Up the Dempster to Tombstone Mountain Park

There was a last desperate rush this morning before we left our trailers behind in a storage facility.  Then it was just a short drive up the Dempster Highway to our first stop, Tombstone Mountain Territorial Park.

We set up our tents in the campground. We'd reserved sites as we'd heard it's very popular.  The campsite did fill up by evening days but we got there early enough we could have got a walk-in site.

That done we walked down to the Interpretive Centre where this Say's phoebe had made a nest in the rafters above the entrance.  (On our way back from the Arctic they had blocked off the front entrance to prevent disturbance of the newly laid eggs).

Bird of the Day!

Outside the centre was this artistic rendering of a caribou fence which the Gwichin used to funnel cariboo into a corral.

The naturalist suggested we hike the North Klondike trail which takes off right from our campground.

It starts off following the river through the spruce trees

But soon we climbed up into the taiga with grand views of the mountains around us.

Here we saw American tree sparrows, fox sparrows and white-crowned sparrows.

Eventually the trail led back down to the river where the ice had not melted yet.

Our Day in Dawson

Leo and I started the day with a run down the Bonanza Creek road. Bonanza Creek is the site of the first gold strike that started the Klondike Gold Rush.  We turned around when we heard a wolf howling in the woods.

In the afternoon we headed downtown to check out the shops and of course, for a latte and a slice.

In the afternoon we signed up for a tour of the SS Keno, a sternwheeler parked on the main street.

While we were waiting we were surprised to see a mini paddlewheeler chug by.  

This is the Klondike Spirit and it just got back into service after being drydocked since the pandemic.  It's not authentic:  unlike the original Yukon paddlewheelers this boat is a sidewheeler, not a sternwheeler.  But it still would be a fun  excursion on the river. It makes a 1 hour trip up and down the river.  We hoped to take the tour on our way back from the Dempster but ran out of time.

As for the Keno it was built in 1922 and ran until 1951, when the highway was completed.  

It spent most of its career carrying ore from mines down the Stewart River, which was too shallow for the larger sternwheelers like the SS Klondike.  It was also used on the main Whitehorse to Dawson route early in the year when ice narrowed the Yukon River.

Dining Hall

We spent the rest of the day preparing for the Dempster, moving everything we needed from our trailers to our trucks, buying groceries and filling jugs of water for our trip.

To the Klondike!

It was a long and bumpy road to Dawson today.  We forgot to turn off the pump in the trailer and the bumpy road turned on the kitchen sink tap which then emptied out our freshwater tank all over the floor.  Quite the disaster.

We'd planned to camp in the government campground on the Yukon River but they have no potable water there (and we needed to fill our tank) and we needed to do our laundry.  So we went to the Bonanza RV park.  It's just a gravel pit but it's a historic gravel pit as this gravel has been run through countless slices in the search for gold.

It's only $35 to stay here but then they nickle and dime you for everything else, a loony for water, 2 loonies for a shower, and, worse yet, the sanidump was $5 with no water.

Our first act was to drive up to the Dome for the view just as a storm was blowing in.

We got views of the city,

down the Yukon River 

Yukon River

and towards the Klondike River and our RV park.

Next we headed downtown to check out the town.  We rode out the afternoon shower by watching films about the gold rush and sternwheelers in the Visitor Centre.

Supper was fish and chips and chowder at Sourdough Joes.  Somehow we stayed up till midnight and yeah, it was still light out.

To Pelly Crossing

 

We departed Whitehorse for our 2-day drive to Dawson City, stopping at the remains of  Montague Roadhouse, one of the stopovers on the overland route to the Klondike.

We stopped for lunch at the Cassiar reststop, which sports a very attractive mosaic welcome sign.

After Carmacks we stopped and made the 15-minute hike to Five Finger Rapids.

One of the islands in the Yukon River washed away in recent years so now it is technically only a three finger rapid.  

 This was of interest to us as we had paddled through this rapid on our Yukon River trip in 2012.  T

It's actually no big deal if you stick to the right bank.  It was more of an issue for sternwheelers; they had to winch themselves upstream.

There's a herring gull colony on one of these islands

It's a 129 steps down "the Yukon's longest stairway" and of course 129 steps back up in the full afternoon sun.  Phew!

The road was rough and included a very long drive behind a pilot truck through a construction area.  We were very happy to arrive at Pelly Crossing's lovely free campsite

With views of the Pelly River and its Yukon  blue bridge.

After supper we walked over and crossed the bridge.

There were various beautiful legumes blooming on the roadside.

This could be bear root (hedysarum alpinum) or northern sweetvetch (Hedysarum boreale ssp. mackenziei) but you 'd best know the difference if you plan to eat the roots. Franklin's party (?) were reportedly poisoned when they ate the sweetvetch by mistake. I think it's actually the sweetvetch.

And this very pretty locoweed:

Showy Locoweed

Pretty Much Sums up this Summer (since getting back from Yukon)

 

New Yorker Cartoon of the day, July 29, 2026

Solstice in Whitehorse

Today we hiked from Toad Lake up to the alpine.

The trail started right near a place where they offer dog sledding excursions so we got to watch them come by us.

Power assisted dog sledding

Leo and Mark made it to the summit.

Later we headed over to the National Indigeonous People's Day celebrations at the cultural centre.  They had music, a celebrity fancy dancer, craft sales and food trucks.

Whitehorse

Just a 1-1/2 hour drive from Teslin Lake to Whitehorse.  We stopped at Johnson Crossing for their famous cinnamon buns, and indeed they were the best ones we tried on our whole trip.

The cinnamon buns were enormous (we shared one between the two of us) and we got to eat them on the patio in sight of the iconic Johnson's Crossing bridge. 

We were hoping to camp at Wolf Creek Provincial Park twenty minutes out of Whitehorse but it was full up so we were forced to stay in a commercial rv park.  It was time for a shower anyway.

From the road Pioneer RV park looks like a big gravel parking lot with big rigs parked neck on neck but it turns out there's a whole wooded area out back with water and electricity.

It's quite a going concern with an rv washing station and and oil changing station, all for a fee, and a gas station (2 cents off if you stay in the park.

The park had a caravan of 20 units coming in that night (Americans going to Alaska) and they soon filled up the gravel parking lot.

The next morning we drove down to Miles Canyon 

Where you can cross the Yukon River on a suspension bridge 

and hike trails that lead to Schute Lake and all the way to downtown Whitehorse.

In the afternoon we checked out the SS Klondike, 

Still closed to the public for repairs.  Then we drove to the hydropower plant and fish ladder where we spotted this fox.

There were no salmon expected up the fish ladder until mid-July but we learned that the Yukon River is the longest salmon run in the world with 803 Chinook returning to the fish ladder last year.

At the fish ladder

To top off the afternoon we stopped off at Baked, Whitehorse's popular cafe.

Doughnut and latte for Leo, ginger cookie and steamed milk for Connie