Yukon emergency responders get their big moment on new reality-TV show

The Yukon — and Dawson City in particular — has been featured in many popular reality-TV shows in recent years, including Yukon Gold, Still Standing, and Yukon for Sale, all of them showing what it's like to live and work in the territory.

Now there's another show to add to the list: Yukon Rescue, premiering Thursday on the History Channel and StackTV.

The Yukon-filmed docuseries follows emergency response teams in Dawson, as well as in other Yukon communities such as Carmacks, Whitehorse, and Watson Lake, as they respond to calls while also dealing with extreme weather conditions, wildfires, and other natural disasters.

For a year, camera crews followed members of the Dawson City Fire Department, as well as local conservation officers, Yukon First Nations Wildfire crews, avalanche specialists and others to get an inside look at the realities of working these tough jobs in the North.

Dawson City Fire Chief Mike Masserey said when he was first approached to be on the show, he and his team were sceptical.

"What we do is an essential service, and if they want to put it on film we wanted to put it on as we do it," Masserey said. "Not as make-believe."

Masserey said there were some kinks to work out in the beginning.

"Of course, there are some incidents that we go to that are nobody's business," he said. "Sitting down with these camera people and saying that... they understood."

Volunteer firefighter Owen Kemp-Griffin is featured on the show alongside Masserey and the Dawson department. He said it was a really great opportunity to showcase the important work they do.

"We're all very proud of the work we do," he said. "It's exciting to shine a light on the people that volunteer their time to support the community when they're calling for help."

Kemp-Griffin said his remote town can be described as "the end of the road," and so he's looking forward to providing viewers with a chance to see how resilient the community is.

"It comes with its unique challenges to deal with emergencies," Kemp-Griffin said. "There's vehicle incidents that we go to that are 200 kilometres away. How do you prepare for that? How do you get prepared for driving for 200 kilometres at –40, to go answer a call?

"Those are interesting challenges and I think that's what the show wanted to showcase, is the particular conditions that the Yukon presents for average people that decide to join a volunteer fire department. We're just people trying to help."

Masserey and Kemp-Griffin said they've had a chance to watch a bit of the show ahead of the premiere and they both said they are extremely happy with how it's turned out.