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.  

July 2, 2015, Thursday: Dawson City, Yukon

Rain, rain, rain.  Still drizzling, interspersed with occasional steady light rain.  We want to drive the scenic Top Of The World Highway from here and do not want to do it in bad weather.  So, we will play it by ear the next couple of days and wait for the weather to be favorable so we can enjoy the views along the Top of the World Highway.

Stopped again at the visitor center to check on weather, and picked up a few grocery items at the General Store before changing campgrounds back to the one south of town where we can get unlimited free WiFi.

After lunch, we drove up to the top of a bluff overlooking Dawson City and the Yukon River....not raining at the time, but the photos came out hazy.

The gray piles are tailings from the monster commercial gold dredges that dug up the river beds, sifted through the gravel for gold and spit out everything else.  These can be seen for miles around Dawson City.

We drove downtown to get a few photos of interesting buildings:

The Yukon Territory Administration Building from the early 1900s when Dawson City was its capital.  Now the museum.

Dawson City's Rainbow Row, part of a hotel.

Cabin of Robert Service, Bard of the Yukon.  He wrote many poems, including The Cremation of Sam McGee.

Jack London's Cabin (author of Call of the Wild and White Fang)

July 1, 2015, Wednesday: Dawson City

Happy Canada Day! 

Our cover to watch the parade in the drizzle

Rained all night and is still drizzling this morning. After breakfast, we drove downtown and parked back in the visitor center lot so we could watch the Dawson City Canada Day Parade....did I mention Dawson City has population on a good day of 1,400?

We found a place to watch the parade under cover and enjoyed watching the smart, Royal Canadian Mounties starting off the parade, followed by every local kid on a bike, a few local groups marching/riding representing their organizations followed by lots of fire trucks and personnel. Firemen are important here with the local city volunteers protecting all the historical log structures, district firemen working a large area and the forest fire fighters who have been super busy in reason weeks. I joked to Jack that this would be a 15 minute parade, but I was wrong...it was twelve minutes. Great small-town fun, even in the rain. 

Setting up the barricades for the parade

The beginning

No Girl or Boy Guides (Scouts) or other kids groups other than the bicycle brigade

Museum folks celebrating the Maple Leaf Flag Anniversary

The Music

First Nations

The Can-Can girls from Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall

Not a clue who they are

Afterwards, we visited the S. S. Keno, a steam powered paddle wheeler retired and brought home to Dawson Cit in 1960 under its own power. These are similar to the Mississippi River boats, but narrower and with the paddlewheel in back to get through narrow passages – and no Mark Twain. I posted a few days ago about hiking to the Five Finger Rapids and here they had a photo of the boat going through the area...

Fairly simple piston engine using wood-fired steam 

Five Finger Rapids Panel that I had hiked through a couple days ago

After the paddlewheeler, we went to the local museum where they had a picnic lunch available. As we waited in line, we could tell all the kids that had been in the earlier parade because their backs were covered in mud.  

The little sidewheeler they use for tourist cruising.  The ferry for folks and cars in the background.

Front Street

We drove to our new campground that is right downtown and while Jack napped, I walked three blocks to the First Nations cultural center where they were cooking bannocks – turns out to be fried dough, just like Italian Zeppoles, except they garnish with jelly instead of powdered sugar. 

Then I went to the Palace Theater to watch the Grestest Klondiker contest. The emcee introduced three historical Dawson City figures – the Mountie who established law and order in the Yukon, a female journalist, and the richest man in Dawson. There was an audience provided 3-person judging group and it was eventually thrown open to the audience in an applause meter contest to see who was the best Klondiker. Performance was fun and being able to sit in an opera-style box overlooking the old-fashioned theater was great.

The Greatest Klondiker contestants playing trivia for points

Dawson City Streets after the rain....

After dinner we walked down to Diamondtooth Gerties Saloon and Gambling Hall in time for the first musical revue and cancan show. The host had a fabulous voice and the dancers were good. After the show, we each took our $5 to the penny slot machines where Jack lost his quickly and I lost mine slowly. Jack was bored waiting for me, so he tried another $5 and came away with $50! We started to watch the second show, but Jack was tired and now quite wealthy, so we left to the first sunshine (10:15 at night) we had seen all day.

This is the downtown campground that I call a parking-lot style.  Just here to be right in town.  See the mud on our poor L'il Guy?

June 30, 2015, Tuesday: Dawson City, Yukon

Woke to a mix of sun and clouds with temps in the mid 50's. We renewed our site here at our campground a mile south of Dawson City for tonight, then drove to the Dawson City visitor center. We watched a film about the riverboats bringing freight, miners and visitors from Whitehorse to Dawson City.

We walked around the tourist shopping area of town where I got my watch battery replaced (gratis) and stopped at the hardware store and grocery store. Stores here are interesting as many serve as both tourist shop and general store for the locals. The front of the store has tourist stuff, and as we move to the back of the store, things migrate from stationary and drugstore type goods to clothing and big boot section and then into small appliances and then big appliances like stoves, refrigerators and washing machines. All in the space of the CVS at home.....

Some Dawson City Street Scenes:

We returned to the RV, still parked in the visitor center parking lot, and drove back to our campground to take advantage of internet to update the blog that was about a week behind. The blog takes a lot of computer time to organize photos (electric required for the 'puter), then internet time to upload the photos, text and organizing the blog photos into the text.