Home > Community > Sponsorships

Yes, we care. Sort of.

Smells Like Yukon believes in giving back to the community, and has been proud to sponsor countless Yukon events and organizations. Most of this activity took place in 2007 while we were desperate to build our audience and curry favour with the local population.

Unfortunately, due to the ridiculous volume of proposals we receive, Smells Like Yukon is no longer able to seriously consider any requests for sponsorship, whether in cash or in-kind.

Please take a moment to admire the long list of Yukon community events and organizations that benefited from our generosity before we realized how much it was actually costing us:

Candlelight for Conrad (December 16)
Born to Shop columnist Juliann Fraser has graciously agreed to organize and lead an evening vigil to send some much needed cheer, warmth and goodwill to Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel as they face a difficult holiday season. Meet in front of the Yukon News at 7:00 p.m. Bring your own candle to light from a giant pyre constructed from a single copy of Lord Black's biography of Richard M. Nixon.

RCMP Taser Tag Tournament (December 1)
Due to recent unfortunate events, the RCMP’s 2007 Taser Tag Tournament has been forced to move from its original venue in the Vancouver International Airport. However, YVR’s loss is XYX’s gain. Whitehorse International Airport will now play host to this one-day law enforcement and sporting event. More than 100 Mounties from across Canada will participate, along with any number of opponents recruited from the traveling public, which should add the possibility of some real holiday excitement for the Yukon’s unilingual Japanese and German visitors. Local spectators are encouraged, but please leave all video recording equipment, including camera phones, at home.

Vigilante (Nov 21)
Smells Like Yukon will be holding an online candlelight vigil to mark the one-week anniversary since the submission of a photo to the City of Whitehorse's Gameswear Where? Gallery. The picture has not been seen or heard from since.

Yukon Spam Radio Association AGM (Oct 12)
Did you know…the high cost of satellite Internet service means that some poor Yukoners living in remote cabins may be missing out on the amazing benefits of Viagra, Megadik, Adobe Photoshop and countless other products? Yukon’s amateur radio enthusiasts can help make a difference by devoting even a few hours a week to relaying the vital and often entertaining contents of promotional e-mails to shut-ins across the territory. If you're a local ham, come to Yukon Learn to hear officials from the Yukon Technology Innovation Centre explain how this exciting new service has the potential to consolidate Yukon’s reputation as an IT hotbed while simultaneously enriching the lives of Yukoners who still believe that SPAM is something tasty in a tin. Starts 7:00 p.m. sharp.

YXY Thanksgiving Hoedown (Oct 6)
Break out your best plaid and denim for the YXY Martini Bar's first annual old time fiddling night. The stage is open to anyone with an ounce of talent and/or twelve ounces of alcohol on board. Fiddling will be followed by slides of Karsten Heuer's 2006 caribou hunting trip. Free appie bar featuring a variety of smoked and jerked local meats. Bud Light in the bottle: half-price all night! Reservations and misgivings highly recommended.

Herschel Squirts (July 5-12)
The Yukon's high-end summer camp for kids 10 and under is now open for registration. Give your youngster the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend an activity-filled week camping on Yukon's Herschel Island. Camp highlights include beachcombing, whittling lessons, bird watching, and drama classes culminating in a gala pageant to celebrate the island's colourful history as a whaling post in the late 19th century. Spaces are limited, so sign up fast. The camp may not be offered next year and, if global warming persists, the same goes for the island itself. Cost $7,500 (includes flights, food and barrel of rum.)

Sexomniac Singles Camping Trip (June 29-July 02)
After last year’s fiasco with the Oklahoman RVers at Kathleen Lake, this year’s weekend trip will be held at the more isolated Ethel Lake Campground. The event kicks off with a reunion / get-to-know-you icebreaker on Friday night. Don’t forget to bring your signed waivers and protection (bear spray, bug dope and so on). Special thanks to Marsh Lake Tents & Events. Please leave your pets and fetishes at home.

Operation Meander II (June 23-30)
After the un-success of 2006’s "Operation Meander" drug sting, this scaled-down and considerably less undercover RCMP initiative will be touring Yukon communities starting next weekend. Every stop will feature a free screening of Up in Smoke, followed by an opportunity for community members to ask the attending officer if he’d like to exchange his specially-marked Smart car for 300 rocks of crack. Don’t miss the chance to laugh your ass off and go home with a classy door prize like a bong, roach clip or Confederate flag—all courtesy of your friendly neighbourhood Mounties.

Group Alcohol Counseling (June 30)
Oops, we did it again. According to Statistics Canada, Yukoners stood bottle cap and long-neck above other Canadians in the drinking department in 2006. It’s not the first time Statistics Canada has bestowed this, um, honour upon us, but that’s not to say our collective fate is sealed. (Or should that be “unsealed”?) In response to the news, the Yukon government has organized a group alcohol counseling session for the benefit of the local population. Unfortunately, no local venue was large enough to accommodate the numbers, so the event has been shifted to BC Place in Vancouver. The stadium’s 55,000-seat capacity will offer space for everyone, with room to spare if any of the 300,000 tourists who helped the territory drink its way into a statistical coma want to drop by for co-dependent treatment. Beer garden opens at 9:00 a.m.

Singletrack to Excess (Ongoing)
Not to be confused with the officially sanctioned Singletrack to Success project in Carcross, STE is driven by a group of man-children who really should do more productive things with their spare time than work endlessly to maintain mountain bike trails around Whitehorse. As long as you your partner (a.k.a “trail widow”) can tolerate a rival with a super-sexy name like Hula Girl, Boogaloo, El Camino or even R&D, you're strongly encouraged to head for the hills where you'll discover, among other things, the great lost art of dirtholeing. And remember: you’re not a tool—you'll just be working with them.

Dialing for Dummies (May 26, 9:00 a.m. @ Yukon College)
If you dial the occasional incorrect phone number, you’re only human. But if you possess the special ability to dial the same wrong number three or more times within the span of two hours, especially after midnight, then you may be sub-human. Fortunately, this full-day workshop presented by Yukon College’s Continuing Studies department might help you overcome your challenges. It all starts with a simple test to separate the bona fide idiots from those with learning disabilities. If you qualify, you’ll soon move on to a series of exercises designed to enhance your number recognition and equip you with useful memory aids. When you’re ready, you’ll practice dialing on jumbo demonstration keypads before slowly working up to advanced dialing techniques for Blackberries and other extremely small cellular phones. Time permitting, the instructor may provide helpful tips on drunk dialing, dark dialing and the appropriate use of the redial button, which does NOT include immediately after dialing a wrong number. For more information, visit Yukon College Admissions. No phone calls please.

Dope Springs Eternal
(April 20 - 27) - HELD OVER!
Cheech & Chong meet Terms of Endearment in the Guild’s innovative new play that will surprise, delight and challenge audiences in a variety of non-traditional “stages” around Yukon’s capital. An unlikely love quadrangle involving a plucky Copper Ridge grow operator, a legal aid lawyer, a drug distribution “solutionist,” and an idealistic coffee roaster turned bloodthirsty downtown vigilante provides the dramatic centre of this moving comedy of sexual errors. And when we say “moving,” we really mean it. You’ll join the cast on a journey through Whitehorse, following step-by-step as the action plays out in real-life settings: Copper Ridge, Chinese restaurant kitchens, the Capital Hotel, 8th and Wheeler, Takhini Arena, Andrew Philipsen Law Centre, the Whitehorse Correctional Centre—and maybe even your own home! Tickets $15, including bus fare and GST. Extra charge for cab seating. (Warning: At any time, the performance could be disrupted by unscheduled and unscripted authentic drug-related activity.)

Remedial Coin Tossing (April 9)
Tired of embarrassing and sometimes costly gaffes in front of your friends and associates? Perfect for members of the Flipper Lunch Club and other coin-centric gambling organizations, this intensive one-hour workshop offers a wealth of helpful tips on how to correctly differentiate between heads and tails on a tossed coin (Canadian currency only). Workshop fee of $10 includes free quarter. Ask about our union boss discount. Starts 11:00 a.m. at Whitehorse Public Library.

Yukon Indoors Club AGM (April 1)
As the sun heats up and the snow starts to melt, the pressure to get active in the great outdoors only increases. If that sounds scarier than additional usage charges for Northwestel High Speed Internet, release your joystick and get a grip on Yukon’s fastest-growing organization. The Yukon Indoors Club is looking for new board members and executive officers to guide its activities to greater depths over the next two years. Own a webcam? You’ll feel right at home in YIC. In fact, you won’t even need to leave your house to participate in the AGM or most club functions.

Flipper Lunch Club (March 30)
Friday's noon club meeting at the Talisman Restaurant, hosted by DINK Flip, will be attended by all members with the exception of Priorities Fed Flip. Topics of discussion will include the Smells Like Yukon Segment 04 script; skiing Kluane's Auriol Trail with a certified madman; gymnastics for toddlers; a "Larry David moment" invoving a smelly ski-glove hand; clearing the snow off creaking house roofs; telepsychopaths who dial the same wrong number three consecutive times after midnight; and, other assorted topics. Proprietor Bobby will, as usual, inquire as to the whereabouts of the now legendary burgundy Loser's Jacket. To this day, no one knows.

Burning Away the Winter Booze (March 24)
Never mind burning away the winter blues. You’ve been drinking hard since November, so you’re about as happy as you are fat. Now it’s time to throw that “spare tire” on the fire. Haul your empties down to the Whitehorse recycling depot where you can exchange them for an Official Winter ’06/’07 Commemorative Snow Shovel. Then, starting at 8:30 p.m., you and your trusty blade are invited to hit the streets to work up a good old-fashioned sweat for the benefit of your personal bottom line, not to mention the City’s strained snow removal budget. As an added bonus, this oh-so quirky group endeavour might prevent the whole damn town from going the way of Atlantis when the spring melt finally arrives.

Mascot Fightclub (Mar 9)
If you couldn’t sit through Amores perros or The Circuit II, stop reading RIGHT NOW. Otherwise, prepare to face the ugly truth about Canada’s northern territories and the Canada Games mascots that represent them. Despite all the pan-northern hype, there’s no love lost between these three bitter rivals. And now they’re about to settle their differences once and for all—in the ring, at a location so secret even Piers McDonald doesn’t know. If you're one of the few lucky spectators with moisture-proof outerwear and directions to the venue, you'll enjoy a chance to place your bets as Yuka, Taiga and Uqila finally battle it out for territorial supremacy, with special kick-ass guest appearances by AWGie, Dalton, Safety Bear, Klondike Bill and Remy Rodden. This is the no-holds-barred dog-punch-kick-scratch-and-eat-dog grudge match you don’t want to miss. Teeth will be bared. Claws will come out. And, yes, fur WILL fly. Audience participation strongly encouraged.

Dog Gone IT Careers Expo (Feb 28, 2007)
With this year’s Yukon Quest finally wrapping up, it’s time for working sled dogs to consider options for better lives. And only one career field can rival “sled dog” in terms of its challenges, fast pace and rewarding snack foods…. Co-presented by Yukon College and the Yukon Humane Society, the Dog Gone IT Expo can help your sled dogs make the leap into Yukon’s rapidly growing and mostly-safe Information Technology sector. Once they’ve traded their harness lines for lines of computer code, they could soon be developing major government systems, manning (or dogging) the Help Desk at Northwestel, or pulling their weight as the Executive Director at any one of several small IT-related non-profits.

Yukon NDP Staff Auditions (Feb 22, 2007)
The Yukon NDP is looking for a qualified professional to join its ensemble caucus supporting cast / staff. Must possess social conscience, strong background in public policy, and the ability to perform under pressure, often in front of large audiences. The ideal candidate’s formidable skills in throat singing, modern interpretive dance, or mime will complement the cast’s existing core competencies in dramatic acting and stand-up comedy. Ability to loathe Liberals definitely an asset. Aspiring partisans should bring resume, 8” X 10” glossy head shot (your own or Jack Layton’s; latter preferred), and sheet music for “The Internationale” to the Guild Hall after 6:00 p.m. Only those with cool mustaches will receive callback.

Chai Tea Tai Chi - (Feb 13, 2007)
Just when you thought Yukoners couldn’t get any more relaxed, two great Eastern traditions join forces to create the ultimate mid-afternoon escape. Slip into your Zen parka and matching snowpants, swing through Zola’s for your sweet milky beverage (decaf recommended), and head out the back door to the Hougens parking lot for a 2:15 p.m. group session in the invigorating Chinese martial art. (It’s the one where you don't get to hit stuff.) Tai chi has actually been shown to reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. High school groups and delivery truck drivers welcome.

Yukon Powder Hounds Anonymous (Feb 6, 2007)
You hate yourself for loving it. And now there’s peer support for local backcountry skiers who count a complete set of Sled Porn snowmobiling DVDs among life’s secret guilty pleasures. Discuss Fellini influences in disc 5. Debate semiotics of latest decal text. Express loathing for self and fellow North Face powder puffs. If this sounds like more fun than a face-full of exhaust, slink into the alley behind Lister’s Motor Sports sometime after sundown. Masks optional. Contact John Jones for more information.