Smells Like Yukon Flog

Alright, prepare to be teased. Not a lot, just a little. But certainly enough to make it worth your while, especially if you’re chained to a cubicle at YTG.

Now, if you’ve been paying a bit of attention, you’ll know that the first Smells Like Yukon segment, which aired about a year ago, chronicled Mark and Jesse’s efforts to give the husky dog on Yukon’s Coat of Arms a personality makeover on the occasion of its 50th birthday. But if you’re not paying enough attention, you might jump to the conclusion that tomorrow’s segment is just a rerun of that original piece. And you’d be mistaken.

What actually happens is that Jesse and Mark revisit that first segment and entertain the possibility that they were wrong to toy with the beloved husky on Yukon’s Coat of Arms. What they should have done was knock that dog right off its pedestal—and replace it with a more modern symbol of Yukon life. Fired up with a new determination, the pair then canvasses opinion from a ridiculously small sample size of Yukoners, which eventually results in a visit to the local brewery. It isn’t long before they’re willing to ignore their exhaustive research and proclaim their own choice to replace the husky. You can blame it on the beer. Mark and Jesse prefer to call it “genius.”

This segment is scheduled to air on CBC Yukon tomorrow–Wednesday, February 6–sometime between 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. PST. If necessary, you can use the link on the Smells Like Yukon homepage to hear the segment live on CBC’s internet radio.

As usual, the official Smells Like Yukon website will be updated with content related to the new segment. Online features include music details, audio outtakes, behind the sounds gossip, and a bunch of other stuff. As of today, the previous segment “B&R” is now available for online listening to Members in good standing.

In the meantime, we highly recommend that you take this last opportunity to vote in our current online poll about the best way to punish naughty Yukon News reporters who get too close to the Truth about the B&R conspiracy that controls the Yukon.

Consider yourselves teased.

As it turns out, there was a mix up in the airing of the most recent Smells Like Yukon segment on December 5. Instead of hearing a scandalous tale about bred-in-the-bone Yukoners, you heard a couple of almost-grown men playing Asteroids in a basement.

As you may have guessed, Mark emerged from the safehouse last night. Since then, he has managed to furnish enough information to update the Smells Like Yukon website with information about segment #12 and a video for Behind-the-Sounds. Sadly, we suspect that Mark’s time in hiding has had a detrimental effect on his mind because the first thing he did upon return to Whitehorse was attend a seminar to help newcomers “survive” a winter in the Yukon. And on top of that, he refused to settle on a single, pithy title for the segment–which is not like him at all.

The upside of Mark’s experience on the run is that Salman Rushdie has agreed to work with him as an executive coach.

If you listen to the CBC broadcast of Smells Like Yukon on December 5 expecting to hear shocking revelations about Yukon’s “born and raised” population and instead hear what appears to be two guys talking with their mouths full, don’t blame us.

We’d like to say our teasers about the content of this segment were a concerted effort to jerk you all around–we really would–but the news would actually be much worse. The airing of an alternate segment might mean that the all-powerful “born and raised” Yukon establishment conspiracy has managed to intimidate someone at CBC. Or, for all we know, it could be something KarlHeinz Shreiber said to the House of Commons Ethics Committee. Of course, there’s always the potential explanation that CBC just got mixed up about the order the segments are supposed to air.

The last-minute possibility of a segment switch was brought to our attention when we heard a recorded CBC promo for Smells Like Yukon sometime after 6:00 p.m. tonight. While it’s flattering to think that SLY warrants that kind of publicity after the local CBC shop has locked up for the night, it has certainly thrown a little wrench into our plans to update the Smells Like Yukon website as usual.

As a result of this confusion, you won’t find details about segment 12 on the website until a future time when we actually know, for sure, which story CBC decided to air. Before Mark went into the safehouse with the expectatation that the original story about “born and raised” Yukoners would air, he compiled information about that segment–and that segment only.
If the original segment does air, we should have the site updated in pretty short order. On the other hand, if it’s a different segment, it might take us some time to put together the details, behind-the-sounds story, and a content-appropriate poll. The good news is, Mark will be able to leave the safehouse immediately and get to work on this material.

Is there a connection between illegal docks at Marsh Lake and missing Yukon News reporters? You bet. And this connection—plus a whole lot more—will be explained in the next radio segment of Smells Like Yukon, when crack investigative journalists Mark and Jesse infiltrate the conspiracy of “born and raised” Yukoners who rule virtually every aspect of life in modern-day Yukon. What they discover, to paraphrase Orwell, is that all Yukoners are equal, but some are more equal than others.

This segment to which we referred in the preceding teaser is scheduled to air on CBC Yukon the first Wednesday of the month, sometime between 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. PST. And just in case you’ve lost your calendar, that would be tomorrow…Wednesday, December 5th. If necessary, you can use the link on the Smells Like Yukon homepage to hear tomorrow’s segment live on CBC’s internet radio.

As usual, the official Smells LikeYukon website will be updated with content related to the new segment. Online features include music details, audio outtakes, behind the scenes gossip, and a bunch of other stuff. As of today, the previous segment, “The Barstools of Yutopia,” is now available for online listening–but only if you’re a member of the Smells Like Yukon Members Club.

In the meantime, we recommend that you take another opportunity to vote in our current online poll while it’s still current. It asks you about what the Yukon needs in order to truly qualify as a utopia. We’re pleased to announce that we have also re-opened all our previous polls. So, if you voted in the past and regret your stupid choice(s), here’s your chance to do it all over again.

And if you’re really hard up for entertainment, you can always peruse our “fascinating” archives of updated news, unbecoming events, free store donations, online video clips and other features on the Smells Like Yukon website.

Does the Yukon’s climate leave nothing to be desired? Would the territory be better if there were more double decker buses? What if an NHL franchise relocated to Whitehorse? These are just a few of the questions Jesse and Mark ask in the next segment of Smells Like Yukon, when they hit the “road to Yutopia” to determine whether or not the Yukon is the ideally perfect state.

As usual, the segment is scheduled to air on CBC Yukon the first Wednesday of the month, sometime between 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. PST. Just in case there’s any doubt, that would be tomorrow… Wednesday, November 7th. If necessary, you can use the link on the Smells Like Yukon homepage to hear tomorrow’s segment live on CBC’s internet radio.

As usual, the official Smells LikeYukon website will be updated with content related to the new segment. Online features include music details, audio outtakes, behind the scenes gossip, and a bunch of other stuff. As of today, the previous segment, “Hip Check,” is now available to members of the Smells Like Yukon Members Club for online listening.

In the meantime, we highly recommend that you take this last opportunity to vote in our current online poll about the best way to make Whitehorse even hipper. Voted once or twice already? We don’t care… and neither does the polling software, which lets you vote as often as you want. It was probably designed by U.S. Republicans.

If voting in some pointless poll doesn’t appeal to you, why not take a stab at the caption contest? Actually, there are a lot of reasons not to. For starters, a late-breaking entry by a member of the Urban Yukon community has decreased the odds of the next entry winning the grand prize from 100% to 50%. If it’s any consolation, the grand prize totally sucks.

Of course, you can always peruse the usual smattering of updated news, unbecoming events, free store donations, and online video clips and other features on the Smells Like Yukon website.

The next segment of Smells Like Yukon–the second of the second season and the 10th to date, assuming you don’t count “The Pilot”–will air tomorrow morning, October 3, sometime in the half-hour before the 7:30 a.m. local news on CBC Yukon. If necessary, you can listen online by clicking the link on the Smells Like Yukon homepage.In this segment, Smells Like Yukon correspondents Mark Koepke and Jesse Devost enlist some expert advice to help investigate whether the City of Whitehorse is as “hip” as some people are starting to believe. Mark and Jesse didn’t think so, but they’re wrong about stuff more often than they’re right, so you’ll have to tune in to find out if their streak is in tact. Of course, if the decor of your favourite bar features, say, gravel and a butchered moose, there’s a pretty good chance you won’t give a damn whether Whitehorse is hip or not.

As usual, the Smells Like Yukon website offers plenty of ways to waste some quality time while you’re waiting breathlessly for the next segment to air. Once again, that’s tomorrow morning. Check out the latest news, coming events or sign up for the exclusive SLY Members Club so you can listen to previous segments you might have missed.