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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