Smells Like Yukon Flog

It is with little sadness that we inform our fans that we have severed our ties with the Subvert Smells Like Yukon Alternative Gameswear Where Gallery.

In case you’ve forgotten, this was a Smells Like Yukon-sponsored Flickr goup intended to “showcase arresting images that reflect our hopes and dreams about all the things that Canada Games volunteers might accomplish while wearing gaudy orange fabric.” Apparently, this now makes the sole remaining do-nothing group member, Geof Harries, the gallery’s new administrator by default. We wish him all the best.

“But why?” you’re no doubt crying aloud.

Given the disparity in submissions, we were finally forced to tip our hats to the Ladakhian ringers and concede that the City of Whitehorse’s dumb idea was slightly brighter than our dumb idea. However, we’d also have to observe that the recent photo of Kenyan village people decked out in Canada Winter Games jackets suggests that, towards the end, the City’s idea was getting dumber at a faster rate than ours was.

We believe there’s further vindication in the fact that the CoW is no longer featuring the original Gameswear Where? Gallery prominently on its homepage. Nope, it’s now buried in the submenu under City Council, where it will surely die—unlike, say, the property tax increases. Smells Like Yukon, on the other hand, continued to flaunt our failure in plain site, where no one bothered to look, until the bitter end.

Whatever we do, let’s try not to point fingers in anger. It’s a dark place none of us wants to go. We’ll all be better off to just ignore the possibility that the CoW’s powers of taxation and garbage removal may have been used coercively to solicit photo submissions from a citizenry fearful of bankruptcy and smelly kitchens. As much as we’d like to, Smells Like Yukon simply cannot compete with that.

We prefer to focus on the positive now, such as the promising Dog Gone Yukon Coat of Arms project. And once we’re done with that, we’ll probably take a figurative blowtorch (is there a tool for that in Photoshop?) to the sternwheeler on the City of Whitehorse’s logo.

Why?

To even the score, of course.

Thanks to everyone for the overwhelming outpouring of concern for Smells Like Yukon co-creator Jesse Devost.

As you may have read on this Flog, Jesse’s most recent stops on his six-month buggering-off-from-work trip were in India and Nepal. No doubt, you’ve also heard about this arrest that was recently made in the Nepalese town of Chitwan.

Right about now, you’re probably putting two and two together. Yes, Smells Like Yukon has been tricking out its website with all kinds of expensive new features, such as the Dog Gone Yukon Coat of Arms project (where, we might add, there have been several recent additions.) And yes, Jesse has on several occasions wired unusual sums of money back to the SLY office to finance these growing development expenses.

But, NO, he has NOT sold one or (as some rumours have it) both of his kidneys to get the cash. We just received the good news from Jesse by e-mail this afternoon.

What does this mean for you? Well, you can continue to use SLY.com with a clean conscience.

No, it wasn’t enough that we created the poorly-maintained and seldom visited Smells Like Yukon Scratch n ‘ Sniff Photo Gallery or the Subvert Smells Like Yukon Alternative Gameswear Where? Gallery.

Smells Like Yukon is now pleased to announce the somewhat less than Grand Opening of its new Dog Gone Yukon Coat of Arms gallery in the Smells Like Yukon Digital Scrapbook. Inspired by the most recent Smells Like Yukon segment “Knock It Off,” the goal of the gallery is to give Yukoners a glimpse of their future–symbolically speaking–without a husky on the Coat of Arms. There are only two images there right now, but since it’s damn easy to mock these things up, you can actually expect to see a rapidly expanding number of exhibits.

And on that topic, we’re wondering if there are any DINKish Yukoners out there who a) own a Pathfinder with a roof rack (Thule preferred) b) work for YTG and c) have a photograph of yourselves that you’re just dying to see slapped on top of Yukon’s Coat of Arms. Oh, and there’s one more criteria: please make sure you’re at least as attractive as an inbred dog. If you’re not sure, ask someone.

We’d also be happy to entertain any other suggestions for Coat of Arms mash-ups. If you have an image, send it. If you just have an idea–and it better be dumb–send that our way and we’ll see what we can do.

And finally… one of the options in the most recent online poll about the husky’s retirement plans involved a move to Nunavut. In case you were having trouble picturing this, we’ve now solved that problem for you.

Never complain that we don’t care.