June 26 to June 29: Alaska Highway, Klondike Highway, Dempster Highway: Whitehorse to Dawson City

June 26, Friday: Whitehorse

Checked email for the first time in days and uploaded text and a portion of the photos before our internet time ran out. We got out mid-morning under gray skies and went to the visitor center for info, then walked a couple of blocks to the MacBride Museum for an interesting historical exhibit of Whitehorse. The Yukon Mounties were headquartered here in Whitehorse and the cabin was included in the museum along with the original telegraph office, and information about mining, railroads and river travel.

Extinct Short Faced Bear

 We returned to the RV for lunch, accessed the courtesy visitor center WiFi from the parking lot. We decided to stay here another night and checked out the two other possible campgrounds, but found the place we stayed last night to be the best. The rain that had started at lunchtime wound down, so we went to the Klondike riverboat museum, but they remained closed because of the slippery decks. Instead, we went to the Beringia museum – excellent museum abut the land bridge between Asia and North America.

One of the interesting things they did was meld the stories passed down for thousands of years of the First Nations Peoples with the science of these old extinct creatures.  Some dealt with the creation of earth by the Crow....

The Crow

We did a little grocery shopping, and tried a steak and pizza place for dinner in oldtown Whitehorse. Restaurant was very dark with leather banquettes ala old time steak houses and the pizza was good. We returned to our campground for the night.  Near the entrance, they have quite a few old US Army military vehicles used in the construction of the Alaska Highway.

June 27, Saturday: Whitehorse

Woke to a cold (40's) clear morning. Put the furnace on and made coffee. We stopped to top off the tank in Whitehorse, our last real city until we get to Alaska.  Just past Whitehorse, we detoured off the Alaska Highway north up the Klondike Highway. This is a paved road, in so-so condition with occasional bursts of disintegrating highway that are bumpy, gravelly, and dusty. The vegetation is much closer to the road here and the road is narrower and sometimes there are no shoulders. Lake, spruce and aspen scenery with occasional peaks at mountains with a bit of snow clinging to the shadowy portions.

We arrived in Carmacks, expecting to walk a town historical tour, but it was just a sad little town.  We drove through and just snapped a few photographs of the old cabins that were used when Carmacks was a stagecoach stop between Whitehorse and Dawson City.

This was the stable for the Stagecoach horses

 A few miles north of town, we stopped at Five Finger Rapids that gave a view of the Yukon River rapids far below. I made the hike down (200+ steps plus a one mile walk) to the rapids that afforded some great views. The walk was great – first through spruce forest, then aspens and back to spruce before arriving at the river.

See that little white speck in the upper center from my viewpoint overlooking the rapids?  The RV!

The closest channel is supposed to be the safest navigation route through here.  Many miners lost their lives trying to negotiate these rapids, often in homemade rafts.

One set of stairs

A second set of stairs

I returned out of breath from climbing all those steps and we drove a few more miles to a Territorial campground on a creek. A great change from the crowded campgrounds in Whitehorse.

June 28, Sunday Klondike Highway

Woke to another clear cold morning with temps in the high 40s. Jack put the furnace on and we slept in a little longer. I made a pancakes and sausage breakfast and we got on the road about 9:30. While driving, I glimpsed a grizzly, but it was on a curve of a road with no shoulders, so it was unsafe to stop, and backup around the curve. Darn, our first grizzly sighting! I also got to see a large female moose standing on a sandbar in the middle of a wide river, but by the time we returned, she had disappeared into the trees. This is desolate country with no towns, spotty road conditions but some pretty scenery.

We made it to Dempster Corner whose only claim to fame is it is the corner of Klondike Highway and the Dempster Highway with one, unattended fuel station. We were almost out of diesel, so we spent about 15 minutes figuring out how the kiosk and pumps worked – not difficult, but very confusing at first. We filled up and turned right onto the Dempster Highway.

 My original plan way back when doing my initial planning was to drive this dirt road 400 miles north through Northwest Territories, above the Arctic Circle to the end at Inuvit on the MacKenzie Delta. I had to abandon that as they talked about the prevalence of flat tires due to the shale surface and even though we carry a spare, the recommendation was for two spares plus we would not be able to change the rear tires by ourselves anyway. The nearest town could be more than 150 miles away.... so, we decided to just drive the 45 miles up to the Tombstone Territorial Park.  Dirt road with stupendous mountain scenery.

 A gorgeous spot in a high valley surrounded by mountains. We got a campground spot on the North Fork of the Klondike River, and walked down to the visitor center for info on hikes. Returned to the RV, Jack made a fire and we sat outside until the building clouds decided to share their moisture.

Campsite in Tombstone Territorial Park

June 29, Monday: Tombstone Territorial Park to Dawson City

Woke to cold, clear skies. Had coffee and a quick breakfast and hiked the two mile North Klondike Trail that follows the river upstream near its headwaters where ice is still in the river. It was a pretty walk with views of mountains all around and lots of evidence of Caribou.

Caribou Tracks

Views from the trail

Poop Picture -- Caribou Scat

Ice still on the River

Right after I returned to the RV, a big black cloud hung out and dumped rain for about 20 minutes. Now that the dirt road had a nice sheen of mud, we drove down to the visitor center and walked part of the Beaver Pond Interpretive Trail.

Sculpture on Interpretive Trail

The trail went up between the two small humps in the center and up another steep hill on the other side

Then we drove north a few miles to a viewpoint of the valley where we had lunch. Then a short drive up to the trailhead for the Goldensides Trail. This hike was supposed to be 2 ½ miles and rated moderate, but it sure felt a lot longer and it was extremely steep in places. Great views both east and west when I got the top, but it was a bit hazy and a faint smell of smoke was in the air. We have heard that there are almost 100 fires burning through Yukon and Alaska.

View west from early part of trail

View west, including the river with ice that I  hiked to in the morning

Getting close to the top of the trail

Almost at the top looking west with ice on the river

View east from the mountain shoulder

Trail at the top

After my hike, we returned the 45 miles south on the Dempster Highway to the Klondike, turning northwest for the 25 miles to Dawson City. We got a campsite with electric, water and sewer and enjoyed lengthy showers and charged up all our computers, ipads and phones. I did laundry and made a late dinner. I was really TIRED.