Dawson City, YT

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Wow today is actually June 30. We have not had good enough internet connection to work on the blog, so I'm 4 days behind.  I hope to catch up today.

This post is going to be about the architecture of this quaint gold mining town on the Yukon River.

 Main highway and only "pavement".  More like hard-packed gravel.

We arrived between rain storms. None of the streets are paved and all the streets were muddy with lots of potholes filled with water so you had no idea how deep the holes were.  It did not rain overnight and the streets dried.  The road graders came out and leveled many of the streets, so no more potholes.  It must be a regular occurrence.

Carmacks, YT

Saturday, June 24, 2017

Today we move to Carmacks, YT. We woke to a bright sunny day. Hallelujah!

 It was so nice having sunshine this morning!


 We are traveling along side Fox Lake which is 40 miles long.
Look how blue the water is.

 We are at high point overlooking the Yukon River again.  The Yukon River starts in British Columbia. Then travels through the Yukon before it empties into the Bering Sea.

 We stopped at a rest stop that talked about a major forest fire that went through this area in 1998.  This is how much it has grown back in almost 20 years.

 Our next stop was at the Montague Roadhouse Historic Site. Above is the tour guide from a tour bus that had also stopped. Cute!

 This is only one of 52 roadhouses that were along this stage coach route in 1901.

 The roadhouses would provide fresh horses for the stage coach and food and overnight accommodations for passengers if they wanted.

The main building used to be 2 stories tall.

Look closely for the wood in the lower middle of the picture. It was probably an underground storage area for ice gathered in the winter and used for food storage in the summer.

The hillsides are uniquely rolling.  Gorgeous!

We made it to the township of Carmacks. The Hotel Carmacks has an RV park behind it.

 Above is our parking site.  It is close quarters and the park is full. Below is the Hotel Carmacks.

We ate lunch in the Gold Panner Restaurant.  Quaint.

After lunch we decided to drive around the town of Carmacks.

 This the Orloff King cabin. He was a prospector here.  After he died it was used by several other prospectors.

This is the Carmacks Roadhouse.  Above is the back and below is the front.

We think this was the stable for the roadhouse. Several teams of horses were kept available for the stage coaches.

Notice how the roofs were constructed so they could hold the weight of a sod roof.  See the grass growing on top of the roof?

Now we are headed to Five Fingers Rapids. Beautiful area!!

 We've seen these purplish flowers lining the highway a lot of today so had to stop and get a picture.

 This is the Five Finger Rapids where the Sternwheelers had to travel through in order to deliver the goods to Dawson City from Whitehorse.

The SS Klondike sternwheeler (steamship) was 210 feet long and 41 feet wide.  It was very tricky navigating to get through these rapids.

We got a kick out of the terminology on this side.  The bridge had to be "rehabilitated".  It must have been a bad bad bad bridge.  Hee Hee  See the bridge below.

This bridge spans the Yukon River.

Our RV park is right by the Yukon River.  This is a view from beside the river.

 These pretty little martins are everywhere here helping keep the mosquito population down.

 The clouds are so pretty in the sky.  Just had to share.

 There is a sand bar about 20 feet offshore in the river.  These seagulls were enjoying the water. It seems strange to see seagulls up here.

These pretty little flowering wildflowers were growing near the bench we were sitting on by the river.

We were trying to stay up and get a sunset picture.  But sunset is not until 12:01am...that's TOMORROW!  This is taken at 10:25pm.  We plan to get up early tomorrow because we have a long travel day.  So good night all!

Whitehorse, YT Day 3

Friday, June 23, 2017

We woke to bright sunshine today.  We are excited! We've been advised to get whatever supplies, food etc here before we continue.  This will be the last place with reasonable prices and supplies will be very limited.

Because it is sunny we decided to go into town and walk around a little and have lunch.

 This is one of the many museums in Whitehorse. MacBride Museum illustrates the Yukon’s history, with a focus on the role of Whitehorse in the development of the Territory. 

This restaurant was highly recommended, so we decided to try it out.

We each had a cup of halibut chowder served with homemade focaccia bread.  OMG it was delicious.

Dusty is a bread pudding fanatic.  After seeing their bread pudding, we ordered one to go for us to share.  It is huge. We ended up having it for supper.

Dusty also wanted to find some elk sausage.  She had some at a restaurant in Teslin and really enjoyed it. There are 3 meat markets in Whitehorse. 

As we were walking to the meat market rated #1 we saw this mural painted on the side of a building.

Off the Hook Meat Works was our choice.  I bought 2 packages of elk sausage and 2 top sirloin steaks.

The temperature is about 68 degrees F and in the sun it is absolutely gorgeous!  We decided to go back to Miles Canyon and get pictures in the sunshine.

This view is from a elevated point looking up river just before the canyon.

 Above is the beginning of the canyon. Below is looking down river and shows the walking bridge to the other side of the Yukon River.

Look at the strength of the side supports on the walking suspension bridge.

 This is looking further down river. The Yukon River is gorgeous. 

From the side of the road we could see people playing in the water on the opposite side of the river.  Below is a closeup.

Closer into town, we could see Grey Mountain.  You can see why it got its name. It has been a beautiful stay here in Whitehorse.

We did a little more grocery shopping and laundry so we are set to hit the road in the morning.