Whitehorse - Day 2

Wednesday, August 18 - We woke up to clouds again today, 50 degrees.  It rained off and on all day, and the city lost its power for a while (we didn't see any lightning, so don't know what happened).  We did several tours today.  The first one was next to the airport at the Transportation Museum, which featured the gold rush days.  They had a passenger train car, various kinds of stagecoaches, and lots of old vehicles from WWII.  Outside the museum is the "world's largest weather vane," an airplane (DC-3) mounted so perfectly on a pedestal that the slightest breeze causes it to swing around to point into the wind.  It faced different ways as we passed it during the course of the day, but we never actually say it moving.

Next we drove over to the Whitehorse Dam and Fish Ladder. This is the world's longest wooden fish ladder, and spawning salmon swim 1875 miles upriver to get back here.  Then, when they finally get here,  they still have to go up more than 15 metres (which Joe thinks is about 50 feet) of this fish ladder! Each step has a vertical baffle and a submerged opening, allowing the option of jumping over or swimming through.  Those salmon are just amazing.  They don't have a big salmon (chinook) run here, but we did get to see a few at the top of the ladder through their underwater viewing windows, and we got to watch them collect 3 (2 females and 1 male) to take to the fish hatchery.  The purpose of the fish hatchery was to compensate for the loss of downstream migrating chinook salmon fry as they passed through the turbines at the Whitehorse Rapids Generating Facility.  From the pictures of the generating facility and dam, you can see that this is the end of the road for the salmon trying to swim upstream.

They had a very interesting art display of the salmon, which I think was commemorating the 50th year of the generating station.  The first year the salmon art was provided by artists, but they opened it up the classrooms the second year.  Kaylee and Cody, we could do some of this.

(This next one is nails)

We actually got this tour in between raindrops mostly, then we stopped at the S.S. Klondike, another sternwheeler, but larger than the Keno we toured in Dawson City.  This one was completely open to tour, including the engine room and wheelhouse.

 

Joe thought he might check out the driving of this big boat, so here he is at the wheel.

But he didn't manage to get it into the water, so he waves bon voyage, and we head out to the Beringa Interpretive Centre. 

The mountains on the far side of the Yukon are very pretty, look like quilted puffs.  We are thinking about doing a riverboat cruise tomorrow, but hope for some sunshine. 

This Beringia museum is about the ice age, and the role this area (Beringia) played.  The placer miners have found a lot of ancient skeletons, bones, etc., up here when they dug up the land, especially when they dug below the permafrost, and woolly mammoths, scimitar-toothed cats, flat-faced bears, and many other prehistoric creatures roamed here from Russia, because there was land connection then.   Our gold panning consultant in Chicken, Thunder Jack, told us there were still woolly mammoths about 7 miles off the Top of the World Highway, and they even had some babies, but we really think he was living in another world anyhow.

Finally, we ended our tours for the day and headed off to the grocery store, always an event, especially in Canada where I can never figure out their pricing/measuring system.  I just pay whatever it says (and it says a lot!).  We stopped at the Ford dealer, and Joe's part for the RV came in, so that's a job for tomorrow now.  We got back to the RV and rested for a while, because we still had another event on today's agenda.  The Frantic Follies, a vaudeville-type show that started at 8:30.

The show was very entertaining, a mixture of cancan dancing, singing, jokes and skits, very well done.  But it kept us out past our bedtime.  We got back from that about 10:30 or so, a really full day in Whitehorse.

Whitehorse - Day 1

Tuesday, August 17 - We got an early start this morning and headed toward Whitehorse.  Right out of our (very nice) campground was a photo op for the Five Finger Rapids on the Yukon.  We had seen pictures of this when we toured the Keno sternwheeler in Dawson City, a tough river navigation area.  Very pretty, though.

I even got Collins out of that driver's seat and up to the observation deck to see this view!

Actually, all 6 of us got out for this.  As we drove on, we passed lots of mountains, creeks and rivers.  We went through a wetlands area that is part of the Nordenskiold River system and is an important part of the migration route for many waterfowl, including trumpeter and tundra swans and ruddy ducks (whatever they are).  There were supposed to be beaver, muskrat, moose, mink and fox in the area, but of course we saw nothing.  Oh, I take that back.  Collins saw a dead black bear cub along the side of the road, but the rest of us didn't even see that.

It was all very pretty, with little ponds and marshes, and I probably will have a crick in my neck tonight from looking for moose, to no avail!  There really should have been at least one moose in one of these ponds.

We are now in elk country too.  David thought he heard a moose bugling about 3:00 a.m., somewhere around the campground, but it could have been elk.  It also could have been David dreaming again.  He had one wild dream a while back about bears coming into the camper and him trying to shove them out with the broom.  It's possible that he's dreaming about moose now.

Nevertheless, there is a herd of about 50 elk who live here year-round.  We went through some elk hunting areas, and some "buffer areas" (whatever that means). 

Our target this morning was to make the Braeburn Lodge, with "world famous cinamon buns," because we had planned our breakfast intake around this treat.  We got there about 10:30, and they were huge.  We split one amongst the six of us!

As we got nearer to Whitehorse, we started seeing some really nice lakes.  The area around the first one, Little Fox Lake, was part of a forest fire in 1998, and the burn-out was still very evident.

Fishing is supposed to be good near the islands, and it had lots of islands.  This was a pretty good-sized lake, but then we next came to Fox Lake (as opposed to Little Fox Lake), and it went on for miles.  It is probably 3-4 times the size of Roosevelt Lake, at least, and had a very pretty shoreline. 

The leaves are just beginning to turn up here, and the mountainsides were lovely with different shades of browns, greens, yellows and oranges.  I'm sure my picture doesn't begin to capture that beauty because it was too far away, but even along side the road were pretty flowering plants (weeds).

Just before we got to the intersection of the Alaska Highway (we are now leaving the Yukon Highway), we crossed the Takhini River, a beautiful emerald-covered river.  There's a Takhini Hot Springs here, about 6 miles out of town, so we may need to soak in that before we leave this area.

We got into a campground here, then Joe and I headed into town to the Ford dealer to order a part for the RV (it is supposed to be in tomorrow around 4:00 from Edmonton).  Collins found what he needed for his water heater, so he got that running, and David has a service appointment for his truck for Friday.  Joe and I drove through town a little bit, it a very nice town, and stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch.  They DO NOT know how to fix Mexican food up here.  It was not very good.  So back to cooking in the RV for dinner, I guess.  We have lots of things to do here, so we should be busy for the next few days.  But we do have internet and phone service again, so we can be in touch with the outside world from here.

Carmacks to Whitehorse

Monday, August 16 -Today we have to remember Elvis, since this is the anniversary of his death, so I hope you all are wearing black.  We left Dawson City this morning, and it has finally sunk in that we have left Alaska. I have mixed feelings about leaving the state.  We've seen and done lots of things, and had a great time with our traveling companions, but it has been a long time since we've seen our kids and grandkids.  We are still hoping that John and Bridgette can meet us in Yellowstone (although it is looking very unlikely), but we have missed the entire summer with our grandkids.  They started school last Wednesday.

We've been able to do most of the things we had talked about doing in Alaska, and lots of things we didn't even know to do.  Certainly Prudhoe Bay was a biggie for us and Collins.  Catching some halibut was high on Mazie's list.  Collins and Marilyn got to show Marilyn's sister part of this great state, and they really enjoyed that.  Collins got to fish for salmon.  We got to drive down many of the side roads that we had to just drive past on our other two trips, and we got to spend a lot of time exploring the Kenai Peninsula.  The airshow in Anchorage was awesome, and we just lucked into that.  We saw a bear eating salmon, and a bear and cub trying to get into a tent.  And we made it to Chicken!  The gold panning was fun, even though the big nugget never showed up in our pans.  We wouldn't have wanted to miss a single day of this time in Alaska.  But we will never say that we would never come back here.  I guess our love affair with Alaska continues.

Our scenery driving through the Yukon Territory changed during the course of the day, but we still had beautiful mountains (not to climb) and rivers to cross.  Collins and Marilyn went out to tour the dredge in Dawson City this morning, and I took the opportunity to try to clean up the RV from our dusty drive across the Top of the World Highway, so it was about noon before we got on the road.  We stopped for a break at Moose Creek Lodge, but there was not much else on this road as far as civilization goes.

They do like their moose here, but we have not seen any wildlife at all today.  John and Bridgette, wouldn't all your puppie dogs like a house like this!  Think of all the chewing they could do on the moose antlers.

They had a cache that Joe thought they might have used to smoke fish.  The outside looked a lot like the one at the Jack London museum.

And you can see that you can make a moose out of about anything.

We crossed the Stewart River bridge at Stewart Crossing, barely a wide spot in the road.  The "Silver Trail" goes out of here, a 70-mile side road that goes through the silver mining country, but we didn't take it.  Maybe next time.

Then we came up on the Pelly River bridge, which was tented up for painting.  They had it down to one lane, but we did get through it.  Both of these rivers flow into the Yukon.

We found a government campground about 15 miles before Carmacks, and we pulled in there.  It doesn't have any hook-ups (these government campgrounds are like state campgrounds in the U.S.), but it was a very nice, shaded campground with firepits and picnic tables. 

 The Silver Streak is hidden in the trees to the left of the Brundiges' rig.

The last two days have been in the 80s (hot, hot), so we sat outside for a while.  Joe has found a new career since his gold panning pimp days are probably over.  He is now the Great White Hunter (small game only, he says).  He's had two kills so far, both bees, but he's still waiting on his first mosquito.  Mazie bought one of these weapons way back in Soldonta, and he's thought he needed one ever since.  We found him one in Dawson City, so he's busy now!

Sunday in Dawson City

Sunday, August 15 - We had decided to spend another day here, so I did laundry first thing, then we headed out.  We went back downtown and walked through the art festival tents, then walked back along the river.  We went into the General Store again, looking for a donut, and found a new vegetable there.

They told us it was like a broccoli/cauliflower combination and had a real buttery taste.  We didn't buy any but it looked pretty good.

Then we headed out to the mud bog races, not really knowing how this would work.  We had to walk in a little ways, and then find a rock to sit on.  I had the best rock, it was in the shade.  It got up to 82 here today, pretty hot for us who are now used to wearing raincoats all the time.

They probably had about 24 vehicles in the races, and a pretty good crowd on the hillside.  Here's the line-up.

The starting official came out wearing white shirt, white pants, red tie, and orange boots.  His pants were not white for very long, though.

Some of the trucks came out completely mudded over. 

We only lasted about 45 minutes after it actually started.  Joe's rock was too hard, Dave's was too cold.  And Joe thought it was lunch time.

We had lunch at the Jack London Hotel and Grill (pricey), and then stopped in at the Palace Grand Theatre.  We missed the tour but did get to walk inside and see the stage, the padded seats, and the box seats in the balcony.  It was easy to imagine grand performances on stage with a full house.

Then we drove out to the dredge on Bonanza Creek.  We got to tour this one, and it was quite different from the one we toured in Fairbanks in 2004.  This was the largest wooden hull dredge in North America.  One of the world greatest gold rushes took place in this area, and it is rich in history of gold mining.  Mining in all its forms remains the number one industry in the Yukon Territory. 

We had planned on trying our gold panning luck again just down from this dredge, but after our tour guide told us that most of the gold found in this area was the size of brown sugar, we decided it wasn't worth another night of back pain.  We did drive down to the creek and there were some other fools out there.

On our drive back from the dredge, Joe spotted a beaver pond that he had thought he had seen driving out, and lo and behold, a beaver slid in the water just as we stopped.  We watched him for a minute or two, but we didn't see him chew up any trees, so we drove on.

We ended the evening by going back for another show at the gambling hall (Collins, Marilyn, Mazie and me), but it turned out to be a repeat performance of the first show from last night, so it wasn't quite as exciting.  And I lost most of my winnings from the night before.  Guess we should have stayed at camp like Joe and David.