“I’m stopping anybody with a pineapple between their legs,” the RCMP officer tells the car occupants, spotting one of them with the fruit.

The mood is cheerful, less so is the reason Cpl. Shawn Pollard is stopping vehicles on a cold Friday night on Hamilton Boulevard: to fight the territory’s endemic rates of drunk driving.

In 2013, the Yukon earned the not-so-honourable distinction of being the worst place in Canada for impaired driving offences, once the statistics are adjusted for the population.

That year, 386 charges were laid across the territory – more than one a day.

Today is National Impaired Driving Awareness and Enforcement Day.

Yukon RCMP have said they will be out in force today checking for impaired drivers.

It’s 7:20 p.m., Pollard and five other officers have set up a roadside checkpoint on Hamilton Boulevard, on the right lane when going to Granger from the Canada Games Centre.

They’re accompanied by four volunteers from the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

Blinking lights on the ground announce the checkpoint.

Three police cruisers’ emergency lights are also on, reverberating into the reflective vests.

Each officer is in charge of talking to a driver, checking for signs of alcohol consumption.

Roadside checkpoints happen year-round but a couple of weeks before Christmas, Whitehorse RCMP are making themselves more visible to remind people not to drink and drive.

Cars are lining up on Hamilton Boulevard. The checkpoint is creating a small traffic jam.

Drivers though are pretty co-operative, often nodding their head at the MADD volunteers, chit-chatting with the officers once they’ve checked for alcohol consumption.

At 8:15, the officers pack up to move the checkpoint’s location.

So far, they haven’t caught a single impaired driver.

It’s still early in the evening, which could explain it.

“Not necessarily, not in Whitehorse,” says Pollard.

In Whitehorse, there is no ideal time to catch impaired drivers, he says.

High rates of alcoholism means some people are constantly drinking – and driving.

At his previous posting in Carcross, he would catch of lot of impaired driving at 8 a.m., still drunk from the night before.

Pollard has been in the force for 26 years, and spent the last seven in Whitehorse.

He knows a lot about impaired driving.

“It’s perfect up here, the warm air (in the car) will blow any alcohol smell right in your face,” explains Pollard.

He has moved the checkpoint to Centennial Street in Porter Creek, parallel to the Alaska Highway.

Pollard remembers a few years ago a couple people had set up a Facebook page called “Pig Watch” to share checkpoint locations.

“It doesn’t bother me,” said Pollard about people informing each other of ongoing checkpoints.

“The more the word is getting out, the better.”

The checkpoint is fairly well hidden.

This time it’s set up to intercept cars going in both directions.

It’s about 8:30 p.m. and there isn’t too much traffic, but the officers are still vigilant.

At around 8:45 p.m. a SUV truck, a couple hundreds metres from the checkpoint, turns around.

Const. Shean Kidd jumps in his police car, catches up to the driver and pulls him over.

The driver is thought to be impaired.

Meanwhile, at the checkpoint, the officers have caught a driver without his licence.

Pollard is talking to another driver when he asks him to step out of his car.

If officers suspect a driver may be impaired, they can ask him or her to take a roadside screening test.

The screening device will give a “warning” if the blood alcohol level is between .05 and .08 grams of alcohol per 100 millilitres is found in their blood, and a “fail” if over 0.08.

The legal limit in Canada is set at .08, but drivers can be charged for less than that if they’re already impaired as everybody has different tolerance to alcohol.

If he or she is over the .08 limit, the person will be brought back to the RCMP detachment for an evidentiary test – results of the breathalyzer will be admissible in court.

The man is directed to a cruiser’s back seat.

The screening device registers a “warning.”

The man is issued a warning and a 24-hour driving suspension, while trying to figure out if friends can pick up his car.

If he can’t get his car picked up, the police will call a tow truck.

That means at least $500 of fees for towing and storing the vehicle overnight, Pollard explains.

The MADD volunteers are still there – it’s been over two hours since the operation started.

It’s only -10 C but a vicious cold wind is blowing. And unlike the officers, MADD volunteers don’t move around a lot – they’re mostly holding signs encouraging people to refrain from drinking and driving.

“We’re always trying to bring awareness of how high the stats are,” says Amanda Price, president of the local chapter.

At the courthouse on Second Avenue and Wood Street, daily dockets show what cases are scheduled for that day.

They list the name of the accused, the section of the Criminal Code related to the alleged offence and other details.

Impaired driving – section 253 – appears most days.

In Whitehorse, MADD volunteers have been coming out to roadside checkpoints for the past 10 years.

“MADD is not anti-alcohol – we’re never discouraging people from enjoying the holiday season, it’s just planning ahead,” she says.

“If you’re going to drink, don’t drive.”

Every couple of years, MADD Canada issues a report taking a global look at impaired driving across the country.

The last report didn’t even include statistics from the three territories because of how bad they were, she explains.

It’s 9:20, and Pollard decides it’s time for a dinner break.

Two officers have to stay behind – they’re waiting to wrap up the impaired driving investigation Const. Kidd started.

An impaired driving investigation can easily take two hours, Pollard confirmed.

While waiting for their food to arrive at a local restaurant, the officers chat about the worst cases they’ve encountered: twice, three times or even four times the legal limit.

In some cases, the blood alcohol levels are so high, an average person would be clinically dead if he or she were to drink that much.

But alcoholics and some others have such a high tolerance, when stopped at a roadside checkpoint, they can appear to be functioning quite well, Pollard says.

In reality, while they’re just good at keeping their state of utter inebriation invisible, they will still be suffering from slow reflexes and poor co-ordination that can induce terrible accidents.

That night, from 7 p.m. until 2 a.m., the RCMP officers laid a total of four impaired driving charges.

The officers will be back – they have to, given the situation.

“(Impaired driving) creates a lot of troubles, a lot of sad stories,” Pollard says.

“And it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.”