Editor & Nathalie Ellison Publication [email protected] Coordinator Assistant Editor & Shirley Glover Artistic Director Publication Assistant Barbaralee Vail Graphic Designer Chris Ellison ADVERTISING SALES FOR CANADIAN DESTINATIONS IS HANDLED BY CANQUEST MEDIA 1/2 Page Email: [email protected] Advertisement Tel: (519) 476-9611 Mailing Address: 142 St. Clair Crescent, London, Ontario N6J 3V2. Tel: (519) 476-9611 Fax: (519) 681-0177 Email: [email protected] Visit us online at: www.TopCanadianDestinations.com CanQuest Media 4 Canadian Destinations Canadian Destinations 6 Issue 1 - 2007 5 Canadian Destinations 79 The Yukon is not as far away as you might think. ast year I received an email from one of my travel radio show listeners asking me why we did not offer much cov- erage of Canada’s Yukon on Canadian Destinations. I did Lnot have an answer to that question and so decided to make the Yukon a priority. The internet was a great information source for my background investigation of the Yukon. www.travelyukon. com provided me with much information about the region. The Yukon is historically know for it’s Gold Rush. The history of the area, originating about 110 years ago, expands through five significant geographic locations in both the United States and Canada, namely Seattle, Dyea and its Chilkoot Trail, Skagway, Bennett Lake and Dawson City. The Yukon is a huge, but thinly populated land the approximate size of California with a population of only 35,000, most of whom live within the bor- ders of its capitol, Whitehorse. Positioned above the 60th parallel in northwestern Canada and sharing its border with Alaska, it’s branded slogan “larger than life” fits this topographically diverse and rugged territory. Because of the Yukon’s high latitude, it experiences more than 20 hours of daylight in the summer, but fewer than five in the winter, replaced, instead, by the northern lights known as the aurora borealis. Some communities are even accessible only by floatplane or dogsled, which only adds to its uniqueness as an out-of-the-ordinary travel destination. I contacted Jim Kemshed, Media Liaison of Yukon Tour- ism and Culture and explained my intentions to visit the Yu- kon and he was able to support me with some great ideas and opportunities. I admit that as the plans were coming together I found myself becoming quite excited at the opportunity to experience this relatively undiscovered Canadian geographical ‘goldmine’ firsthand. My trip began with a flight into Vancouver from Toronto and ended with a relatively short flight over the rugged and picturesque Rocky Mountains and into the Yukon. I arrived in Whitehorse just after 12:00am. The midnight sky looked more like dusk rather than the blackened nighttime skies I was used to in Ontario. Fatigued from the trip, although surprisingly in- vigorated just the same, it seemed prudent to get some sleep so that I was rested enough to boldly Grizzlies are face the grand adventures that powerful creatures, awaited just a few hours away. To weighing up to 300 my surprise, the constant dim light kg. They must eat a flowing into the window did not lot to support their disturb the quality of my sleep as I thought it would. In fact the light size: in the fall they on that evening and throughout consume up to my trip was interestingly energiz- 200 000 soap ing. berries each day! Issue 1 - 2007 6 Canadian Destinations 6 Canada’s Yukon Issue 1 - 2007 7 Canadian Destinations 7 Whitehorse, Yukon I awoke the next morning and explored Whitehorse, I learned that Whitehorse’s healthy economic base a lovely little city full of friendly and easygoing people. The includes mining and tourism, as well as transportation and Wilderness City as some people call it, (Whitehorse) is nestled government services. It offers a vast range of activities and on the banks of the famous Yukon River and is surrounded by adventures for visitors who can enjoy the arts, photographic mountains and clear mountain lakes. It has a metropolitan and opportunities, unique dining, hiking, canoeing and a multitude vibrant feel to it and is populated with over 22,000 inhabitants. of very diverse scenic drives. For the history buff, Whitehorse Whitehorse can be described as having a healthy economy, af- offers numerous heritage attractions, such as the MacBride Mu- fordable housing, quick access to the great outdoors, and being seum and the restored sternwheel steamboat S.S. Klondike. rich in small town values. Dezadeash Lake, near Dalton Trail Lodge, is a warm and shallow lake. It is rich in plant and animal life. Here you can catch lake trout up to 30 pounds, northern pike to 20 pounds, arctic grayling, whitefish and burbot. For outstanding fishing tours visit www.daltontrail.com Issue 1 - 2007 8 The Golden Circle Whitehorse is a part of a regional feature called The The Golden Circle gets its name from the common Golden Circle, which also encompasses the Yukon’s Haines thread that binds the region, gold! The discovery of gold in Junction and Carcross and Alaska’s Haines, Juneau and Sk- Juneau, and later in the Klondike, led to the development and agway. The latter three are connected by The Alaska Marine establishment of the communities located along the route. Each Highway ferry system (www.dot.state.ak.us/amhs), a beautiful community has grown and diversified over the past 100 years, way to experience the unique splendor of the region. Driving but it was the lure of gold that sparked the spirit of discovery. I across the region you will experience a variety of landscapes, would recommend a road trip 3-5 days to fully enjoy the Golden including barren, treeless plains, boreal forests, rugged moun- Circle and remember to take proper photo identification when tains, glaciers, and mirror-reflective lakes and rivers inhabited you cross the border. by Canada’s First Nations people and abundant wildlife. Strike Gold or Discover Your Own Remote Oasis Issue 1 - 2007 9 Canadian Destinations 9 Issue 1 - 2007 10 Canadian Destinations 10 You may come into contact with bears in Haines Junction but play it safe! Bear behaviour is hard to predict because they are complex animals. Each bear is an individual with the potential to react differently in different situations. Haines Junction, Yukon When traveling around Canada I am always on the around the fire pleasantly conversing about their adventures, lookout for those special destinations that surprises me with a moose unexpectedly rushed past their location. As they sat their uniqueness. On this trip, approximately an hour and a dumbfounded by this unusual event the unthinkable happened. half west of Whitehorse on the Golden Circle I encountered A grizzly bear bounded after this moose knocking Wade over. this in Haines Junction. I vividly recall the rugged mountains… He recalled watching as the bear ground to a halt approximately the flowing rivers… the pristine lakes...and the huge grizzly 50 feet later to look back at them, perhaps wondering what bears!!! Statistically, the region is known as having the most exactly had occurred or whether or not the humans would be a grizzly bears per square kilometre in all of Canada. The inhabit- better catch. Unfortunately for the bear, the group had already ants in the region take this very seriously and will not venture made it to the boat and were madly paddling away for safety.