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If you’ve never seen a fat bike, picture a mountain bike with much wider tires, which are often studded to better grip the snow and ice. They’re built to roll over pretty much anything and provide an impressive amount of traction and control.

Powering them takes more effort than your average mountain bike, but the payoff is worth it. Fat bikes open up the winter landscape to exploration, allowing you to see familiar trails in a different way, and blaze new ones in areas that aren’t accessible in summer.

You can rip down trails lined with hoarfrost-covered trees as the light turns winter pink in the sky. You can bike across frozen lakes, as many cyclists do on Fish Lake. And you can ride down snowy streets to your favourite dinner spot without skidding out.

My friends and I flew in on an early-January night, landing at the same time as a cold snap that dragged temperatures into the -20s. Fortunately, we came prepared, with lots of warm and breathable layers, good gear and a flexible attitude. We knew that dialing those in would help us respond to the conditions. Plus, the effort of pedalling would warm us up pretty quickly.

We picked up our bikes from , which rents regular and electric fat bikes, along with helmets and lights, and is conveniently located in the same building as Midnight Sun Coffee Roasters, perfect for pre- or post-ride caffeination. Then we headed toward the Yukon River, which flows through this city of around 31,000 people, to ride the riverfront trail toward the .

The Klondike was one of the many steam-powered sternwheelers that brought food and supplies to Whitehorse in the 1940s and ’50s. It’s now a national historic site. As we rode, the snow and ice on the surface of the flowing Yukon sublimated in the cold weather, creating an impressive amount of steam off the river. My breath fogged up my glasses, forcing me to ride blind. And my eyelashes flash-froze — my first application of Whitehorse mascara.

Wanting to get out on some of the mountain bike trails that are groomed for winter riding, we headed to Grey Mountain, which offers postcard views of the snow-dusted city. We rode with a Whitehorse resident and cross-country skier who recently took up fat biking as his second winter sport — and learned that he was now on the bike more than his skis. Fat biking is addictive like that: smack in the centre of a Venn diagram of challenging, exhilarating and accessible.

The trail rose gently up for the first half, perfect for warming our engines, and then turned into a flowy downhill for the second half. I spent the beginning constantly surprised that I wasn’t crashing out; fat bikes seem like they’ll be hard to handle, but they’re surprisingly easy to manoeuvre, even on twisty trails.

It was hard to hear anything beyond the sound of our wheels crunching the snow, but every time we stopped, I could feel a pure calm, save for our panting breath — just us and the breeze and trees. And then we were off again, flowing downhill past porcupine-eaten spruces and a gallery of animal prints in the snow.

When I visited, the sun in Whitehorse rose around 11 a.m., and by the time it fully made it above the Yukon Intermountain Ranges, it was close to noon. It was back down again five hours later. Our strategy was to make the most of the daylight, and plan cosy meals and activities for the dark.

One of our favourites was a visit to , where we learned glass-blowing and made our own vases and paperweights. My breath, which to date had only served to fog my glasses, was more useful here. Afterwards, we headed over to , the small café and taphouse next door, for brunch and mimosas served in glassware from the studio.

When we were making our wish list for this trip, riding under the aurora borealis was at the top of mine. The northern lights come out often in Whitehorse, and there are some stunning photos of cyclists riding through epic light shows. But sadly, the aurora is my travel Polkaroo. When I’m in the north, it’s not. According to , your “best chance” is visiting during the first few weeks of winter, and taking the scenic route toward Fish Lake or Chadburn Lake Road.

Our trip coincided with cloudy night skies, but there were so many other views and thrills, it didn’t really matter. On Mount McIntyre, Whitehorse’s main cross-country ski area, we wound our way through the forest on narrow trails dotted with teeter-totters and A-frames. In the neighbourhood of Hillcrest, we ripped around on a single track and tried to hone our bike handling.

Whitehorse is the kind of place where you stop when you pass someone on the trail because you probably know them — and we did! Kate White, a mountain bike coach and an NDP MLA, rode up behind me and gave me some biking tips, and we almost felt like one of the locals.

We followed this up with a beer at , and a sit in the pools and steam rooms at , which is fed by the Takhini Hot Springs. And we saved plenty of trails for a return trip.