Engineer Creek Campground and a hike up Sapper Hill

 

A short drive today to Engineer Creek campsite, about 2 hours north of Tombstone.  Pretty spectacular scenery with gray Beringian mountains untouched by the ice age glaciation.

It rained on and off and we considered driving further but the sun peeked out of the clouds so we camped at Engineer Creek.  

We headed up the Sapper Hill trail but it started raining and we slogged through wet foliage and creeks running down the trail.  Too bad as it really was quite a spectacular hike even in the downpour, culminating in this window in the rock wall.

From the top we could look down on the Ogilvie River.

There were some great new flowers, including a yellow ladyslipper and this delicate yellow poppy but I couldn't get any decent photos in the rain.

The mosquitos at the campsite were outrageous and it poured rain all day.  Fortunately there was a mosquito-proof shelter with a roaring wood stove.  Here we met Mark, a retired pilot who was bicycling from his home in Kelowna to Tuk.  He was spending a day here to dry out.  His family was flying into Inuvik to meet him and then he was flying home.

We played many a game of Skipbo to pass the time.

Tombstone Mountain -Day 3

We got up bright and early to visit a few birding sites recommended by the Naturalists at the interpretive centre.  The first stop was an area known for Smith's and Lapland longspurs.  Although Merlin picked them up we had no luck finding them.

On the other hand we had no trouble finding this willow ptarmigan who was wandering about next to our parked truck. 

 

Bird of the Day!

And the white-crowned sparrows were all over the place.

Next was Two Moose Lake for waterfowl.  Lots of ducks, horned grebe and a pair of tundra swans with 6 Cygnet.

Not a single Moose though, never-ending two.

Heading back to camp we stopped by another pond to look for more waterfowl.

Can you spot the exciting something?

  

I looked out of the truck down toward the pond and spotted something exciting.

Can you spot it now?

How about now?

Tombstone Mountain Park Day 2 - Goldensides Trail

Mark, Leo and I hiked up the Goldensides Trail.  There's a road to a microwave tower
 

And then it turns into a single track trail leading up to a ridge.

There's panoramic views of mountains all around.

Looking downstream at ice along the North Klondike River.

I was going to wait for the others to climb to the top at this point but the mosquitos were so bad I just kept going.  Eventually they came back before reaching the end of the trail.

The bear was right by the rock spire in the background

Mark had seen a bear. It ran off but they figured it was better to head back down.

There were lots of flowers blooming but my camera takes lousy pictures.

Bistort

Birds of the Day were white-crowned and American tree sparrows pretty much everywhere.

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.