A long caravan of Yukoners at Canada Customs on the sunny Sunday after Beerfest turned into an afterparty complete with cornhole, volleyball, sun bathing, ice cream and catching up with old friends.
Traffic at the border crossing was backed up more than half a mile and resulted in a three-hour wait, Whitehorse resident and Yukon News columnist Keith Halliday told the CVN. So people got out of their cars, set up cornhole boards, threw frisbees and let their dogs roam.
“It was kind of like a secret Canadian afterparty,” Halliday said. “This guy from Maine rolled by and said, ‘What is this? The Canadian Woodstock?’”
Halliday last week wrote a column for the Yukon News about the surprise afterparty.
“Yukoners lounged shirtless in lawn chairs by the side of the road, their winter skin gradually turning a deeper shade of pink as the queue slowly moved up the hill,” he wrote. “Dogs frolicked and children wandered with rapidly melting ice cream treats.”
Halliday said only five or six cars were in front of him at U.S. Customs when he drove down to Haines on Friday but that Canadian border guards asked more questions. “If you take a minute or two longer with each person you will get a line up,” he said.
In his column, Halliday poked fun at the Canadian government for trying hard to promote tourism while hindering travelers at the border with questions like, How are members of your party related? and, Do you have cannabis? Firewood? Furs? Hides?
Halliday was visiting Haines to go boating but remembered it was Beerfest weekend when he got to town Friday. He said he enjoyed an evening at the Bamboo Room and that everyone made the most of the impromptu border-crossing party.
“The fact that there is no cell coverage at Pleasant Camp brought back memories of Atlin Music Festival. With nothing to check on your phone, you were forced to talk to people and enjoy yourself,” Halliday wrote in the column.
In a call with the CVN, he said he thought the dogs enjoyed the roadside party too and even made new friends.
Jack Kobayashi, another Whitehorse resident who attended Beerfest, decided to make a U-turn when he arrived at the border line around 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
He said “there was definitely a party atmosphere” but he “took advantage of it in a different way” — by turning around and enjoying another night and sunny weather in Haines, where he owns property.
“The weather gods — no, not the weather gods, the Customs gods — made (the) decision to stay another night,” he said. “Another day and night in Haines — can’t get any better than that.”
He said that he has been attending Beerfest and the bike relay every year and had never seen a line as long as the one after Beerfest this year. Next year, he said, he’ll plan to stay an extra night in Haines after the festival.
Halliday said that as long as there’s sunny weather the Sunday border afterparty could become a tradition.
“In the meantime, take a frisbee and some snacks next time you cross the border for an event or long weekend,” he wrote in his column. “And if you are reading this in Haines or Skagway, you can plan to make some big bucks parking your food truck on the American side of Canada Customs on any long weekend this summer.”