Bonnie Cooper and her partner had just been woken up by a wrong-number phone call when shortly afterward, a strange whoosh! pierced the still air, seconds before the house shook.

Cooper said this morning she's felt earthquake tremors before but finds herself somewhat at a loss to describe the odd sound shortly before the tremor occurred early this morning.

"It sounded like wind rushing up the chimney ... or fire going up the chimney," Cooper told the Star. "And all of a sudden, the house shook, and it was quite a shake."

Seismic records indicate an earthquake occurred at 2:07 a.m., about 45 or 50 kilometres from Carmacks, but quite a bit closer to the Minto-area mine.

Earthquake seismologist Alison Bird of Natural Resources Canada said she is somewhat at a loss when told of Cooper's recollection, and is not quite sure what to make of it.

There is a primary wave from an earthquake that arrives in advance of the sheer wave, which causes the side-to-side shaking and the subsequent damage, she explained.

"Most people describe the earthquake as a truck or a train coming down the road," she said from her Sidney, B.C. office, adding she's never heard of the initial wave described as a whoosh! sound.

Cooper's partner had gone outside after loading up the woodstove. He also heard the unusual sound, as well as an abnormal amount of ice cracking on the nearby Yukon River.

Cooper said he wasn't as interested in the tremor when he came back inside, but was also intrigued by the sound before the shaking.

Others in Carmacks - where local temperatures have been recorded at -53 C this morning - also reported feeling the quake, as did employees of the Minto mine.

Mine manager Ian Burzens said he was sleeping and didn't feel the tremor, though some of the employees on site did.

"It was a minor tremor some time after 2 a.m. that some of the residents felt and many did not."

The epicentre, he said, is believed to be about 10 or 15 kilometres away.

There was no damage whatsoever, Burzens added.

Records show the location of the earthquake is no stranger to lighter seismic activity.

While there are no current records showing the quake's measuring greater in the immediate area, records show literally hundreds of quakes measuring five or less on the Richter scale.

Bird pointed out the epicentre of this morning's quake is located almost in the middle between the Denali and Tintina faults, which are constantly pulling and pushing against each other.

As a result, torsion builds up in the area between the two fault lines, creating seismic activity, she said.

Bird said while B.C. is Canada's most active province for earthquakes, the Yukon isn't far behind, though activity is also common in the mountainous regions of eastern Canada, Bird pointed out.

"It is not surprising to find earthquakes anywhere in the Yukon, because it is a fairly active region, and the cause is that stress is distributed all over the region."