The Yukon in the Yukon: Parts 1 & 2

The following was published long ago on DailyXY, an online magazine for guys which was later purchased and renamed Pursuit.ca. Rather than make you take the click bait, Parts 1 & 2 are below. 

Part 1: The Experience

Muddy Queen Street, Dawson City, YT — It’s midnight but the sky’s not quite dark. It could be twilight. Or the northern lights. Or the Bud Lights. We stowed the 2015 GMC Yukon XL Denali hours ago before hitting the town. But what a day it was: a series of real-life testing conditions for the Yukon’s assorted engineering features, unencumbered by inconvenient traffic or police, on the Klondike Highway.

We were up and out on the road at the crack of 9 AM, a convoy of Yukons gold-rushing its way 500km north from Whitehorse. The terrain is mountainous and majestic, appropriate inspiration for one of the largest SUVs you can buy. The road is mostly smooth but long stretches are dirt, sustaining maintenance works.

The Denali trimline has a 6.2 litre V8 engine with best-in-class horsepower, 420hp, and torque, 460 lb-ft. It’s quite responsive, getting from 0 to 60kph in under six seconds. Some stretches of bereft highway afforded plenty of playtime with the accelerator.

Once there was the need to test the brakes, rushing to sudden and complete stop until a young bear warming its ursine hind on the warm tar noticed us and darted away. Soon after, we sped hard again. Until . . .

“Oh shit, sorry, HOLE!!” At the last second, I noticed a wide, deep pothole and powered right over it, expecting a bone rattling. Fortunately, the shock absorbing system provided a smooth ride even over this valley-in-training.

Here’s my troglodytic understanding of two important aspects of the ‘magnetic ride control’ feature. One: it continually reads the road, reviewing conditions up to a thousand times per second. The result? Plenty of reaction time when those conditions suddenly change. Two: Minute magnetic particles float in the shock absorber’s polymer fluid. Electric charges continually reposition the particles to thicken or thin the fluid’s viscosity.

Depending on the charge, the fluid can become almost solid or rubbery, providing a smooth ride, even over potholes. Later, my drive partner raced maniacally along one circuitous and constantly tilting mountain road, observing “There’s almost no roll at all.”

The Driver Alert System regularly warns you when you’re approaching the edge of your lane with a jiggle to your backside. About a fifth of the ‘highway’ was unpaved and unpainted road, so the feature got less of a workout.

However even the Yukon Territories have some traffic, tight corners and parking lots, making the rear cross-traffic alert a boon. At one point, we were backing out from a space in the parking lot of a tourist attraction. Flanking us was an ancient RV with rickety seniors milling about and a rival full-size SUV releasing several untethered kids and dogs. At 5,697mm by 2,045 mm, the Yukon is a huge vehicle. It’s impossible to see everywhere, especially through the backs of the other vehicles where kids and seniors may be gamboling about.

Enter the rear-cross traffic alert! It noticed the children, seniors and dogs around the corners, invisible beyond the mirrors’ sights and lit bright exclamation marks on the rear-camera screen, punctuating the urgency of their crucial presence with arrows.

In a usually bereft place, here was an excellent demonstration of a valuable safety feature put to the test in real life—circumventing any need for police.

Be sure to check out part II tomorrow.

The Yukon in the Yukon: Part 2, The Bling

The GMC Yukon was introduced in 1992. Driving the 2015, the brand’s fourth generation, up here in the Yukon Territories makes plain the inspiration behind this SUV. It’s conspicuous, huge, replete with bling and certainly not inexpensive—but not showy.

No wonder the GMC Yukon represents an impressive one-third of all SUVs sold in Canada. Hosers don’t trust people getting’ too big fer thir britches. They clearly like the truck to be big though. The Yukon also represents over a third of the territory of most people’s homes—especially the XL with its extra 518mm of length.

Overall the price has gone down but the content has increased. Consider some of the new safety features in the 2015, starting with the marvelously self-explaining ‘Crash Imminent Braking’: front park assist; lane departure warning; forward collision alert; side blind-zone and lane change alert; and rear cross traffic alert which we discussed in part one.

If price is an issue, there are a couple of expensive features you could live without. The power running board that appears when you open the door runs $1,920 and the potentially frustrating adaptive cruise control, which tells slowpokes in front you’re cool with them not doing the limit, costs $1,780. You could always brake for free.

But the base price of the premium XL Denali (aka huge) trimline includes more than enough bling to get most Canadians’ attention. Inside there’s enough genuine leather and wood to outfit a Pride Day parade. A Bose surround sound speaker system accompanies an 8” display. The steering wheel is heated—this IS the Yukon after all—so you’re fingers can remain warm enough to touch the screen.

The drive more feels more like a truck than a car but you can at least customize the positioning well to suit your shape, between the seat, the tilt/telescopic steering wheel and power adjustable pedals.

The front seats are heated and cooled. The middle seats are heated. The back row at least offers more room than you’d expect but, spacious as the Yukon XL is, grownups probably won’t want to drive from Whitehorse to Dawson City back there. Still, tri-zone climate control means those who are back there won’t be basting in their own juices while you’re enjoying air-conditioned comfort.

And there’s a comprehensive set of warranties. In case the recent spate of GM recalls gives you pause, they’re there for your deeper consideration.

Yukon XL Denali 4WD Base Price: $76,530
Options: $10,440
Destination charge and A/C tax: $1,750
As Driven: $88,720

PS. An interesting side-note. Within a week of this marathon journey in Canada's northwest, I drove my daughter from Toronto to Halifax, 2,000km journey, to school. That's over a 7,000km distance between two corners of this country within 7 days. Makes you think, no?