09 Whitehorse to Dawson
Hi - Sorry for the delay but we have had no internet access. This update takes us from Whitehorse to Dawson City, both in the Yukon Territory.
We kept hoping to find a Wooly Mammouth in our travels, and finally did find one altho it was made of wood. We did, however, find lots of jewelry made of mammouth bone as lots have been excavated during mining operations. The bones are found in the permafrost and are not protected.
The Fox Lake Burn was a major forrest fire in 1998 that wiped out 18 + thousand acres. Fire started in July, stared by campers, and lasted thru the winter. These flowers show a sign of the recovery.
Apparently elk and other animals don’t read too well. We kept seeing these signs, but none of the animals where they were supposed to be.
We were told that Braeburn Lodge was THE PLACE to eat cinnimon rolls. They were rather good, big enought that we shared one and had half to reheat for breakfast the following day.
Cinnamon Bun Strip was their landing strip (dirt of course) and this guy had flown in to get a roll.
Braeburn Lodge is one of the many stops along the route of the thousand mile Yukon Quest, an annual dogsled race running between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, Alaska. This map shows the route and most of trip between these two cities covered the same ground although their route tends be be a little more rugged and a lot colder.
This is puddingstone which is a conglamurate of stone and hardened mud. The two pictures immediately above this are the mountainside from where the rock fell.
This is one of the many roadhouses at which travelers in the days of walking, horseback, and stagecoach could stop, eat, and spend a night.
Five Finger Rapids presented quite a challenge to the sternwheeler riverboats carrying ore from and supplies and passengers to the gold fields and silver mines.
The Selkirk First Nation Heritage Centre was interesting. In Canada, the indiginous people (Indians) are know as First Nation people.
This is a Fall Scene with the harvest and other activities, including the marriage of the Crow and the Wolf, considered the necessary combination. To prevent inbreeding??
We left the Alaska Highway temporarily to take the Silver Trail to Mayo and on to Keno City, Keno being mining area and Mayo a support and shipping city for the ore. At Mayo we stayed in a municipal campground (free) where we backed up to the edge of a beautiful river.
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Keno was a neat place to visit with a very nice museum.
Good thing we didn’t need fuel!!
The dirt road was being graded and put back in good condition from the winter beating it took.
We got our share of mud.
In Mayo we visited their museum. This is a brown bear (grizzly) that had broken into someones home and torn the kitchen up pretty badly.
Back on the Alaska Highway. This was a lodge we visited. Cinnamon Rolls of course!!
The phone booth.
Lots of Spring repair on the road, this became a common picture.
The Tintana Trench is one or the major fault lines on our continent. This entire valley shows the width of the trench.
These diagrams show how the land shifted. Note the relationship between Dawson and Mayo on these two shots.
That does it for this leg of the trip. Next update will include Dawson City and take us well into the interior, probably to Chicken, Tok, and beyond, with the trip on the Top of the World Highway.
