At 20 years old, Marlene Sudeyko was doing office work at an ad agency in Vancouver.

A friend had just moved up to the Yukon, and encouraged her to follow along.

"I had access to all sorts of newspapers, including the Whitehorse Star, and I saw the wages,” Sudeyko said in an interview this week. "They looked good.”

So off she went, buying a one-way ticket.

"It was just for the sense of adventure,” she said.

It was supposed to be a two-year stop in her life.

That was 60 years ago.

"So many people here have stories like that,” she says with a laugh.

Now, after so many decades in the territory, she is moving to Ontario to be closer to family members.

Friends held a tea in honour of the long-time Yukoner on Wednesday at the Golden Age Centre.

The young Sudeyko took a job with the Canadian Armed Forces the day she arrived in the territory and moved right away into The Barracks, which still stand in Takhini.

Within two years, she was married to Peter. A Yukoner at heart, "he never would have left,” she says.

The plan to only live in the Yukon for a short time had flown out the window.

"We met at a party,” she says, pausing for a moment.

"There were lots of parties like that back then. I mean, I'm sure there still are; I just wouldn't be aware of them anymore.”

After getting married at the Old Log Church in Whitehorse, the couple raised four children in the Yukon.

"It was a very simple life back then; I knew where they were all the time, if they needed anything, there was a whole community.”

It was that sense of community that became integral to both her life and the life of her family.

"I look back at all the friends I have made here. Some of them have moved away, but I still see them sometimes. When I do, we pick up right where we left off,” she said.

Peter died eight years ago, and her grown children have all moved south.

"I was here by myself for awhile, but you realize there's something missing, and that something is family,” she said of her decision to move.

Moving to the Toronto area means she will have to cultivate a new social life. She says she'll miss her friends and "knowing my way around the neighbourhood.”

During her 60 years North of 60, Sudeyko says she's never regretted the decision her younger self made to take the plunge and take on the challenge.

It's something she would recommend to today's young people looking to explore their country and start their own story in the North.

"You'd come up to a different life now, for sure,” she said. "I think there's still a lot here to offer young people.”

It has certianly been an adventure.