Burwash Landing is a small community, at historical mile 1093 on the Alaska Highway, in

Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

, Canada along the southern shore of Kluane Lake. The present location of Burwash Landing was first used as a summer camp by the

Southern Tutchone The Southern Tutchone are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living mainly in the southern Yukon in Canada. The Southern Tutchone language, traditionally spoken by the Southern Tutchone people, is a variet ...

Athabascans until a trading post was built in the early 1900s by the Jacquot brothers. The majority of the population are Aboriginal peoples,

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

. The community is the administrative centre of the

Kluane First Nation The Kluane First Nation (KFN) is a First Nations band government in Yukon, Canada. Its main centre is in Burwash Landing, Yukon along the Alaska Highway on the shores of Kluane Lake, the territory's largest lake. The native language spoken by the ...

. In addition to the Alaska Highway, the community is served by the Burwash Airport. It is the home of the Kluane Museum of Natural History and the Kluane First Nation, and also home to the world's largest

gold pan Gold panning, or simply ''panning'', is a form of placer mining and traditional mining that extracts gold from a placer deposit using a pan. The process is one of the simplest ways to extract gold, and is popular with geology enthusiasts especi ...

. In July 1937, Robert Bates and

Bradford Washburn Henry Bradford Washburn Jr. (June 7, 1910 – January 10, 2007) was an American explorer, mountaineer, photographer, and cartographer. He established the Boston Museum of Science, served as its director from 1939–1980, and from 1985 until his ...

, two members of the Harvard Mountaineering Club, made their way into Burwash Landing after climbing the

Lucania Lucania was a historical region of Southern Italy. It was the land of the Lucani, an Oscan people. It extended from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto. It bordered with Samnium and Campania in the north, Apulia in the east, and Bruttiu ...

peak and hiking over across the wilderness after their

bush pilot Bush flying refers to aircraft operations carried out in the bush. Bush flying involves operations in rough terrain where there are often no prepared landing strips or runways, frequently necessitating that bush planes be equipped with abnormally ...

was unable to retrieve them.

Geography

Burwash Landing is above sea level at the airport. The elevation can be higher in some places and lower in the others. Burwash Landing is located on the Historic Milepost 1093 Alaska (Alcan) Highway. It sits on the northwest shore of Kluane Lake. Several prominent geographic features have been renamed in Southern Tutchone language.

Climate

Burwash Landing has a typical subarctic climate (

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

Dfc), bordering on a dry-winter subarctic climate (

Dwc). Burwash Landing holds the record for the warmest temperature ever recorded in the Yukon in January at , which was set on January 24, 2014. The previous Yukon record of , was set in Whitehorse on January 13, 2013.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by Statistics Canada, Burwash Landing had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Southern Tutchone people

Burwash landing is the traditional home of the Southern Tutchone Athabascans. It used to be a summer camp. A revival of the Southern Tutchone language and culture has been taking place in this quiet lakeside community. This is readily apparent to visitors when they pull into town and are met with Southern Tutchone street and traffic signs, within and nearby Burwash Landing. Several prominent geographic features have been renamed in Southern Tutchone and signs can be seen along the Alaska (Alcan) Highway.

Burls

Burwash Landing is known for its black spruce

burl A burl (American English) or burr (British English) is a tree growth in which the grain has grown in a deformed manner. It is commonly found in the form of a rounded outgrowth on a tree trunk or branch that is filled with small knots from dor ...

s. Burls start as an irritation in the spruce. The tree sends extra sap as healant, which creates a growth (burl). Burls are either "green," harvested from live trees in the spring, or they are "dry burls," taken from dead burl trees. Burls are peeled off their bark and used in their natural form as fenceposts, for example, or they may be shaped and finished into a variety of objects, such as bowls. Check the Burlbilly Hill on the Milepost 1061.6, the visitor will see rows of "burly logs" on the hill.

References

External links

Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay
at the Government of Yukon
tourist info

Kluane First Nation
{{Authority control Settlements in Yukon Southern Tutchone