Sent in anonymously, this story seems to have stemmed from our Spin-The-Wheel game!

There’s a transcript below to help follow along.

A scary fun party, indeed - that’s exactly what we need right now.

Thank you to this young storyteller!

Storyteller: Hi my name is xxxxx and my two words are alien and scary. Once upon a time. There was this alien who was never scary. He always tried to scare his parents, but it never worked. And so then he always said, BOOM, ROAR, but it never worked, they were too busy scaring their other friend. So, well, he just started to go to Yukon because he heard that tons of things are scary there. So then. He found a really scary picture of a clown, and then tried to talk to him. He said, "Please give me some scary tips" but he wouldn't stop, the clown.

But then he made a robot that tried to scare. It was super scary. After that the robot gave him tips, but then he came home and then - oh. Before he came home, there was these humans that saw him - screamed loud! And then he returned home and he roared and everyone said, what was that? And then he roared even louder. Then everyone screamed so loud they broke their own dream dance. So then...

Story witness: They broke what?

Storyteller: Their own eardrums. So then they had a huge party and they celebrated. The end.

Story witness: They celebrated that he was scary?

Storyteller: Yes!

Story witness: That sounds like a fun party.

Elyn Eby is a mother, grandmother, a sister, a writer, a teacher and a proud member of the Pioneer Women of the Yukon. She is also a talented and commited story collector.

Elyn loves writing biographies of her late relatives and pairing them with photographs to create archives of history for her family.

We met on her flowery patio one Wednesday afternoon and Elyn told us the story of coming north with her sister Mary in her early twenties.

The Alaska Highway sure looked different in 1954.

Tune into this beautifully detailed story of bumpy rides and adventure. We have a short talkback at the end.

Viktor has a sail full of stories from his adventuring days.

Stowing away, holding tanks, sailing from continent to continent, Viktor recalls stories of war, travelling and his life.

We met Viktor from his room at the Copper Ridge Continuing Care Facility last week.

His voice has a musical rhythm to it.

Enjoy. 

Jacob, Jordan, Jenna and Viktor.

We sat with Louise and Audrey, two friends living at Copper Ridge Place last week.

It was so pleasant to listen about their lives, their families and hear their stories.

Music-loving Louise tells tales from growing up on the farm. Audrey tells stories of traveling and playing in her family marching band. They talk of being friends. Louise even lets Audrey know of a ‘disease’ that’s going around. 

They tenderly cracked us up.

You’ll hear Julia from Copper Ridge kindly moderating with the four of us. 

Enjoy.

Jenna, Jordan, Louise and Audrey

A sweet message slowly turns into something more uncomfortable.

Dealing with uninvited persistent communication in a small town is different from bracing for catcalls in the big city. This is one story of many stories of discomfort.

Afterward, we talk with Gen (and her baby Oscar) about the commonality of this occurrence and its complexities in Whitehorse.

How can we talk about the line between harassment and friendship in a place where most folx know each other? And how do we navigate this discomfort as an individual and as a community? 

Do you have a response to this story? Tell us here.

Véronique tells us about flipping through Tinder and noticing similarity after similarity.

Maybe there’s some strategy to this Tinder game after all?

Do you have a story about a recent Tinder experience? Tell it here.

Evie is a fierce lady.

She knew she was moving to the Yukon since grade three.

Some years later, with her mother wagging her finger behind her and her baby at her side, Evie drove from Fredericton to Faro and landed herself a job.

Evie shares her thoughts on the mines, black and white photography and working with children, among other tales.

We got the absolute pleasure to talk to Evie while at her home at the Copper Ridge Continuing Care Facility last week.

We got the chance to talk to David, a self proclaimed “wicked jokester.”

David tells us about his Pokémon Go skills, working with computers in Dawson and landing planes just to taste warm cinnamon rolls.

Thank you to Julia and Copper Ridge for connecting us.

Enjoy the listen!

Zach’s shot of Bare Loon Lake as he crested the top.

Seeking big experiences when we’re young is not uncommon.

What happens when one of your big experiences is hiking the Chilkoot Trail alone? And you just might be injury prone?

On a Zoom story share, Zach McCann-Armitage tells a story about youth and solitude.

Do you remember a story from your youth? Or being on the Chilkoot Trail? Record it here.

Emily’s Epic Unmatched Shoes.

The nightmares become real – losing your sheet music before a very serious choir. Also, unmatched shoes.

This story was submitted just before social distancing at the Yukon Arts Centre by Emily Tredger.

Do you have any stories inspired by the two words: “Lost” and “Music” ?

Share them in the comments or record them for us here.

On Zoom, Peter spun the words “lost” and “housing”. Instead of a story, he read a poem. And instead of us being at the bar to hear it, we listened from our living rooms.

From his couch to yours, here’s Peter reading from Downtown Flirt.

Why are we interested in these types of stories? what are we going to do with them?

Arlin McFarlane – well loved Yukon theatre artist for those outside – stopped by to visit.

Jacob ended up talking about some of the ideas behind the story collecting and 99 Stories Not About Gold. And then he made a video of it.

Transcript:

Arlin:
So is there a purpose to these? Are you, you’re recording them for…?

Jacob:
Uh… [Laugh] We’re recording them for a few possible potentialities.

One is making audio clips and putting them online and having a semi-regular - sort of - three, three days a week. We post a few stories that people have told us, um, they, and that that is on the, on the website.

And then also with this potentially like augmented reality app that we could start using, place them around town. So that you could go with your phone, um, to a location with that app and like even see a picture of you and hear your audio would tell the story.

And then also potentially that like they could get adapted into some of the parts of the show. With the way we were working. There were a couple of sections that would be very kind of quick montage of us telling – very short stories, but that those stories can come from other people.

Um, part of the premise of the show is that there’s not – it’s impossible to have all the stories. “99 stories” becomes a sort of impossible large number. Not only are there the, you know, whatever, the stories, we tell for 90 minutes in the show,

but that there’s also this collection of all these other stories that – again – aren’t the big moments in life but happened and are truth and actually make up life.

And then we’re trying to figure out and adapt about how to do it in COVID times.

Theatre-y kids play the spin-the-wheel game before Manual Cinema.

Recorded at the Yukon Arts Centre in the beginning of March – the first and only event we would attend. 

We ran into a group of MAD kids in the lobby before the show. 

Listen in below and share a story here

A comedian on when they realized sixteen year olds shouldn’t vote. This person is seventeen.

Two people meet at a D&D game and fall in love - across the country in the dead of night.

Spinning the wheel gave the words “fast” and “scary.”

A story of not making it all the way across the zipline emerges.

Following suit with scary times, this student goes sledding in Carcross, much to their faces’ dismay.

Christmas tree hunting and leads to an unexpected sweet surprise.