Canada

We found out yesterday that it is a 3-day holiday weekend in Canada. We have asked several people what holiday it is and finally someone today tells us that it is a civic holiday with no reason except to have a holiday. Odd, but having a civic holiday simply to have a 3-day weekend in August sounds like a good idea to me :-) Maybe we'll find out Monday if there is a different reason for the holiday weekend, but considering the number of people who responded 'I don't know' when we asked what holiday Monday is, I think it is simply an excuse to have a holiday in August--great idea, Canada!

Today is another beautiful, sunny day. We pack up, drive a few miles and then stop to take pictures of the suspension bridge that we drove across yesterday and today to get to & from Ksan Campground.

It is a one-lane suspension bridge that was built in 1931. It traverses a very deep canyon. We were a little nervous yesterday when we first saw the bridge, especially when we saw the sign that said "One Truck at a Time".

I have no idea how many feet deep the canyon is and the pictures can't really show the depth, but it is definately a long way down from the bridge to the river below.

We take lots of pictures of the bridge and the old church on the other side of the road. Then we're on our way down the Yellowhead Highway (Hwy 16).

We're less than an hour down the road when we see a lot of people stopped at a roadside rest with cameras and binoculars. So of course we stop. There is a narrowing of the river here and there are rapids (Moricetown Canyon), but I can't figure out why everyone is here.

So I ask someone and they explain that the local tribe fishes for salmon here using their old methods of nets and harpoons.

A few minutes later we watch one of the natives use his 20 feet long harpoon/pole to catch a large salmon.
It was so interesting! We watched two fishermen catch several fish this way. They lift up their 20 ft pole that has a large hook on the end, place it down into the water, lift it up and down several times, and in a surprisingly short time they snag a fish on the hook. We watch them for about 30 minutes. A great stop!

We continue our scenic drive through British Columbia til we get to Smithers. We stop for diesel and Joe somehow talks us into stopping at McDonalds for lunch. After lunch we continue driving til our next stop, Houston. Houston's claim to fame is the world's largest flycasting fishing rod. We take a few pics, talk to some locals and look at the stuffed grizzly at the visitors' center.

The ride between Houston and Vinderhoof, where we stop for the night, is okay, but not as scenic as this morning. We stop at Dave's Campground for the night. This is a nice park. Not only does it have cable TV and wifi, but a miniature golf course with real grass and a gigantic checker board.

The park has a lot of RVs by evening; many of us heading south after visiting Alaska.

We sleep well on the ferry, but not long enough. It’s only a 6.5 hour ride from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert.

So we’re up at 6am, drive off the ferry, and wait in line to get through customs.

Customs goes well, except the agent spends a lot of time looking at Rosdale’s (our cat) vaccination papers and I start to get worried that something is wrong. Still not sure why he took so long examining the paper, but he handed it back and said we were free to go.

The day starts out somewhat overcast and the tops of the mountains are in the clouds. By lunchtime the clouds lift and we can see the top of the mountains. Very pretty scenery.

We stop at Terrance, British Columbia for lunch. Plus we get some groceries, fill up with diesel, and exchange some travelers’ checks for Canadian currency. We’re in Canada, but the towns are still few and far between for the next few days.

We notice that everyone is wearing shorts except us. It feels like it might be close to 80 degrees here and we are not used to the heat. We haven’t worn shorts for weeks. The warmth feels good and we’ll change into shorts later today.

We’re tired, so around 3:30 we pull into the Ksan Campground near Old Hazleton, BC.

The Ksan campsite is a very nice campground by the river. I was concerned that we would have problems finding a campsite on a (Canadian) holiday weekend, but lots of empty sites here. We relax in the afternoon (I take a nap). Then after dinner we walk around the Ksan historical village (First Nation village)

and then through Old Hazleton. Old Hazleton has many restored old buildings and turns out to be more interesting than we expected.

We walk back to the campground and watch a videotape from the History Channel and then have an early bedtime.

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.