July 3, 2015, Friday: Dawson City

The first bank

Woke to clearing skies with a little fog—no wait, when I stepped outside, I realized it wasn't fog, but smoke! Drats and heavens to Murgatroid! After breakfast, we drove downtown to take a walking tour of “Dawson City – Then and Now.” Two Canada Parks interpreters did a great job of covering Dawson History while visiting historic buildings and comparing it to present day life in Dawson.

Inside the other bank that has been preserved

Inside the Red Feather Saloon

The "Kissing" buildings

Parks Canada kept these as is to show what happens if buildings constructed directly on the permafrost

The ferry that would take us across the Yukon River

The smoke was extremely heavy, irritating eyes and throats, and the word is the smoke is coming up the river valley from Alaska. The weather above the smoke was mostly sunny and no chance of rain, so we decided to go on a drive the Top of the World. We could wait out the weather, but there was no point it trying to wait out fires that are hundreds of miles away. So, off to the end of town to the ferry landing that will take us across the Yukon River to the start of the Top of the World Highway. Although we could see better than the last time we drove this road in lightly misting rain, the smoke wiped out the long valley views the road for which the road is famous as it travels along the crest of mountains for about 100 miles.

Arriving the other side of Yukon River

Dawson City has interesting "thanks for visiting" and "welcome" three-dimensional signs

Top of the World Highway with steep drop off on left

Everything fades to haze with the smoke in the air

 The Top of the World ends at the junction with the Taylor Highway. We went through American customs without a hassle and hooray, arrived back in the USA, entering Alaska mid-afternoon, gaining another hour (four hours difference from home). Surprisingly, the smokey haze lessened the further we went, but the smell, irritation and hazy skies are still here.

The Taylor Highway is also scenic, although for miles and miles there are remnants of burnt forests from massive fires caused by lightening in 2004 that wiped out over 6 million acres. Summer forest are common in Alaska and it is common to have hundreds burning at the same time.

No guardrails anywhere

We stopped in famous Chicken. It is called a community because it is too small for a town or village with less than 50 residents in summer and 3-4 in winter. It had been (and still is in a limited way) a gold rush town and the story is they were going to call it Ptarmigan, but didn't know how to spell it, so just called it Chicken. There are three businesses competing for travelers. Each has a gift shop and cafe and two have RV parks and cabins.

The third offers free overnight parking next to their cafe. This cafe advertised their superior chicken soup and chicken pot pie – two of Jack's favorites. So, we elected to park right next door, have dinner and stay the night. It was an interesting mix of folks who stayed – two German couples with their tank-type motorhomes they shipped here from Germany and a young couple who are full-timing in a custom made house they pull on a trailer. Fascinating!

We had a moose and her twins visit the field next to where we were parked and Jack got some photos, but the twins did not get close enough to Mom to get a picture with all three.

The bar had baseball caps pinned to the ceiling as we had seen at the Toad Lodge back in the Yukon, but this also had bits of all types of underwear, both male and female.  Hmmmmm.

No indoor plumbing here - not for the visitors, lodge guests or campers....here was the creative facilities.

The food was excellent and everything was working perfectly until some tenters decided to party until after midnight. They weren't especially loud, but they set up their picnic bench and tents right under our window....a poor night's sleep.