'Our mission to help': Whitehorse RV park opens early for Yukoners self-isolating

After many phone calls from Yukoners returning to the territory and in need of a place to self-isolate, Steve Berger-Huffon says he decided to open Caribou RV Park two weeks early.

"We want to help out, especially Yukoners not finding places to stay, so we thought it was our mission to help," said Berger-Huffon, who owns and operates the RV park with his wife, Sandra Jost.

Berger-Huffon says they are taking many precautions to keep people safe and following the rules from the Yukon government.

Those rules state people arriving in the territory must self-isolate for two weeks.

The park is limiting how many people can stay there for the time being, so each set of guests can be assigned their own separate washroom. There areabout 25 metres between the camp sites.

Berger-Huffon says they havelowered the rates and are just covering operating costs.

Kelly Raika is self-isolating with her boyfriend and dog in one of two RVs currently parked in the campground.

She says they drove back to Whitehorse after spending the winter in Ontario and are self-isolating before heading to their jobs at a remote mining camp on Kluane Lake.

"Usually when we're not in camp we spend time at my sister's house [in Whitehorse], but she just had a brand new baby and my grandmother is there, so to make sure we had somewhere safe to isolate we came here," said Raika.

She says her sister helped arrange the stay at Caribou RV Park.

"Isolating is never fun to begin with, but it's been pretty good here. It's quiet, we have room outside, there's not many people around, so we can at least go out for short little walks with my dog and keep to ourselves," said Raika.

Raika says they were given an information sheet about isolating when they crossed the Yukon border.

"We came from there straight to our RV here. My family and friends had everything set up here so we didn't have to go to the grocery store or anything like that," she said.

Raika and her boyfriend are on their last day of self-isolation on Tuesday.

She says she's very excited to meet her new niece, who she has only seen through a video call.

"Once we're out of here, we're going straight over to there knowing we're safe," said Raika.

She won't have far to go, because her sister lives just across the Alaska Highway from the RV park.

Unsure of season

Berger-Huffon saysabout 75 per cent of guests at the RV park are Americans travelling to Alaska.

He says another big contingent is Europeans, but all of the European bookings have cancelled.

"Since mid-March, we've got no reservations so no pre-payments for the summer. So we're at nearly zero income, so I think it's going to be tough for us, so it all depends on how it evolves," he said.

This is only his second season running the RV park and he says he washoping for a good summerto recoup some of the initial investment.

But Berger-Huffon says he's still trying to be positive and hopeful for visitors in late summer and fall.

"We're surely going to make it."