Random Thought No. 1

Whitehorse, for all its lawless frontier allure, is decidedly a government town. From all the people I’ve met or overheard, it sounds as though most of them are married or settled and have dogs or kids or both. Strange, when you think Soapy Smith and his gang thrived not so far away. Or maybe not, depending on your view of government.

So, like other government towns I know, there are a lot of very fit, very bright people around town, which gives me pause. I mean, not because a town populated by healthy happy people must be fundamentally rotten at its core, but because the latest fad and challenge for the health-conscious is to try to eat only food that grows within a hundred miles of where you live. A new form of urban survivalism, perhaps. This is much harder up here in the Yukon, particularly if you are vegetarian. I have heard of at least one poor soul who tried, but I don’t know to what degree they achieved dietary success.

Unlike other much larger and more crowded urban centres where food importing is already difficult enough, food supplies are less readily available here in the north. I find myself panicking when the grocery store shelves aren’t packed full of food. I wonder if this preoccupation will wear off, or if it embeds itself deeply in the minds of the more local too, prompting them to stock their home shelving units with enough dry goods to last an 8-month winter?

But, Whitehorse is a government town stocked with survival-oriented individuals who can work well in groups, so it may turn out ok even if there was a food & fuel shortage. (Soylent green, here we come?) And, I work in a food environment. I have keys to a walk-in cooler and commercial kitchen.