Whitehorse

After Bill changed the air filter in the car we went to see the fish ladder.

It is the longest wooden fish ladder in the world. The salmon aren't this far up river yet, but there were trout and graylings in the viewing windows.

The dam was also pretty impressive, and the interpreters were very eager to impart information. To celebrate 50 years of it's existence there was a salmon decoration contest.




There is a display of the entrants, everything from a beaded specimen to some very life-like ones




From there we went to the Yukon Beringia Center.




During the last Ice Age part of the circumpolar region was not covered by glaciers. It was a vast area of grassy plain- no trees- and supported many species of mammals, including humans. This was what we know as the land bridge between Russia and Alaska. It covered parts of Siberia, Alaska and the Yukon.
As the climate changed and the sea filled in, the remaining land lost its' nutritious grass. Some species evolved and others didn't make it. There were all kinds of animals, many of them huge- mastodons, wooly mammoths, flat faced bear, giant beaver, etc. The Center gives a very good interpretation of this era. The area of the Klondike, especially around Dawson City, is a prime fossil bed. Many of the fossils are found by the placer miners.




The natives of the First Nations have many legends, oral history passed down for hundreds of generations, that prove the existence of man and animals during that era. A couple of years ago one of the paleontologists, in casual conversation with one of the local Natives, was told a legend about a hunting trip where a mammoth fell down a creek bank on one of the tributaries of the river in the area and died. On investigation, a nearly intact skeleton was discovered. It is interesting to note that the legends of the various First Nations of the area have many similarities, though their individual territories are far-flung. There is a nice statue depicting Traveller leaving through a hole in the sky, going with Crow to create the earth.






The Beringia Center is beside the airport. Also there is the Transportation Museum, which we did not visit. Outside it are examples of a couple of methods of transport that are too large to have inside- a freight barge and an airplane, which is the world's largest weathervane.




It is a C-47 that is mounted on a pole that pivots freely, so it's nose is always pointed into the wind. Today the wind is out of the southeast.

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Dawson City to the Whitehorse Walmart parking lot

June 25

We crossed the Yukon River on a tiny ferry that just nosed up to the bank and you drove on. There was a huge current of 12 knots there so they really had to power up to hold the boat in position.


The ferry runs from Spring break-up to freeze up, usually mid-May till mid-October. As there is no bridge (or other roads) I'm not sure what the people who live on the Top of The World side do from then until the river freezes solid and they can cross by other means. The ferry put us in Dawson City, that legendary town of gold rush days.



Today tourism is a major factor, with supplying the bush a close second. The grocery store had everything in huge quantities- 20 pound sacks of potatoes, 2 pound boxes of cereal, cheese in big bricks, etc. Mining also still is a major part of the economy. The town looks much like it once did, but of course the buildings are all painted nicely now. Part of this is from necessity.


The streets are unpaved and there are raised board sidewalks, thanks to the permafrost. Some of the original buildings were still in use and hadn't been redone, just added on to. Most of them were log. There was a nice Danoja Zho cultural center as Dawson City is the seat of governance of the Tr'ondek Hwech'in First Nation. We visited the Fireman's Hall museum, which had the pages of the local paper from Feb. 17, 1905 on the wall. Most of the news was actually stories from Russia.


One told of a so-called Benevolent Society there that had a council of men who met to decide who in the village was a drain on society, and was to be killed. Needless to say, this got out of hand. A family of brothers wanted their mother's money, so they brought her up before the council. She was condemned, but managed to escape and report to the police what was happening, thus ending the "benevolence." The annual Dust to Dawson motorcycle rally was in progress.


This goes "over the Top" and the festivities last for several days, so the streets were lined with bikes; a rather jarring sight next to all the Victoriana.

We headed out of town, through piles of gravel tailings thrown up by the hydraulic mining operations. The countryside became taiga- miles and miles of it. It is somewhat the equivalent of Kansas. While beautiful, the scenery never changes. At one point we drove through another recent fire area. You could still smell the burn. Acres of black sticks sticking up from the ground. It was interesting to note that fire doesn't take a straight path, and in some cases even appears to pick it's path, veering off and missing a clump of trees, then backing in and burning everything around them. We also passed an area where the dirt on the roadside was white and looked like the edge of the road looks when the snow has all melted, except that pushed up onto the side by the plow.


However, it was far too warm to be snow, even up here. It actually was volcanic ash, deposited 1200 years ago. It is a good time indicator as everything on top of it is younger than 1200 years and everything under it is older. As there is no record of volcanic activity in this area, it's origin is something of a mystery. It is thought that it was brought here by the retreating glacier. The top layer was thin- not much happens geologically in 1200 years! As we drove along the river, it got wilder, with deep gorges and many rapids. What a time those people must have had, and how great their desire for success, for them to have dared to challenge it with little or no resources or knowledge of what lay ahead. I guess that's what being a pioneer is. We are camped by Lake Laberge, a big, very pretty lake. This sunset is especially nice, taken at 11:30pm.


We are farther south now, so there is a bit less light. I kind of miss it.

June 26, our 39th wedding anniversary

We drove into Whitehorse,


another gold rush town, but the territorial capital so much more cosmopolitan. It's a flat city! There is not one tall building here, except for what they call the "log skyscrapers."


It's a nice little city, though, well platted so easy to navigate. We located Walmart to see if there were other campers there, in case we decided to spend the night, then went to the Visitor Center. As we got out of the van we noticed that there was fluid leaking from the radiator. We went to the Center, then to the public library across the parking lot to post the latest blog, and when we returned it had leaked some more. It was Saturday afternoon, so impossible to find a mechanic. Guess we'll be here for a while! Bill added more fluid and we went off to drown our sorrows at the Yukon Brewing Company. The beer was fine, but even better was the sign advertising the sheet-metal company next door.




We also visited the Old Log Church museum and rectory.


It is the oldest Anglican church in the Yukon, and was used well into the 1960's. The log buildings were interesting; they are chinked with rope or some kind of hemp fiber.





We went out to the Klondike Salmon Bake restaurant for dinner, one of the oldest in Whitehorse, and located in some of the oldest buildings.





It was a funky sort of place, the salmon was good, and the mixed berry pie was to die for! After dinner we took a walk along the river beside the waterfowl sanctuary. From a distance the Walmart parking lot looked like an RV sales lot.


The path was an old trolley line, and a lovely trail until we came to the end where there was big steel fence and a sign saying "Caution-Keep Out! Contaminated Land!"





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To Chicken and over The Top of The World

June 23

As we left Fairbanks we decided that we like this little city. You really get the feel of the pioneer spirit that Alaska is known for here.

Our next stop was North Pole.


A tiny town that is hokey in the extreme, you do have to smile at the candy cane street light poles and Christmas decorations that seem to hang on them year round. Never again can Bill complain about our Christmas wreath staying up till Easter (a practice of many true NH-VT North Country natives)!


A visit to Santa Claus House was a must. The sheer volume of Christmas stuff there was overwhelming but the letters to Santa from kids all over the world that papered some of the walls were charming.

We stopped for lunch at a scenic outlook and boy, was it ever scenic! We were excited to see that Denali was visible. What a presence that mountain has! It was best seen through binoculars because of the haze, but it loomed over a large part of the horizon. It's glaciers gleamed in the sun. Mt. Foraker was also in view. That one is known to the Native Alaskans as "Denali's Wife." We had several other great views of them as we continued east.

Our next stop was at Rika's Roadhouse State Park.


Rika Wallner was a woman who came to AK and established a homestead on the banks of the Tanana River. She made a living by running a roadhouse and farming, all alone. She was well positioned to take advantage of both the prospectors and the river freight traffic, as there was a ferry freight weigh station at her landing. Her homestead was a neat little farm, with sound buildings and gardens. Today you can't stay there, but there is a restaurant that makes everything from scratch, and is very popular.


Reportedly, though she was a good farmer and hotelier, her food was not so good!

We proceeded on with a quick stop for some photos of the pipeline as it crossed the Tanana River.


When we pulled in to the lovely Moon Lake State Recreation Site our friends, Bette and Tom, were already there.
We camped near them and had a wonderful evening of shared dinner, lots of chat and laughs and a bit of wine around the campfire.


The breeze died and it cooled off and the lake looked like glass in the long hours it took for the sun to reach the horizon.


June 24
We awoke to a glorious day, so got off to a late start. Moon Lake called for us to stay longer, but we finally resisted it's pull. As Bette said just before we left, "I could live here." We drove on to Tok, where Bette and I shopped hard. Then it was time to say final good-byes for this trip. We headed on our separate ways toward the Canadian border. We left the Alaska Highway and turned onto the Taylor Highway, headed for Chicken. You might wonder why a town would be named Chicken. It seems they really wanted to name it Ptarmigan, after the bird that flourishes on the tundra, but no-one could spell that- hence, Chicken.







The Taylor Highway is a very high road that winds along the side of the mountains, through tundra that has seen a fire a few years ago. A man in Chicken told us it was in 2004 and burned 1.4 million acres. It was pretty desolate, and the road was not in very good repair. A couple of miles out of Chicken it began to rain lightly and the mud got slippery but we were still happy to be there! Fortunately the rain soon stopped and the road was just wet, not muddy.



Chicken is a tiny settlement, population 28. It began as a gold mine stake on Chicken Creek, and is still a gold mining town. However, it has gone commercial in a big way. There were several cafe and souvenir shops, tours of the historic buildings, a post office, fire department, gas pump and various other enterprises, even a camping area. There are no public services- each household provides it's own electricity, water and sewer. Needless to say, the generator rules! As well, I'm sure you've figured out that it is also the home of everything chicken. Kind of like Sue Ballou's extensive frog collection, but with clucks. The whole shebang sits in a tiny, dusty valley nearly a hundred miles from the nearest town.

We left Chicken and continued along the dirt road. From Chicken to Dawson City the road is called The Top of The World, and it certainly feels like it.


The scenery is breathtaking any way you look. It winds along the mountain side, near the top or along the actual spine of the ridge. You can see forever; mountain ranges lined up, one behind the other.
The road conditions ranged from rutty gravel to rutty gravel decorated with potholes. Top speed averaged about 25 miles per hour. After over 60 miles of this we came to Boundry, AK, population "about 8," as the sign said.


It had a couple of outhouses, three tiny cabins, an old original log cabin that serves as a gathering place for the 8 residents, a gas pump and a larger building which housed a tiny store where you could also buy hot dogs, coffee, soda and homemade brownies. Attached were the owner's living quarters. Turns out, he's from Dover, NH.


He's worked there several years but just bought it a year ago. He loves living in AK. He says you just sleep more in the winter and the lack of light doesn't bother you, but he spends some time in Hawaii anyway. He actually has a bit of winter business as there are three snowmobile tours that go "over the Top;" one in January, February and March.


He was a nice fellow and happy to see folks from "home." He actually lives in Tok in winter, except for the snow machine tour weeks.

Nine miles later we crossed from the USA into Canada and the road became paved, mostly. From that point on it really stuck to the ridge top until we descended into Dawson City another hundred miles later.
Average speed for that stretch was a whopping 40 miles per hour! Much of the time you could see the road stretching out in front of us, twisting like a serpent, a couple of ridges over. Bill said it reminded him of looking at the Great Wall of China.




After we camped on the banks of the Yukon River at Dawson City we walked down the beach to see what is called the " steamboat grave yard."





After the Alaskan Highway was finished and upgraded for civilian use, in the 1950's, the huge paddlewheel steamboats that had supplied the region with goods and travel were no longer needed.


Four of them were simply taken downstream and beached, left to rot back into the soil. Sixty years later they are still recognizable but are now not much more than a pile of boards and metal.


We could make out the name on two of them, the Seattle 2 and the Julia. I wonder who she was named for? It was sort of a sad place, but the encroaching trees, grass and flowers softened it a bit.




Yes, there were millions of hungry mosquitoes!



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Denali-Fairbanks

On our last morning in the Park we went to a tour of the sled dog kennels. Denali NP has the only sled dogs in the National Park Service. They are used to haul freight and take the rangers on patrol in the winter. A few years ago they tried to introduce modern technology in the form of snowmobiles and snow cats, but went back to the dogs after a couple of years of non-starting, freeze-ups and breakdowns. The kennel breeds all the dogs they use.



They are all Alaskan Huskies. There was a demonstration of dogsledding, and as soon as the sled was brought out, all the dogs began barking and jumping. "Take me, choose me, MY turn!".



They really do live to pull.

We exited the Park without seeing the mountain, and drove to Fairbanks. Our first stop was the Visitors' Center and Convention Center, a beautifully designed building on the banks of the Chena River. I asked who comes for conventions and was told that there are lots of them, mainly in winter. I had a hard time imagining a big corporation sending it's executives to Fairbanks in winter, and then the lady said "Teachers." We walked through a nice park along the river that had several bronze monuments in it. One honored the Native Alaskans with a beautiful statue of a mother, child and sled dog.



It also listed, on bronze tablets, all of the Native and pioneer families and their members, at the time of statehood. There was also a monument to the WW2 Lend-Lease Program with Russia.








We found the University and visited the Georgeson Botanical Gardens. It was a beautiful array of all kinds of plants and trees. They do research on food crops to what can be grown in the 24 hr. Daylight and short growing season. They also are developing ways to cope with the extremely cold soil.



Only the top few inches warms enough to supporter the plant's roots, thanks to the permafrost. Some of the things they do are to plant in "hilled" rows, use raised beds, cover the ground with black plastic to warm it quicker,and sometimes even run heat tapes under the soil. There were many flowers blooming. They even do research on non-hardy ornamentals. I have total peony envy now! I have never seen so many varieties.



Unfortunately, most of them were about 2 weeks from blooming. They will be quite a sight as they were loaded with buds.

We spent some time looking around the University. It sits high on a hill to the west of the city. It has lovely buildings, many of them quite new.



I hope they have a good student bus shuttle system because in the cold, dark winters in Fairbanks it's hard to imagine anyone walking around campus, especially up hill.





We found a campsite at the Chena River State Recreation Area. In the evening we hiked a trail along the river, and saw a bear fishing.



It was the summer Solstice, and our little camp in a grove of aspens glowed yellow from the sun until after midnight. Bill photographed it at 1:30am, using only natural light.



We began the next day at the Ice Museum, which is located in an old movie theater.



Every March Fairbanks hosts an international ice sculpture competition. It has turned into a two week long festival. They harvest the blocks of ice from a pond nearby. It has no silt, thus no pond growth, so the water is crystal clear.



At the museum there are examples of ice sculptures that are kept at 20 degrees F, and a room that you can go into with more sculptures, for photographs; also a frosty 20 degrees. There is also a movie about the process and the festival, as well as a demonstration by the resident artist, Zhe An, who is from Harbin, China.







Perhaps you have seen the photos of the ice sculptures in Harbin that circulated on the Internet a while ago. His family are all master carvers there. Then we went back to the University to the museum, the Museum of the North. This is a magnificent building, an award-winning design that soars above the rest of the campus. The collection is all art and artifacts of the North. There were wooly mammoth tusks and teeth and a nice presentation about the aurora borealis.



It has a the best view of Denali in Fairbanks, and we were able to finally see the mountain through binoculars, though the smoke from the wildfires is obscuring it a bit.

Finally we went to see the pipeline at a location about 20 miles north of the city. It was informative, to say the least.



That is one big pipe!



At any one time it has 9 million gallons of oil in it. It is cleaned by machines called pigs that travel through it, twirling as they go. There is a sign that tells the public what to do if they notice anything wrong, like black goo on the ground or dripping from the pipe. Do not start your car, use your cell, or even take a photo, for fear of igniting any gas that might be there. But, call this number! As much of the pipeline is located many miles from habitation, my reaction was "Huh?". Just another nonsensical sign!

Tonight we are boon-docking in the Walmart parking lot.



We have seen others do it but have never had to. There weren't any campgrounds that we wanted to stay at nearby, so we decided to join our fellow travelers. By the time we went to bed there were at least 20 vehicles there. It was a fine experience. The past two days have been very warm, nearly 80 degrees, so people were out all night. Walmart was busy at midnight. It was funny, though, to see the parking lot lights, that must have been on timers, illuminated while the sun was shining brightly at midnight. We leave you with this photo taken at the pipeline visitor booth.

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