Where’s all that gold???

We had a surprisingly good night’s sleep last night. We got up to a bit of sunshine and about 4 deg C. Not a bad day to start. We made our sandwiches and packed our gear and then set off again. Before leaving Whitehorse behind, we fuelled up the Honda and ourselves as well (McD’s senior coffees). After a few miles we said goodbye to the Alaska Highway and turned onto the Klondike Highway. Except for some small stretches, this road is quite good. There are plenty of rest stops again with washroom facilities. Also, there are numerous government campsites along the road again. These are serve-yourself primitive sites. For a very reasonable $12.00 per night you can stay on a nice camp site. They have no running water, showers or hookups for that price but they typically have nicely leveled sites with picnic tables, a covered picnic shelter, outhouses and fire rings. Usually they are located along a river or creek so you have plenty of water. Water needs to be boiled though for safety’s sake.

At Fox Lake we took a picture since the sight was just so beautiful with a snow capped mountain in the background. This was also the scene of a vast forest fire in 1998. We noticed quite a number of large areas where forest fires had devastated the forest. In a way, that’s not always a bad thing. Fires are needed to renew the forests and keep them healthy. I recall that the fire prevention program in Yellowstone Park had been so successful that the forest was getting to a stage where nothing lived anymore. It had turned into a dead forest with very little animal life and no new growth. Nowadays the ranger actually uses controlled burns to keep the forest healthy.

The only wildlife we saw today was a bobcat that crossed the road in front of us. He or she jumped into the woods and then stopped and looked at us over his or her shoulder and then jumped into the brush. Too bad we didn’t have time to take a picture. Bobcats and cougars are not seen very often and we were very lucky to see one.

At some points along the highway, the mighty Yukon River is visible. This is the third largest river in North America. At one time it served as a very important transport route to carry goods and prospectors from Whitehorse to Dawson City. According to the information available here, at one time more than 250 stern –wheelers plied the Yukon. We stopped a little further and observed the 5 finger rapids. At this point, quite a few unwary and inexperienced prospectors turned their boats over in the rapids and lost a lot of their gear.

We stopped at a Yukon Territorial campsite on the Tatchum Creek just to find out for ourselves what these campsites looked like. This was a very picturesque site and we had to take a picture of course. The creek flows into the Yukon River eventually.

Shortly before Dawson City, we saw the famous Klondike River. The road followed the river all the way to Dawson City, where the Klondike River joined the Yukon River. The Klondike is a good size river that flows very fast, in my estimation about 8km/h which would be impossible to canoe upriver. This is gold rush country all right. Everywhere you can still see pieces of rusting abandoned equipment. Also, the huge dredges that scooped up river gravel by the ton to extract gold have left enormous piles of gravel behind everywhere. This creates a kind of unique landscape but not exactly very nice.

Dawson City itself still very much looks like a far north gold rush town. The streets are unpaved dirt roads and the sidewalk, where present, are boardwalks. The tourist places are kept fairly nice and painted but there are also a lot of dilapidated buildings with a lot of unkempt yards intermingled as well.

I understand that’s the way it was in the heyday of the 1898 gold rush as well. The people seem very friendly and the motel we have is basic but nice and clean. Everything inside is finished in rustic pine. One thing we better get to is that here in the far north the prices are about 25-50% higher than back home. It’s not too hard to understand why. Everything has to be trucked or flown in here. The nearest major city and distribution center would be Edmonton, AB which is a 2500km one-way trip taking about 2 ½ – 3 days by truck.

One thing I haven’t talked about is the fact that we are getting closer to the Arctic Circle. That means that as we get closer to 21 June, the summer solstice, that hours of daylight are getting longer all the time. Last night in Whitehorse we went to bed around 11 o’clock and it was like 8 o’clock back home. In Dawson City, the farthest point north in Canada that we will go, we are at latitude 64deg 4min. If I remember my geography correctly, the Arctic Circle is at 66 deg 40min or so. So we’re only about 2 deg south of the Arctic Circle. As you probably know, once above the Arctic Circle around 21 June, there is still sunlight at midnight and then the sun starts to rise again. Here in Dawson City, we have a couple of hours of night and that’s about it.

Since we don’t have internet access in the motel, I’ll post this blog whenever I have a chance, till then, stay tuned.