Blog

After an overnight at Pelly River Crossing, we arrived in Dawson City. We located a campground on the edge of town that was a government park. The price was right, so we parked the trailer and headed into town. Dawson is definitely an historic gold rush town, situated where the Klondike and Yukon Rivers meet. The streets remain dirt and many of the buildings have restored fronts on them to look like they are still in the gold rush days.

Originally the capital of the Yukon, Whitehorse took over from Dawson in 1953, as it was on the railway, had a large airport and was much more the hub of activity. In the early 1960’s, Dawson was declared a National Historic Site of Canada and as a result, many buildings have been restored or reconstructed or stabilized. It is a busy tourist hub and includes famous residences of Robert Service, Pierre Burton and Jack London.

One of the most interesting sites as we arrived in Dawson was the piles and piles of rocks on both sides of the highway. These piles, are from the tailings left over from the gold rush days as the gold miners attempted to make their fortunes. They stretch for miles and complete subdivisions have been built on them.

No trip to Dawson is complete without a visit to Diamond Tooth Gerties, a licensed casino with Klondike gambling tables as well as slot machines. It has three nightly cancan-style shows and we visited it twice to see the earliest of the three. The last one doesn’t start until midnight and although we did stay up past then one night, it was for a different purpose – to see the sunset at midnight from Midnight Dome.

Being as close to the summer solstice as we were, we were fortunate to see the sunset after midnight one night when we suddenly decided at 1130 to drive up Midnight Dome Road. We arrived in perfect time to see the sun just before it set and to watch it go down. When we arrived at the top, we were surprised to see people actually camping at the top of the dome – just pulled over in the campers at the side.

We’ve seen a number of places along the roads in the Yukon where people have done this. No services, but sometimes the most awesome locations. This rig was from a German couple who were travelling around the world in it – they had been in North America for a year already and after heading south for the winter, they were heading to South America for their next continent, having completed Africa, Europe, North America already.

Obviously with our 28′ fifth wheel, we can’t go off road just anywhere, but it is definitely something to consider depending on the ease of access and how busy the road is!

Tomorrow – driving the Dempster….

 

This morning we decided to head out for the small town of Atlin, a historic gold rush town and the most northwesterly town of BC. We debated between Atlin and Skagway and decided we’d cover Skagway when we return to Whitehorse in August if we don’t make the trip via boat. We have that option later in the summer when we drive to Haines with the trailer. We could catch the marine ferry and hop over to Skagway and then go north, but with the trailer length we are towing, it will likely be quite costly and we don’t know if there will even be availability when we are there.

Along the road to Atlin we found many lakes – the prettiest of all was Emerald Lake. It lived up to it’s name!

The colour comes when the sunlight reflects off a layer of white calcium carbonate clay that forms on the bottom of the lake, It forms when calcium carbonate from dissolving limestone reacts with calcium found in the water. We also saw a number of small lakes with the most unusual of names: there was SNAFU – Situation Normal All Fouled Up and then there was TARFU – Things Are Really Fouled Up.

We also drove through a desert! Carcross Desert is not really a desert, but it has the name of one. They have what we know as sand dunes, but these are unusual in this area so are called a desert.

Finally we arrived at Atlin, a tiny town of just 350 people, at the end of a 60 mile, recently paved road.

While there, we dropped into the visitors centre and had a conversation with one of the residents. She has lived there for 23 years, arriving from California. She loves her life there. I asked her when she had last been to “town” for supplies. She said she was out to Whitehorse in May, for the first time in 2017. They have a couple of grocery stores in Atlin that will bring in just about anything they request. She also talked about the annual arts and music festival in July where their tiny town swells to 2500. In a town without running water or septic system, it taxes them, yet, they continue to do it year after year. She said people camp everywhere – if it isn’t blocked off, then someone will drive in and use it.

Tomorrow, we start the trek for Dawson City, or Dawson as it is often called. We’ll have one night on the road and then arrive for an extended time in Dawson.