Week 70 - Julian's Perspective

After Franzi detailed her tasks last week, it's Julian's turn this week.

Julian works as a tour guide and in maintenance.

Currently, he also takes on many additional tasks at the resort, including splitting and stacking wood, mowing paths, performing small repairs, and painting fences.

A weekly maintenance walk must be conducted. During this, all guest chalets are checked. Also, the main house, the staff houses, and all sheds and garages. Everything is checked for possible damages, broken light bulbs, and potential water damage.

Additionally, Julian is responsible for reading and checking all control boxes, water heaters, water pumps, and distributors.

Another aspect is the inspection and maintenance of all vehicles. This includes the 3 buses or vans for the tours, a pick-up, and the staff car. But also 2 quads, a riding mower, a small tractor, and some snowmobiles (these haven't needed to be checked yet).

For all tasks, there is a checklist in a resort-owned app. Generally, many things here are managed through an app that Tobi, the owner, developed himself.

If something is noticed during the walk that is not as it should be, a message is automatically sent to management. Additionally, Julian naturally attempts to professionally repair all found deficiencies, which has so far always worked well.

A small side task, but still very important and a good demonstration of how remote it is here in Yukon, is the weekly trip to the dump. With a pick-up and trailer, the collected waste from the whole resort is disposed of there once a week, as there is no garbage collection service.

The second major part of his work is Night Guiding. This means that in the evening he prepares a campfire for the guests and spends the night until 2 AM by the fire with them. Tea and hot chocolate are served at the fire or marshmallows for roasting are offered.

Of course, this gives him plenty of opportunities to converse with the guests and answer all sorts of questions about the Northern Lights, the stars, or general things about the resort and the surrounding area.

Photographing the Northern Lights, especially with guests in the foreground, is also part of his tasks. This is not so easy, and he has to learn the settings well to get good pictures. He certainly needs a bit more practice here to make the memory pictures perfect.

Twice a week, Julian also takes a short nature walk with the guests around the grounds and talks about the resort, the different types of trees and plants, and also about the landscape and the Ice Age.

So far, he has not yet led the walk alone and is still learning from his colleague. Soon, he will have to conduct the walk alone, but he is looking forward to it.

Once Julian passes his driving test, he will also be allowed to drive guests in the bus.

Then there will also be one or two larger tours added. However, more will be reported on that when the time comes. Until then, more practice will be needed to ensure the next exam can be successful.

In our free time, we haven't done anything extraordinary so far. We relax, shop, or cook. We hope that as soon as there is snow, we will also have time for winter sports and can try out different things here.

Regarding this week, it is worth noting that we had no guests until Wednesday. The free days were used for excursions with the entire team. These are otherwise part of the guests' excursions, and this week we had the honor of experiencing that as well.

On Monday, Franzi's birthday was celebrated first. She was surprised with an ice cream cake by our bosses.

We also took the first tour to Carcross and there to a shop for maple syrup. Here we could try all possible varieties and test this iconic Canadian product. A dinner with everyone was also sponsored by the bosses.

The next day we visited the Yukon Wildlife Preserve and could admire all the animals there. During the subsequent stop at the Hot Springs, we received a small tour from the owners, and we even got a voucher for a free visit. The pizza afterward was the perfect end to the day.

Since Thursday, the resort has been fully booked, and we can directly feel the difference compared to before.

Let's see how the next weeks will be and what else we can report.