July 19 - The Muddy Streets of Dawson City

We woke up to what turned out to be an all day rain on Tuesday.  We planned to just check out the town, so no problem.


Dawson City is mainly a tourist town, with about 900 or so full-time residents.  The dirt streets and boardwalk sidewalks made us feel like we were in an old town, which it is at like 115 years old.

 

We drove by a replica of Jack London's (Call of the Wild and White Fang writer) cabin.  A few of the logs are originals.

We walked along the riverfront park and spotted this family of ducks.  Perfect day for them!

And finally, a Yukon-style waterfront (and back...and both sides) condo.  Don't roll too far out of bed!

Tomorrow we're packing up and heading across the river (on the ferry) for Alaska and the Top of the World Highway.  Supposed to be sunny for a couple days.

July 18 - There's Gold in Them Thar Hills!

We decided to hang around in Dawson City for 3 nights.  Here's a view of the Bonanza Gold RV Park and our campsite from Midnight Dome - zoomed in about 42X on our Lumix camera.  Gosh, we even have a tree at this one!

One Monday, we set out for some gold panning on Bonanza Creek, which is where the gold discovery happened that started the 1900 or so Klondike Gold Rush.  First stop was Dredge No. 4.  This thing was really huge.  It floated in it's own pond, digging up rock and dirt in front, processing the gold out of it, then spitting it all out behind.  This dredge sat sunk in 18 feet of sediment and ice for many years, which actually preserved it well, before the government recovered it and put it on display.

Here's a view of the cockpit, where everything was controlled, and an old-time picture of the operators.

This is the big tumbler that everthing went into, washing the dirt and rocks.  The smaller stuff with the gold in it went through the holes.....

and into these sluice troughs where the gold was caught in matting.

There's more info on the dredge if you click here.

After taking the tour, we drove down to "Claim 6", which is owned by the Klondike Visitors Association.  Anyone can pan here and keep all the gold they find.

Lots of people came and went, trying to find a bit of gold.

We stayed for 4 or 5 hours, digging dirt from the side of the hill across the road, then washing it in the creek.  Fun, but we found out it was pretty back-breaking work.

All this for a few flakes of gold - not even enough to buy a cup of coffee.  But we'd do it again, and probably will in Alaska.

There are several claims along the creek, and with gold at over $1500 per ounce, people are really working them.  Around here they call it the "third gold rush".  Here's a couple spots where they were mining.

July 17 - Dawson City

We took it slow and made it about 250 miles on Saturday.  We've learned to drive slow all the time because we never know when an unmarked frost heave in the road is going to send the 5th wheel rockin' and rollin'.

We spent Saturday night at the Moose Creek government campground.  It was real nice - woods, fire pits, and they even provide the firewood.  The bad part - the mosquitoes just about carried us away when we went outside!  If we stood still for just a few seconds there would be a swarm of about 50 of them on us right now, and there were always some that found a spot we missed with the bug spray.  So we were happy to leave there bright and early.

The rest of the drive up to Dawson City wasn't the most scenic.  A lot of thick bush (mosquito heaven that is), with some mountains off in the distance. 

 

We rolled into Dawson City at about noon and set up camp at the Bonanza Gold RV Park.  Nice place, but like many of the campgrounds up here, we feel like we're camping in a parking lot.  All the hookups, plus cable TV and internet...but the internet is only turned on for 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours at night.  A bandwidth thing.

Dawson City is another Gold Rush town.  There are still some operating mines too.  We plan to do some gold panning at the government "claim".  All the other streams are off-limits as they have private claims on them.  We're prepared though - we bought gold pans in Skagway.  Just like the 1900 gold miners, we got our supplies there and made our way all the way to the Klondike gold fields.  Now we just gotta hit pay dirt and get some "color" in the pan!

Dawson City is also a tourist town.  Today is the last day of a week-long music festival, so we're lucky to have rolled in when everyone was leaving.  They told us the place was packed full last week.

We unpacked the motorcycle and took a ride into town.  It is an interesting place.  Highway 2 (or the Klondike Highway) is paved, but all the streets in town are dirt.  Gives it that old gold rush town feeling and that's the way it seems they want to keep it.  Lots of shops, old buildings, and wooden sidewalks.

And they have the only casino in the Yukon.  It's named Diamond Tooth Gerties.  Can't wait to check this place out.

It was sunny and 72, so we decided to take a ride up to Midnight Dome (elev. 2,890 feet) for a birds-eye view of the city.  And a great view it was of Dawson City, the Klondike River, and even our parking lot....er campground (middle left).

Here's the view of Dawson City...

And another nice view of the Klondike River.

 

Got to see a paraglider taking off from the mountain too.as an added bonus.

Watched him sail all the way down to Dawson City.

It was real hard to go to bed here in Dawson.  Here's what it looked like at midnight at the Bonanza Gold.  Pretty strange to watch Jay Leno when it's still daylight....  We covered up all the windows though to make it as dark as we could and hit the sack.

Tomorrow we finally hit the gold fields in search of the Mother Lode.

July 15 - Skagway (or some spell it Skaguay)

We had hoped to ride the motorcycle the 100+ miles from Whitehorse to Skagway, but it was raining and about 54 degrees, so wimped out on that idea.  Lots of clouds and rain on our second trip into Alaska.  Roxane snapped this pic as we drove by (no we don't know these folks).

Skagway was the town where all those traveling to the Klondike gold rush in the early 1900s got off the boats and started their trek north.  The old pictures showing the lines of people going over the mountains towards the gold fields are unbelievable.  There are a couple pics click here.

Now, Skagway is a tourist town.  It reminded us of Mackinaw Island - without the horses.  Lots of jewelry shops, which we learned to avoid because they don't want to let you leave without buying once you set foot in the door.  If you look at the end of the street, you can see a cruise ship parked.  The town was full of folks from 2 of these ships that were docked.  That is how the town survives.  The winter population is about 700 people.

Here's an interesting place - it's a jewelry shop inside - of course!

Here's a pic from a lookout point of the cruise docs.  The closest ship is the Disney boat.

And a shot of the mountain in the background.  Looks like a volcano eh?  And notice the airplane?

On the drive back, the weather was much nicer, so we could see the scenery.  We also made a quick stop at the town of Carcross, in the Yukon.  Not much there, but still more than most places in the Yukon!

 

The entrance to Carcross had this cool iron caribou statue.

We also made a quick stop at the Carcross Desert.  It's actually an area of sand dunes left from a glacial lake that covered the area thousands of years ago.

Tomorrow we're heading north on the Klondike Highway to Dawson City.

July 13 and 14 - The Alaska Highway and Whitehorse

After a quick stop to the Signpost Forest in Watson Lake (over 55,000 signs!), we headed west for Whitehorse in the Yukon.  This sign tells it all.

 

Compared to the day before, the Alaska Highway was a dream.  Only a few frost heaves along the way, and they were all marked pretty well.  So we made good time and got to Whitehorse about 4:00 in the afternoon.

 Along the way, we stopped at a little town named Teslin for fuel and a look at this highly acclaimed wildlife museum.  We weren't really expecting it, but this place was really well done.  Here's a display of two moose heads locked together in battle.  There was a picture above them of the two intact skeletons that were found.

There were several really nice displays of northern wildlife.  Here's a few of them.  They all seemed to show something being eaten, but one of the themes of the museum was the fact that while it seems cruel, it is all part of life for predator and prey in the wild.

It was a rainy day on  Thursday, so we decided to check out Whitehorse, the capitol city of the Yukon Province.  A really nice town - in the summer anyway.

And of course we stopped by the airport to see the World's Largest Weathervane.  It is a real DC-3, mounted on a swivel post and perfectly balanced so that it will point in the direction the wind is blowing.  Pretty neat.

Tomorrow we're looking forward to a motorcycle ride for our second trip to Alaska to visit the  town of Skagway.

July 12 - The Cassiar Gets Ugly

We started out early from Meziadin Lake with a long drive ahead of us.  We wanted to make it to Watson Lake in the Yukon, about 370 miles.  What we didn't know is how bad the road would get.  It went from nice blacktop, to chip and tar sealcoat, to about 25 miles of the dustiest dirt road we've ever been on!  In this pic, there was an 18 wheeler about a half mile in front of us.  If we got any closer there was no way we could see where we were going or what might be coming.  25 miles of this! 

At one point a truck going the other way threw a stone and we got our first, and hopefully last, chip in the windshield.  It seems to be a rite of passage for anyone driving to Alaska.

 

 About mid-afternoon, we finally crossed over into the Yukon.

While the Cassiar was still paved it was the tar and chip stuff.  Still dusty and some nasty bumps from frost heaves.  Some were marked, but a couple had the fifth wheel rocking and rolling behind us.

About 50 miles south of the north end of the Cassiar Hwy, we started seeing signs of a huge fire.  Burned areas as far as we could see.

 

 

We finally made it to Watson Lake at about 8:00 pm.  Good thing it never gets dark up here!  It is also very strange though.  We covered the windows to keep the light out so we could get some sleep.