• The Yukon is home to the world’s smallest desert. The Carcross Desert is a stretch of sand dunes that covers an area less than 260 hectares (642 acres).
• The word Yukon means “the great river” in Athapaskan. The Yukon River is, in fact, the fourth longest river in the world at 3,600 kilometres (2,300 miles) long.
• There are six times as many caribou as people in the Yukon!
• More than two thousand glaciers are found in Kluane National Park, including Lowell Glacier, which is 65 kilometres (40 miles) long.
• The Signpost Forest in Watson Lake began in 1942 when a homesick U.S. army soldier working on the Alaska Highway put up a sign with an arrow pointing to his hometown and the number of miles to get there. The idea caught on and today more than 50,000 signs decorate the highway.
• The Dempster Highway is the only public highway above the Arctic Circle that is open year-round. Located mostly in the Yukon, it runs 720 kilometres (447 miles) from Dawson, Yukon, to Inuvik, Northwest Territories.
• The Kluane Icefield, located in the Saint Elias Mountains, is the largest non-polar ice field in the world.
• In the summer near the Arctic Circle, it stays light outside so long that Yukoners can read outside at midnight without a flashlight!

Capital City: Whitehorse
Population: 31,000
Total Area: 482,443 square kilometres (186,272 sq miles)
Population Density: 0.10 persons per square kilometre (0.20 per sq mile)

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