Jun 2007

After spending about two weeks in the Yukon Territory we are finally leaving the Yukon and moving onto Alaska. We have really enjoyed the Yukon, especially Keno and Dawson City, and are glad we took the time to ‘enjoy our journey’ to Alaska, instead of just driving to Alaska as quickly as possible. We’re lucky to have the opportunity to take our time traveling.

We are taking the Top of the World Highway to the U.S. border and then the Taylor Highway to Chicken, Alaska today. In order to get to the Top of the World Hwy we need to take a ferry across the Yukon River. We make a short stop at the Dawson City Museum before getting to the ferry crossing and waiting 30-45 minutes for our turn to cross on the ferry. As we wait we watch a large oil tanker come across on the ferry – the tanker must be full and it is the only vehicle on the ferry. As the ferry travels with the oil tanker, it appears to be carried fairly far downstream (the river is high and running swiftly). I start to wonder if the ferry is going to be able to make it over to our side. But eventually the ferry regains control and gets to our side. After seeing this, Joe appears nervous about us going on the ferry. The ferry ride is uneventful (but interesting) and we start our trip on the Top of the World Highway.

The road follows the top of a mountain ridge for about 90 miles. Parts of it are paved, but many parts are gravel, so we take it slow. It’s an overcast day, so the views are nice, but not as incredible as some of the views we’ve seen the last few weeks.

View from the highest point on the Top of the World Highway of the U.S. border:

We get to the U.S. border, show our passports and take off on the Taylor Highway.

This ‘highway’ is DIRT. We expected dirt, but this is not the nice dirt roads of the Yukon. This is U.S. ‘full of potholes’ dirt. To make things worse, we have sporadic showers. So now the dirt road is a muddy road with potholes. The road is definitely worse than we expected. We drive 15-25 mph and are glad to get to Chicken, where we will spend the night.

We choose a campground that is back off the road and actually has electric from 8am to 8pm. The town has no electric power or plumbing, so they use generators and supposedly have no flush toilets in the town. I didn’t see any flush toilets, but I find it hard to believe that people live here year-round and have not found a way to have flush toilets.

We have dinner and then walk around Chicken.

The campground we’re at has an old gold mining dredge to look at and then of course there are the requisite gift shops. We visit all 3 gift shops, buy Jack London’s Call of the Wild book (Jere wouldn’t let me buy it in Dawson City – he said it would be cheaper in the U.S.) and then return to the RV for a campfire.

The campground provides free firewood, so I quickly make a campfire and sit by the fireside and read a book. The one great thing about the sun being out til after midnight is that you can easily read a book by the campfire :-) And then of course – S’mores before bed.

Today is gold panning day. We start off by driving out to a restored gold mining dredge, Dredge No. 4, several miles outside of Dawson City. This tour guide is also good, but she’s almost too good – she explains everything anyone would ever want to know about the operation of a gold mining dredge and then more. They also have a 20-minute movie about the dredge to watch after the tour.

Then we drive over to The Goldpanner Gold Mine. It’s back a dirt road, about 30 minutes off the Klondike Highway. We’re a little early for the tour, so the owner tells us to do some gold panning while we wait for the others to join us. We put on our boots, his assistant shows us how it’s done and we give it a try. Joe finds a large flake of gold within 5 minutes, but Jere & I have no luck. When the other couple arrives, we start our tour.

There are just 5 of us on the tour. The owner’s assistant and a tour-guide-in-training leads our tour of their working gold mine. All of the gold mines in this area are placer mining. There are about 150 of these small gold mines in the area. No large gold mine companies. They use a power shovel to dig through the permafrost to the layer of earth that contains the gold flakes.

Then they use a ‘gold mine plant’ to separate the rock/earth from the gold.

They take it through another step or two to purify, so that all that remains is 100% gold ore, which in this area is actually 80% gold/20% silver.

The tour takes about 90 minutes. It includes a ride in an old van through a creek and up a muddy road – Joe really enjoyed that part of the tour :-)

After the tour we try gold panning again. They bring us some fresh ‘dirt’ from the one mining sight we just toured and this time, everyone finds some flakes of gold. My last pan is my best pan and I find 5 flakes of gold. We really enjoyed the tour and the gold panning – lots of fun.

We drive back to the RV, have dinner and enjoy our HBO.

It is a beautiful, sunny morning! We drive up to Dome Hill, which is above Dawson City. The scenery from the Dome is incredible. You can see both the Yukon and Klondike Rivers from up here. A woman we meet up on the Dome tells us that this is where everyone in the area comes June 21 for the summer solstice. They watch the sunset and the sunrise from up here.

There are piles after piles of gold mine tailings around the Dawson City area and they are easily seen from up here. (Tailings are piles of stones. The piles are probably 15-20 feet high, 15-20 feet wide and can stretch for hundreds of yards.) The tailings were deposited by gold dredges in the early 1900s.

Then we drive down to Dawson City, have a snack by the river
and take the historical walking tour of the city. The tour guide is again wonderful, as all of the tour guides have been for our walking tours.

After our 90-minute tour we go see a free movie about the Klondike good time girls. We ask if the movie is appropriate for children and she explains that it is about the dance hall girls during the gold rush, but also admits that she’s never seen the whole thing. Well, they do mention a dance hall girl or two in the movie, but the entire second half of the movie (which the guide admitted that she hadn’t seen) is about prostitution in the gold mine camps. Jere and I both wish we had skipped this movie. However, the 100 year old restored theatre is interesting to see.

After the movie we have a very late lunch at Sourdough Joe’s Restaurant. Food is so-so, but we like the name “Sourdough Joe’s”. I try to talk Joe into getting a Sourdough Joe T-shirt, but he wants nothing to do with it. We walk around the gift shops in towns and then head over to Jack London’s cabin. Jack spent a year in Dawson City during the Klondike gold rush; the year he spent here gave him the experience to write Call of the Wild and White Fang. The cabin was originally outside of town, but someone moved it into town in order to preserve it for history.

We return to the RV, watch some TV, take a walk around the area, and then watch some more TV.

We pack up (again) and leave Five Mile Lake Yukon Govt Campground. Very nice campsites, but it is off the main drag without any hook-ups. There were only four campsites occupied last night.

The highway doesn’t have spectacular scenery as some highways have had on this trip, but the wildflowers along the road make the drive very enjoyable.

We have hit very little road construction in Canada, but that is going to change today. We stop on the way to Dawson City for road construction that consists of six miles of one lane traffic. The traffic person explains to us that there will be at least a 20 minute wait for a pilot car, who will lead us through the construction. So we turn off the engine and read (and listen to Joe complain). After about 20+ minutes, we see the pilot car leading a parade of vehicles from the other direction. Then it is our turn to follow the pilot car through PILES OF DIRT AND MUD! The pilot car stops several times to make sure that all of the vehicles are following him (and probably to make sure they don’t get stuck – we use the 4-wheel drive occasionally during the drive). I guess they ripped up the blacktop and are adding more dirt to make the road higher before replacing the blacktop. So a slow, interesting drive that is sometimes stressful for the driver.

At Dawson City we splurge for a campsite with full hook-ups. What is unusual about full hook-ups at this place is that it includes HBO! I’m wondering if we can stay here til Sunday night to see the finale of The Sopranos? Hmmm…probably not.

We drive into Dawson City to the Visitors Center, watch their movies, pick up some more info, and then drive back to the campsite to cocoon the remainder of the evening. Of course the evening here last past midnight. At midnight it’s still very much day – I go outside at 11:45pm and take this picture.

Well apparently Stewarts Crossing was hit by lightning last night. The town has no electric this morning. The town has a backup generator, but the generator stopped working shortly after it started. So we wake up to no electricity, which also means no water (no electric pump to pump the water) and no diesel in town (no electric to pump the diesel). The campground manager tells us that someone is driving to the next town (45 minutes away) to find out if they have electric so they can phone someone to fix the electric in Stewarts Crossing. Yep...no phone either in town. The wonders of living in the middle of nowhere.

We pack up and start our drive to Mayo. On the way we stop at a nature trail along the Silver Trail highway. The wildflowers are very pretty and we see some trumpeter swans, but no moose (which is what the area is known for). The wildflowers line the sides of the road between Stewarts Crossing and Mayo -- pinks, fuschia, yellows, purples...very pretty.

Short drive today (30 miles). We set up camp by the lake at Five Mile Lake park, a Yukon Territory park. No water or electric, but beautiful campsite. We then take off to Mayo to look at the Binet House museum and the Stewart River landing. The area is known for its' silver mining and in the early 1900s they would load the silver ore in bags at Mayo and ship it down the Yukon by sternwheelers.

Not much else in Mayo and the policeman that greets us at the river landing is wearing a very visible bullet-proof vest, which makes me a little nervous. He's reprimanding the guy who has been talking to us for drinking alcohol in public. (There's a sign clearing stating no alcohol drinking in public within 5km of town). We can tell the guy may have had 'one too many' in his lifetime, but he was telling us interesting stories about his grandfather working the sternwheelers and seemed like a harmless, nice guy.

Anyway, we take off for Keno City. Keno is a town known for its' silver mines, which are still operational. We first visit the Keno Mining Museum--it's actually a very interesting and nicely done musuem. Keno is really out in the boonies. I think maybe 20 people live here.

After the museum we walk around town a little to look at the other old buildings, including a strange house that is lined with beer bottles. The owner of the local hotel in the 1960s thought that the beer bottles would make good insulation so he lined his house with beer bottles. No one lives there any longer.

Then we make the 30 minute drive to the Keno Signpost on top of summit hill. The road is definately a bumpy, old road (4 drive needed at places), but the view is incredible. We also look at a couple of abandoned silver mine shafts on the way down from the top.

When we finally get back to 'downtown' Keno, we decide to get some pizza at the Keno Cafe. The place is lined with memorabilia and a funky little place, with a very friendly owner, who also is the cook and our server. The pizza was very good also.

Jere then decides to take the Duncan Creek dirt road back to Mayo. So a slow BUMPY drive back. We were hoping to see some wildlife on the road, but no wildlife. We get back to the campground, have a campfire and of course S'MORES!