Week ending June 15, 2012

We took Friday morning to do catch up on laundry, and to wash the gravel off the back of the trailer from the several gravel stretches on the road from Watson Lake. After lunch we drove the few km into Whitehorse to get some groceries and do the tour of the SS Klondike, the paddle-wheeler that used to carry supplies down the Yukon River to Dawson City, and then bring the silver ore back up the river to Whitehorse from the Keno area east of Mayo.

We were going to go to Haines Junction, next to Kluane National Park on Saturday, but the weather forecast looked better on Sunday, so instead we decided to do some things around Whitehorse. In mid-morning, once it had warmed up a bit, we went over to Miles Canyon, which is on the Yukon River close to the RV park. It is a nice little narrow basalt canyon with walking trails on both sides. We did about 1 km downstream to Shwatka Lake, and back, and then had lunch on a rock looking over the canyon.

After lunch we went into town to the visitor center, where we found out they didn't have a self-guided walking tour of Whitehorse, because the heritage museums in town have a monopoly on that. We also found out, overhearing a conversation with the people in front of us, that the road between Watson Lake and Teslin Lake had washed out for about 200 meters on Thursday, sometime after we had driven that route. They figure it will take at least a week before the road is passable again. In the meantime, they will have to start flying groceries into town. We walked down main street, and looked in a few of the shops there. Then we stopped for a drink at Tim's, picked up some nuts and washers to tighten up the rubber bumpers on the trailer hitch, and bought some ice cream. Then back to the RV park to put the nuts on the hitch bumpers, and enjoy the sun.

The weather was good on Sunday, as predicted, so we headed to Haines Junction to check out Kluane Park. The valley going from Whitehorse was fairly level, with foothills on both sides. After a couple of hours of driving, with a few stretches of gravel surface similar to the road from Watson Lake, we stopped at the park visitor center to pick up some information on hiking in the park. Most of the hikes are several hours, and / or an hour or two further down the highway, but we did a 4 km walk next to town along a small river. The mountain range is quite spectacular, as it rises in a wall. 

We watched an interesting movie which was just made about the park, showing some of the scenery from the interior of the park, the wildlife of the park and the relationship which the local natives have with the land. We checked out one of the RV parks, and may return with the trailer on our way back from Dawson City to do some longer hikes. 

Monday morning, we managed to get the cell phone tethering to work, with some difficulty and paid some bills and checked our accounts. Then we headed toward Dawson City. The hills along this route are quite scenic, and there are several lakes close to the highway. We stopped at a viewpoint, which had a short interpretive trail describing an extensive forest fire in 1998. Then we had to pick up a world famous cinnamon bun from Braeburn Lodge. This  bun was huge. The Milepost guide said each one was enough for 4 people, but that didn't mean 4 seniors. However, we still think the Tetsa River cinnamon buns had the best flavour. We decided to stop at Carmacks for the night, since it would be fairly late if we went all the way to Dawson City and stopped to see anything along the way. The little RV Park behind the Hotel Carmacks was fine for a one-night stop. However, our site didn't have a line for satellite, and the wi-fi was provided through a 3^rd party, so we did without both for one night.

On getting started Tuesday morning, we found out that our little campground only had laundromat and showers, no washrooms, and even these were not open until 8:00 AM (we checked at 7:55). After driving down the road for a while, we stopped at the Five Finger Rapids viewpoint. We couldn't get to the interpretive signs, because the platform they are on is closed. However, we were able to take the short walk down to the river, starting with 212 (or 219, according to Milepost) step stairway. 

We stopped for snacks at Pellee River Crossing, and switched drivers. Joan decided we needed to keep track of who drove which sections, as the road is a bit narrow with rough breaks, so the driver can't spend too much time enjoying scenery. We pulled into Dawson City about 3:00 in the afternoon. We had decided to stay at the only RV park near town that didn't have reviews, as the reviews on the other two were not good. We only booked for one night, to make sure that we had decent wi-fi, and could get a satellite signal. The manager put is in a spot that worked fine for both, so we paid for 6 more nights. The next door neighbours weren't pleased, as we had to move their table a few feet toward their trailer to get it off our site. They couldn't understand why we were put right next to them when there were many other vacant sights available.

We went to downtown Dawson City on Wednesay morning to do the walking tour of the historic buildings. On the way into town, on the bridge across the mouth of the Klondike River, we had to stop while a confused deer came up one side of the bridge, looked around a bit, then crossed the bridge, and went into the woods on the far side of the bridge. The historic tour started at the museum, so we looked at the exhibits in the museum. They have done a very good job. After about an hour of going through the first gallery, we continued on the rest of the tour, which included the main government buildings, several churches, and the cabins / houses of the three main authors of the Klondike era, Robert Service, Jack London and, more recently, Pierre Berton. Then we returned to the museum and went through the rest of the exhibits, and wrapped it up with the Chechako presentation in a tent on the lawn of the museum, where a couple of entertainers gave a bit of background on the gold mining days and answered questions from the audience about the era.

On Thursday morning, we went back into Dawson, and spent 3 hours checking out all of the shops and buying some souvenirs and groceries. We heard from one lady that the deer we saw yesterday is fairly rare in this area, and a tour driver that we met at the Diamond Tooth Gerties show was shocked that we had seen a deer. We won a bit of money on the penny slots waiting for the show to start, and enjoyed the singing and dancing. After the show, we got a lot of advice from the tour driver about which drives we should do in the area. 

Friday was our day trip to Tombstone Territorial Park, along the Dempster Highway. It is a very scenic good gravel road up the North Fork of the Klondike River through the Ogilvie Mountains, across the continental divide and down the Blackstone River. In the process you go three 3 ecological zones, starting with the boreal forest in the Klondike valley, proceeding to sub-alpine at the head of the river, and then into Arctic tundra in the Blackstone valley. We saw a black bear around km. 61 of the drive, about 10 km from the interpretive center near the summit. It took a quick look at us before heading into the bush so we couldn't get a picture. The interpretive center has a lot of interesting information about the area, and has been built to have minimal impact on the environment. We took a short walk from the campground along the river to an ice sheet that gets formed every winter. The first layer of ice freezes in the low areas next to the river, and then more water flows onto it, forming many layers of ice. The sheet eventually thaws all the way through by late summer.  

We got a picture of Tombstone Mountain on our way back, as it was clearer then.  It is the sharp little peak way at the back in the middle of the picture.