From roots to ribbons: A family’s beloved spruce becomes Whitehorse’s Main Street Christmas tree

By Virginie Ann

Once upon a time, in the faraway northern community of Elsa, Yukon, a young boy was given a tiny spruce sapling.

His family nestled it into the earth, and together they watched as the young tree stretched toward the endless Yukon sky.

Seasons passed, and the tree grew, so loved by the family that when they eventually journeyed south to Whitehorse, they couldn’t bear to leave it behind. 

“I was only 12 at the time. My parents wanted to bring all these trees from the cabin to the new house to give them kind of a feeling [of] that sense of connection still from the cabin,” Paul Scholz recalled. 

“So they took the sapling. They had a couple of lodgepole pines, and a couple of the spruces that they brought with them and transplanted them in the yard. And they put the sapling in the driveway.”

It is there, in Porter Creek, one of Whitehorse’s neighborhoods, that the tree became part of every chapter of Scholz’s life. 

“I grew up in this house,” Scholz said.

Scholz moved away in the 1990s when he joined the army, but he soon returned to Whitehorse and the house in Porter Creek.

Scholz bought the house from his parents. And there, in that familiar front yard, beside the tree that had grown up with him, he and his wife, Kerri Ann Scholz, built a family of their own.

“The tree, it watched our kids grow up,” Kerri Ann said. 

“Over the years, we’ve done so many things in the front yard. We’ve played games … My parents had their 45th wedding anniversary and we had a big party in the front yard. So the tree kind of watched over us.”

Kerri Ann speaks of the tree like it’s an old friend. Though she’s not sure exactly how tall it is.  

“It’s way taller than me, and it’s a really nice spruce tree that actually has a really nice shape to it,” she said.

The tree has few cones because a mischievous squirrel spirited them all away a few years ago.

“I can show you the video of that. It was so funny because we’re like, ‘what’s going on?’ But it’s good. I think it’s a really nice, perfect Christmas tree,” Kerri Ann added with a laugh. 

“You’d almost think of it as a family heirloom.”

Now, you may wonder, if the family cherished their tree so dearly, why would they ever let it go?

Because this is, after all, a story about how a humble spruce ended its life as the most majestic of trees, the biggest Christmas tree in Whitehorse. 

Going out with ‘a nice sparkly bang’

The truth about why the beloved spruce met its end is a little silly. 

“It’s starting to get too big and it’s starting to cause issues with the fence,” Kerri Ann said. 

“Why not have it go out in a nice sparkly bang?”

And who better to provide that “sparkly bang” than the Department of Official Christmas Trees (known through most of the year as the city’s parks department)?

Each year, parks workers set out on a quest to find the most beautiful tree in all the land, one worthy of becoming the city’s official Christmas tree, prominently displayed downtown at the foot of Main Street. 

“It starts from finding the right tree. I know our crew are very picky about trying to find the right tree and making it look good on Main Street,” Kim Schlosser, the department supervisor, said. 

Schlosser might not be Ms. Claus, but as the department supervisor, she knows what to look for.

“We like to try to get trees that need to come down anyway for some reason, whether it’s impacting local infrastructure or somebody’s property or it’s just on its way out. It’s lived its life,” she said. 

“So we’re targeting those sorts of trees, mostly spruce trees. They’re just nicely shaped for the Christmas tree.”

Once Scholz’s family tree was chosen, its days were numbered.

And it is here that our story finds its end.

That very tree, tended to by one family across generations, now ends its life on Main Street, in Whitehorse, as the grandest of them all. It became a gift rooted in memory, celebrated with lights and ribbons, and shared with the whole city. 

The Scholz’s tree was lit up on Main Street after the Santa Claus parade on Dec. 5. (Kerri Ann Scholz)

“It was given to me and then it followed me here through the actions of my parents. So it’s a generational tree,” Scholz said.

“I think it’s nice to say it was mine and now it’s everybody’s.” 

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