A magnitude 5.0 earthquake last Saturday night near Haines, Alaska, was barely felt in Whitehorse and Haines Junction.

Seismologist Taimi Mulder of the Geological Survey of Canada said this morning from her office in Sidney, B.C., that staff received a handful of calls from Whitehorse about residents feeling extremely light shaking at 9:32 p.m.

Damage typically starts when earthquakes reach a magnitude 5.5 or greater, Mulder explained.

Even for those who were within 10 to 20 kilometres of the epicentre, she said, there may have been objects falling off the shelves or lamps swaying, but you would not expect to see damage in homes constructed to building code standards.

The shaker occurred about 75 kilometres southwest of Klukwan, Alaska, in a region where temblors are common.

It was in that general area that magnitude 6.2 and 6.3 earthquakes occurred on May 1, 2017.

They shook the southern Yukon, causing structural damage in a number of buildings and prompting engineering assessments of bridges and such.

Mulder said last Saturday’s epicentre was about 200 kilometres from Whitehorse, compared to about 140 kilometres for the 2017 quake.

The number of light aftershocks through Saturday and into Sunday were typical, and they’ll likely continue into this week, she said.

Officials with the Yukon government and the City of Whitehorse said this morning they’ve not had to undertake any special measures as a result of the quake.