The City of Whitehorse enters into Sister City relationships to promote economic development, educational, cultural and friendship exchanges between cities. This enables the residents of Whitehorse to participate, and benefit from such exchanges. It provides them with a better understanding of their own community by interpreting their way of life to people of a different city, culture and/or country. It can also lead to economic growth within the City.
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Outdoor Skating Rink Volunteer Application
September 2, 2022Holiday Lights Tour
December 7, 2022Sister City Programs
Whitehorse and Chortkiv officially began their Sister City Relationship by signing a joint proclamation on October 11, 2023. Each year, we raise their flag (and vice versa) on the second Tuesday in October.
Whitehorse and Juneau officially began their Sister City Relationship by signing a joint proclamation on February 27, 1993. Each year, we raise their flag (and vice versa) on the second Monday in August.
Whitehorse, Yukon and Lancieux, France began a Sister City program in 2000. The two cities honour their friendship by flying the flag of their Sister City once each year.
20th Anniversary
A former video featuring Mayor Dan Curtis, AFY President Jeanne Beaudoin, Lancieux sister city relationship initiator Yann Herry and Whitehorse youth reciting Each Day a Life, a poem by Robert W. Service, highlights iconic Whitehorse scenery and represents the poet’s favourite theme, nature.
A Short History about Becoming Sister Cities In 2000, AFY agreed to carry out a project to establish ties between Lancieux, in France, and Whitehorse, in the Yukon, two adoptive lands of the “Bard of the Yukon”, Robert W. Service. In order to make the pairing of the two cities official, a delegation of French-speaking youth from the Yukon brought a proclamation to France and read it in both official languages during a signing ceremony. To this day, Whitehorse and Lancieux still honour this bond and proudly fly the flag of their sister city once a year to mark their friendship. Robert William Service is a British poet who is especially well-known for his works about Canada. He was born January 16, 1874, in Preston and passed away September 11, 1958, in Lancieux.
Previous Years
Check out our special Anniversary messages to Lancieux, August 2015 (partly in French).
These two cities are connected through the life and work of poet Robert W. Service, a British poet especially renowned for his writings about Northern Canada. After leaving the Yukon in 1912, Service moved to France and bought a cabin in Lancieux. It is the great affection he had for these towns that still brings the sister cities of Whitehorse and Lancieux together today.
Lancieux and Whitehorse have organized several youth exchanges since 2000, when a delegation of Yukon Francophone youth read the proclamation in both official languages at the signing ceremony in Lancieux.
The City proudly flies Ushiku’s flag on the fourth Monday of June, in recognition of the strong relationship between our communities.
In 1985, Whitehorse and Ushiku established the agreement of friendship, linking the two cities. Since its inception, Whitehorse and Ushiku have established various programs to celebrate their Sister City relationship. This has consisted of yearly cultural programs to celebrate and educate on the culture, history and heritage of the respective sister city.
We will share more information about upcoming programming in later winter/early spring 2026.