Many pet owners have experienced difficulty finding veterinary care in recent months, dropping everything to transport their sick animals across the border to Whitehorse or down the canal to Juneau.

Haines has never had a permanent, 24-7 veterinary clinic. Reality television’s “Yukon Vet” Michelle Oakley runs sporadic clinics in Haines and offers appointments when she’s in town. Oakley became the sole provider after Doctor Elizabeth “NeNe” Wolfe retired in 2017.

Longtime residents remember how in the 70s and 80s, human doctors would sometimes stitch up canine wounds as a favor to their neighbors. And unless Haines population quadruples, it likely never will have that kind of urban amenity. Experts generally agree that a community must have at least 10,000 people to sustain its own clinic, which is why vets in Southeast often travel between multiple towns in order to make a living. (Cordova and Petersburg share one vet, as do Craig and Ketchikan.)

What’s new is the shortage of available slots even in larger cities like Whitehorse and Juneau. “We’re up 30-40% in the number of people we’re seeing since COVID started,” said Chad Egli, administrator at Alpine Veterinary Medical Centre in Whitehorse. He attributes some of the increased demand to people who bought pets during the pandemic and part of it on the closure of one of Whitehorse’s three clinics, Copper Road Veterinary Clinic, in fall 2020.

“We can barely keep up,” Egli said. Last weekend alone he received 150 emergency calls, and by Tuesday midday — a typical day — he said they had had 11 unexpected emergency drop-offs.

Haines Animal Rescue Kennel (HARK) executive director Stacey Clark said she definitely thinks pet owners from Haines and Skagway are contributing to Whitehorse’s strain. Although HARK does not provide veterinary services, one of its main functions is to direct pet owners to clinics in Juneau or Whitehorse.

These days, they almost always recommend Whitehorse, because Juneau’s veterinary options have dwindled even more precipitously in the last few years. Juneau lost half its vet services in the span of the past year, according to Clark. Betsy Ly