Carmacks, YT to Dawson City, YT – 210 Miles
Hallelujah! When we woke up this morning and raised the window shade of the motorhome, the sky was crystal clear – not a cloud in sight. This marks the first clear day since before Edmonton, way back on Day 3 of our trip. As we piddled around putting the bed back into its normal couch configuration, fixing breakfast, and stowing gear away in preparation for the day’s journey, we saw the next load of river runners packing up and getting ready to load their canoes for the downriver run to Dawson City, which was also our goal for the day. The only difference is that we’ll make it in four hours or so and they’ll take a week to reach the same destination.
We hit the road at 8:45, climbing up the hill from the junction of the Klondike Highway – our road – and the Campbell Highway, an alternate route up from Watson Lake which is mostly gravel. The highway north from Carmacks is in excellent shape except for a few potholes here and there. The potholes are usually easy to spot, but at this early hour, the orientation of the highway relative to the sun’s position, and the low angle of the sun at this northern latitude, the long, narrow shadows cast by the skinny spruce trees that lined the road cast a zebra-like pattern of light and dark stripes on the road surface which effectively camouflaged the potholes. Once the road angled off at a slightly different bearing, the problem went away. We made very good time on this entire 200+ mile stretch of highway. There were only a couple of short areas of road construction and maintenance, plus a few areas of minor frost heaving to slow us down. It was easy to drive at or slightly above the 100 kph speed limit for the most part. The highway department is very good about marking rough areas and road hazards with small orange flags along the side of the pavement, so it’s easy to slow down well in advance.
We pulled off to the side of the road at an overlook above the small town of Pelly’s Crossing to take a couple of pictures. There was a fellow in a Pleasure Way van stopped there brewing a cup of tea. Since he was obviously headed south, we asked if he had been over the Top of the World Highway, and sure enough, he said yes, he’d driven it the day before. So we were able to get our first up-to-date road report on this scenic, but rough, by-way. That eased our concerns over the condition of the road, given the rain over the past several days.
The rustic Goose Creek Lodge was just a few miles ahead so we made plans to stop for lunch. Pulling into the parking area, we stopped just behind a Sportsmobile (a popular 4WD van-based RV) with Texas plates. Three men were just leaving the lodge and getting ready to get into the Sportsmobile, and when we pulled up it was obvious they were curious about the Tiger. I was also curious about the Sportsmobile so we exchanged tours of the two vehicles. It turns out that they were from the small ranching community of Sabinal, Texas, which is on US 90 halfway between my hometown, San Antonio, and Jeanette’s, which is Del Rio. They were driving up to Alaska and were meeting their wives, who were flying up, in Anchorage. Small world.
We reached Dawson City (which locals call simply “Dawson”) right about 2:15. As we pulled into a gas station at the edge of town, I noticed that the Odometer read 59,999 miles. When we bought the Tiger at the end of the summer of 2005, it had something like 16,000 miles on it, which means we have put approximately 44,000 miles on it in our travels over the past six years. We have made short trips and long trips, and so far we have visited 42 states and, as of now, three Canadian provinces. It has been a great investment for us, enabling us to travel to places we probably never would have visited otherwise. All in all, it has been the perfect vehicle for our style of travel, which I guess is best described as “touring.” We seldom spend more than a night or two in one place as we travel around. Our goal has always been the journey, not necessarily the destination. As we look at the other types of recreational vehicles we pass along the way and see in campgrounds across America, and particularly on this trip, I am convinced that the Tiger is the ideal vehicle for the Alaska Highway.
But anyway, back to Dawson City. This was the center of the Klondike gold rush in the late 1890’s. It sits on the bank of the Yukon River at the point where the smaller Klondike River joins the larger Yukon. Prior to the gold rush, it had been for centuries a seasonal settlement for the Native American peoples in this area, and like all of northern Canada, the influence of these “First Nation” people remains large in contemporary society. Every town along the highway seems to have an interpretive center for the particular tribal group or clan who originally occupied the land, and many place names bear both English and Indian names. The town of Dawson City itself is very reminiscent of the Colorado gold mining towns, as least before big-time gambling robbed them of their nineteenth-century charm. Many of the Victorian-era buildings have been restored, and many of the new buildings attempt – although not always with complete success – to emulate this architectural style. The main street, of course, is a collection of tourist shops, but none of it is really tacky. Even given the shortness of the growing season, flower gardens abound, both in public places and private yards. Combined with the bright colors of many of the buildings, it is a very fresh-looking and colorful small town.
We spent the afternoon strolling around Main Street, which is located on the river front. Later, after dinner, we took another walk through some of the back streets and saw the Victory Garden, dedicated to the Dawson City residents who served in WW I, and visited the Robert Service cabin, home to the “Bard of the Yukon.” We then took in the show at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s, a gold rush era saloon and casino which features short show with singers and dancers in period costumes. So now it’s nearly 11:00 pm and still what I’d call dusk back home. It doesn’t really get dark until after midnight, and then it’s light again by 4:30 – I don’t think I’d ever get used to a schedule like this, particularly when it’s reversed and 40 below to boot. Oh well, as they say, different strokes for different folks.
(Posted from Chicken, Alaska on Friday, 7/22. Today's post will follow tonight, tomorrow, or whenever we have wi-fi again.)
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