May 07

Brief shower in morning and then we finally see some patches of blue in the sky for a change. It’s still chilly so we decide to drive in a nice warm truck to see some area sights. We first drive to the gold rush era Skagway cemetery where the bad guy Soapy Smith is buried, and then we hike up to Lower Reid Falls. Joe finds gold specks in creek by the falls but we don’t really have anything along to ‘pan’ for gold. We will hopefully have a chance to pan for gold some other place on the trip.

Then we drive out to the gold ghost town of Dyea. During the Yukon gold rush of 1898, Dyea was the starting point for the Chilnook Trail and was the same size as Skagway (starting point for the White Pass trail). Now there is almost nothing left of the town…we hike around the area and do not find anything.

However, it’s a very picturesque drive to Dyea. We see a bald eagle with talons out fly right in front of us when we stop above Dyea – very cool. We also see many seals in the water near Dyea. What we thought was going to be a short drive ends up taking several hours.

We return to the trailer, have a snack and then take a walk to Yakutania Point on the other side of Skagway. Very picturesque.

Then we return to downtown and do some shopping. After dinner we walk out to see one of the four cruise ships leave. As we walk back to the trailer we see three eagles above our trailer, just floating around in a big circle. Very cool.

Today is incredibly cold and very windy and rainy. Winter coats with hats and gloves weather. However the rain stops long enough so that we can take a 90-minute walking tour with the US Ranger from the Skagway Gold Rush Historical Park in the morning. The ranger is very good and we enjoy learning about the area and the Alaskan gold rush. After lunch we watch the US Park movie at the visitors’ center about the history of the White Pass and Chilkoot Trails to the Yukon gold fields. An old movie, but well done.

We do some browsing around the stores and other downtown buildings, get all the free stuff that the stores are giving with the coupons in the tourist newspaper (we now have 4 Skagway train whistles, a charm bracelet from Diamonds International, 2 train charms and a totem pole charm). This town is built for cruise shoppers….they must have at least a dozen jewelry stores, with many special sales on diamonds, tanzanite and rainbow topaz (I’m not even sure what rainbow topaz is, but it was everywhere). However, all of the stores keep the old town Skagway appearance plus the sidewalks are made of wood. So, even though the town caters to the cruise ships, it still has the appearance of an old gold rush town and is a very interesting and picturesque town.

After dinner we walk out to see the cruise ships leave (using 3 umbrellas – it is still raining

We pack up again and leave Teslin Lake and drive to Carcross. Carcross is short for ‘Caribou Crossing’ and is a very small town which was much larger during the Alaskan gold rush since it was at the end of the White Horse trail. Gold rushers would hike to this town, then build boats to use for their down the Yukon River to the gold fields. We walk around the visitor’s center and town, get some muffins and coffee, and then have lunch in the trailer.

At Carcross we get on the Klondike Highway to drive to Skagway. The Klondike Highway has beautiful scenery,

and then we finally cross the border into Alaska! However, it is so foggy and cold that we almost forget to stop at the sign for the obligatory photo :-)

The road from the US border down to Skagway is a very long downhill road. It should be interesting pulling the trailer back up this mountain. We see the White Pass and Yukon historical train coming up the hill from Skagway. We're thinking about taking this train later this week.

We have reservations at Pullen Creek RV Park in Skagway. We had hoped to have a “water view” campsite, but with the size of our 5ver and the windows located in the back and driver’s side, there are no actual ‘water view’ campsites where we can see the harbor. So the camp manager assigns us a campsite where the back of our trailer is less than 10 feet from the sidewalk. This sidewalk is the sidewalk that the cruise ship passengers use to walk into town. So we have a parade of tourists walking by and watching us set up camp. We’re not sure what we think about so many people watching us set up. We’re also not sure what we think about this campsite, but we can see some of the harbor in this site, which is what we wanted. However, our partial view of the harbor lasts only about 15 minutes….when a HUGE motorhome pulls in beside us and parks in such a way that our only view is of the side of their motorhome :-( Oh well. The location of the campground is very convenient to town, but a disappointment as far as a view of the cruise ships or harbor.

Jere asks the campground manager if there’s a place in town to get our truck oil changed. He looks at Jere and says “You may think you’re in civilization, but you’re not.” Jere will get that same response over the next few days when we ask him a question. Skagway has many stores for the cruise passengers, but only one small grocery store (that closes at 7pm) and one small (equals ‘expensive’) gas station.

After we get set up, we walk around town

and then go back to the trailer for dinner…look at our many tourist brochures…take a walk out to see the one cruise ship leave the harbor

and then watch an Alaska video that I previously recorded from The History Channel. No TV reception in this campground and no free wifi…it’s raining and is supposed to keep raining tomorrow so we may be watching more videos the next few days.

Again we are one of the last Alaska-bound RVers to leave the campground in the morning. Not sure why we always leave later than most, but we do. As usual several RVers take off at 6am. We wake up at the sound of the diesels, look at our watches and then go back to sleep :-)

We have a 180 mile trip to Teslin Lake, The Yukon today.

Our first stop is for a short hike to a waterfall.

We make a few other short stops, but our most memorable part of the trip is the 15 km of gravel road that we drive on. Slow, bumpy and most of all: DUSTY where it’s dry, and muddy where it’s wet.

We arrive at Teslin Lake and after we set up, Jere washes the worst of the mud off the trailer. We have a snack and a bald eagle flies overhead and lands on the spruce tree at the end of the campground, so we get to watch the eagle while we eat our snack.

Then we take off to look at the wildlife exhibit here at the RV Park. Later we drive up the road to look at the area. We had hoped to visit at least one of the two museums here, but they are both still closed for the season. They both look nice from the outside, so we’re disappointed.

We stop by the Teslin Lake to read the signs about the area

And then also stop by the Tlinglit museum to look at the totem poles outside the building.

The evening is spent relaxing and watching one of two TV stations here, APTN (Aboriginal People Television Network). It has some interesting shows.

Joe had trouble falling asleep last night and has requested that his skylight be covered, so we spend some time making his room darker. It stays light til 11-11:30 at night this far north. Within the next week it will be light til midnight, so we are using covers, pillows and pieces of cardboard to block out as much light from the bedrooms as we can. It's harder to sleep when it's still light outside than we thought it would be :-)

I start the day with a quick walk around the park and the hotsprings. There are already a dozen or so people in the hotsprings!

Then we pack up (again) for the 130 mile drive to Watson Lake, The Yukon. Not too many stops or wildlife sightings today. We do see a stray buffalo every once in awhile.

By lunchtime we are at Watson Lake Downtown RV Park. There are a few RVers here already but in the next few hours the park will be filled with almost 75 other RVs—all of us headed to Alaska. The park is basically a gravel parking lot, but it has water, electric and cable TV....

There are an amazing number of trailers and motorhomes heading to Alaska and we’re supposedly ahead of the summer rush. We all complain about the price of gas, but we keep paying for it and not changing our plans to make the great RV trip to Alaska.

Our first order of business is lunch, but next is a nice hot shower! The last 3 days of dry camping had wonderful scenery but we were running low on water. Unlike most of the national or state parks in the U.S., the BC provincial parks do not provide a place to fill up the RV with water. So no showers for us the last two days.

We relax a little and then walk over to the Watson Lake Sign Forest. They have thousands (current count is around 61,000) of signs posted by people for their home towns from all over the world. We couldn’t find one from Mechanicsburg, PA (our hometown) but we did find one for Harrisburg PA.

Then a snack and a visit to the Northern Lights Center to see their show about the northern lights. They also have a movie about the planet Mars. The one on Mars is actually more interesting than the Yukon northern lights show.

Some dinner, some internet, some TV, etc and we call it a day