The Whitehorse Heritage Festival, like many such community festivals, was planning a "grand march" with national flags to represent the local ethnic communities.

The ARVN got wind of the plan and started a well-organized and intensive campaign well ahead of time that included, among other things, letters to the editor in the local newspapers. The information in the press release was a "false flag" that concealed their real concern and plan:

VCF. (2008). 'No Communist Flag at the Whitehorse Heritage Festival'. [Press Release] 2008-07-30. Archived at: this link and this link (English version).^[174]

English version^[174]

Le, H.H.. (2008). Letter from Vietnam Embassy in Canada to Whitehorse mayor and WHF. [Letterhead: Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Ottawa]. Document collection - archived at: this link^[175]

Oke, C. (2008). 'Vietnamese flag furor recalls a bitter exodus'. Yukon News, Whitehorse. 2008-07-31. Available at: this link (Accessed: 2021-07-15).^[74]

ARVN. (2009). ARVN handout at WHF 2008 protest. Archived at: this link^[172] pure propaganda.

After the event, the ARVN celebrated their "great victory". This story makes it exceptionally clear that the whole thing was a military operation of the ARVN, engineered by their own propaganda specialists.

Trieu, H. (2008). 'Yellow flag victory: the flag flew over a Yukon City!' Vietbao.com Garden Grove, California 2008-08-08. Available at: this link (Accessed: 2021-07-25).^[173]

Little Saigon News Version^[173]

English translation^[173]

ARVN. (2008). Follow up to WHF 2008 protest distributed on Yahoo groups. Document collection. Archived at: this link and this link (translation).^[235]

English Translation^[235]

Threats to organizer followed (some came by phone so they couldn't be tracked - including to family in Vietnam):

ARVN. (2008). Yahoo group posting with threat. Document collection. Archived at: this link and this link (translation).^[176]

Emailed threat (Translation)^[176]

Document collection. (2008). 'WHF Organizer's Chronology'. Archived at: this link^[237]

The event overall included about 20 representative ethnic groups. There was only one Vietnamese participant, who happened to be part of the organizing board. The other members were quite shocked when their flag march turned out to be so political, and they were not really prepared to deal with it. It illustrates the great lengths that the ARVN will go to to prevent even one person in a small remote town from representing Vietnamese culture without displaying a yellow flag.

There was no flag march in next year's festival.

The festival was held in a theatre with no "grand march" so the yellow flag march moved to the local Canada Day parade. The ARVN nevertheless attended the theatre event and surreptitiously filmed all the evidence of "communist" activity, which they define as anything that looks like Vietnamese culture with no yellow flags present.

Nguyen, H.G & Nguyen, P.V. (2009). 'Announcement for the friends and relatives who support Yukon'. CaliToday.com. June 1, 2009. Archived at: this link and this link (translation).^[238]

English translation^[238]

Kenney, J. (2009). 'Letter from Jason Kenney to WHF'. [Letterhead: Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, no subject line]. Document collection: this link^[492]

ARVN. (2009). 'Vietnamese Canada Day Parade in Whitehorse, Yukon July 1, 2009'. YouTube. Available at: this link July 5, 2009 (Accessed: 2021-07-15).^[239]

Translation of YouTube captions^[239]

The local's campaign that ended the Canada day nonsense in Whitehorse.

Trieu, H. & Nguyen, G.H. (2010). 'Invitation to yellow flag parade in Whitehorse 2010'. www.vietland.net (defunct). Archived at: this link and this link (translation).^[240]

English translation^[240]

Document collection.. (2010). 'Whitehorse campaign to stop city from accepting yellow flag 2010'. Document collection, Archived at: this link^[241]

Fact sheet^[241] sent to all local media outlets

The ARVN "troops" arrived from California with their uniforms, expecting to join the parade. At the last minute they were informed that there was to be no yellow flags and no military march in the parade. Nevertheless, all the people from California wore their yellow flag sashes and the military uniforms walked alongside, so they were not actually marching "in" the parade.

They convinced a few local women to participate -- you can tell who they are in the photographs -- they are the ones NOT wearing yellow flag sashes -- they refused the offer.

The ARVN never returned to Whitehorse after that. In any case, the local event organizer decided to concentrate on moon festival events after that and none of the ARVN wanted to travel to Whitehorse at that time of year. When it became evident that the ARVN was not going to show up again, many more of the local Vietnamese began participating in the event and it became a true display of Vietnamese culture.

As the following stories illustrate, this "victory" for culture was probably only possible because of Whitehorse's remote location. The ARVN tactics depend on being able to gather supporters from many locations because there are not enough in any one location, especially in the west.