Week ending June 21, 2012

On Saturday morning, we drove up to Midnight Dome, a hill behind Dawson City. From the top, there are extensive views in all directions.  Here is a view of the Yukon valley as it heads toward Alaska. 

On the way down, we got some pictures of a fox on the road. 

We checked out the farmers' market, but it is too early to have any produce.  As we were walking along the dike that protects Dawson from the Yukon flooding, we saw the SS Keno on the river practicing abandoning the boat if it lost power and was swept downstream, very quickly.  They would run the boat upriver for a while, then cut the engines, letting the boat drift, then restart the paddle-wheels and head upstream again.

We drove the 96 km Hunker Creek / Bonanza Creek mining loop. This is a mainly a gravel loop, mostly not too bad in the lower valleys, but the road climbs up on a ridge between the two creek beds, along King Solomon's Dome, which is believed to be the location of the mother lode that fed gold down the creeks in all directions. This part of the road is not so much gravel as packed sand, so has a lot more potholes and ruts. The views from the top of the ridge were fantastic, with a 360 degree view for huge distances.  These views never look as impressive in a picture as they do in person. We stopped at the two main National Park Historic sites on Bonanza Creek, the Discovery Claim, and Dredge #4 to learn more about the gold rush. 

When we got back to the RV park, we filled up the truck, getting the 4 cent/liter discount for campers, but weren't able to get the discount on the fill we did when we first arrived (before we knew they offered the discount). Then I took the truck over to the car wash, to remove the calcium chloride mud that comes of the gravel in this area (where they have treated the roads to keep down the dust). The wash wouldn't start after the money was put in. It turned out that the compressor had been unplugged. By the time that was sorted out, I only had a couple of minutes left on the timer (apparently it wasn't unplugged). It took a while for the clerk to find the manager to give me some more time.

We drove back from Dawson City on Tuesday. We saw a fox crossing the highway not too long after we started, but it was moving too quickly to get a picture. The trip back to Carmacks was fairly uneventful, as we are just retracing our path here.

Wednesday morning, we were off early as we didn't unhook the truck. We drove back to Whitehorse, mostly in rain, picked up some groceries and a cigarette lighter USB adapter for the phone. Since we had no cell service since we left Whitehorse for Dawson City, we hadn't recharged it. Even leaving it at customer service in Superstore while we shopped didn't get it charged enough to use. Shortly after leaving the coverage area in Whitehorse, on our way to Kluane Park, the phone was charged enough to find out that we were out of range. The 'Fas Gas' RV Park in Haines Junction has 30 amp power, but no water or sewer. We emptied our tanks, filled up our fresh water tank and paid for one night, to be sure we could get wi-fi and satellite before we committed to longer. As I was setting up the satellite, the next door neighbour (i.e. The only other trailer in the park at the time) came out, and I asked him if he had a satellite signal. We checked his settings, and I found my dish angle need to be raised, and we wound up with a better signal than the neighbour. We chatted for a while with him about our stay in Victoria, as he is thinking of heading there for the winter. Then we paid for 4 more nights, since everything was working fine.

When we went to the Parks info center on Thursday morning, we found out that there was a blessing ceremony to officially open the new DÄ KŲ Cultural Center of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations . It also is the new home of the Kluane National Park visitor center and the Yukon Government visitor center. After enjoying the ceremony, we drove south down highway 3, and walked the Rock Glacier trail, a 1.6 km trail climbing out of the valley to the rock scree at the foot of an old glacier. There were great views of Dezadeash Lake in the valley. 

Then we stopped at Kathleen Lake on the way back. We learned that Kokanee salmon are Sockeye salmon that no longer go downstream to the ocean, but stop in a freshwater lake before going back upstream to spawn. We a short walk along the edge of the lake very quickly, because the mosquitos were quite bad, and the repellent we used on the previous walk had worn off. 

As we continued back to the campground, we encountered a mother moose with a calf on the edge of the highway. They stood on the edge of the road with the calf tucked under mother, looking out at us from the far side of her. By the time we got the camera ready, and tried to zoom in a bit, they had turned and headed down the highway. The walked along the edge a bit, but as we slowly moved toward them, the made a bee-line into the bush, and had disappeared by the time we got to the point where they headed off.