Dawson City

Dawson City from the Midnight Dome

11

Squeezed right in

Our neighbours on the right shipped their van over from Austria and are driving to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina.  Check out their YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/@vagabundosontour?si=NZrBqEn-ALY4AWzO to see if they make it (helps if you understand German).

 

We drove up the Midnight Dome to check out the view.  Back in gold rush days the locals would come up for a big party to celebrate Midsummer Day.  Still do today.  

Oh the beautiful Yukon River.  

Makes you want paddle down it all the way to the Arctic Ocean.  From up here we got a great view of the tailings made by the gold dredges.

In the evening we drove up Bonanza Creek where gold was first discovered in the Klondike.  There is a public claim where you can pan for gold.

On our way we saw a fox running along the road.

Cathy was thrilled to pan in Bonanza Creek but she had no luck this time.

Cathy in her element

The next day we walked around Dawson checking out the old buildings.

Some all spiffed up

And some more derelict.

Leo and I went to the music festival being held this weekend. Sunday afternoon was free.

In the evening we went to Diamond Tooth Gerties

To see the Cancan girls.

Waiting for the show to start

The show went on for 1/2 hour with three Canaan dancers, male and female singers and a pianist. While you wait you can gamble.

Whitehorse, Yukon

Whitehorse was busy!  We could only get a campsite at the rv park that was furthest from town.

So we dropped off Heather and Cathy downtown while set up our rvs.  It wasn't bad for an rv park, the no electric sites were in the trees even if they were rather close together.

Note neighbour just a few feet away.

Then we drove back into town and checked out a few art galleries. We were given a recommendation to check out the Fireweed farmers' market, where we had supper and a delicious blueberry cheesecake icecream cup. 

At the Market

In the morning we went to see the SS Klondike; unfortunately, it was fenced off and undertaking a restoration.

But we got our photos took

And the Yukon River is as mighty as ever.

This is right where we put in the year we paddled the Yukon River

We had to get Heather to the airport in time for her flight home at noon and then we checked out the Yukon Transportation Museum.

It had displays of the White Pass train, indigenous transportation, bush planes and this LeTourneau Sno-Train built for the US Army.

It's giant

After lunch we visited the Beringia museum where we got to throw an atlatl and cavort with wooly mammoths.

Just my size!

Liard Hotsprings and Watson Lake

Today is the most scenic part of the Alaska Highway in BC.  We drove by the majestic Stone Mountain and Summit Lame. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures but you can look back at my blog posts from 2020 when we camped at Summit Lake.

As we drove by Muncho Lake

We spotted a group of Stone Sheep on the lakeshore

 And on the slope above the highway.

We camped at Liard Hotsprings, a provincial park I've wanted to visit for years.

The campground is surrounded by an electric fence to keep the problem bears out and you ha e to go out of the gate to access the hotspring.

Then you walk the boardwalk past the bog.

It's full of interesting plants that thrive here due to the warm water,

Here we have sundew on the left and lobelia.

The birds like it here too.  We were delighted to see bohemian waxwings because at home we have cedar waxwings in the summer and only see the bohemians in the winter.

Bird of the Day!

The natural hotsprings have been sympathetically and minimally developed and were quite busy with both locals and international visitors.

Unfortunately they were way too hot in the middle of a hot spell to spend much time soaking.

The next morning we drove on to Watson Lake in the Yukon.  We saw two bears by the highway

And then we met up with a large group of bison.

Complete with bison calfs.

We overnighted in Watson Lake. When we registered at the office another guest noticed we were from Williams Lake, asked us our name and proceeded to tell us our address. Creepy! She turned out to be our former letter carrier with a very good memory! 

We visited the sign village and then we took in the Northern Lights Centre where they have a planetarium.  We think the show was pretty good but we all fell asleep in the dark auditorium.

Heather made the Nova Scotians a very nice sign to post. Unfortunately I did not get a photo of it.  We'll have to go look for it next time we pass by,

Jax got his evening walk along the nature trails in Wye Lake Park, where we saw pine siskins, savannah sparrow and ravens.

Alaska Highway

After Barkerville we headed north through Prince George and up to the start of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek.

Our first stop was Whiskers Provincial Park on McLeod Lake.  We don't seem to have taken any pictures but we did go for a swim.

We set up our new giant screen tent and used it to play cards in the evening, protected from the many mosquitos.

The next day we drove to Dawson Creek where we overnighter in the municipal campground next to the Regional District offices (designed to look like a tepee?).

The RV park was also right next to the Walter Wright Pioneer Village, which was rather fun and had on display virtually every outmoded appliance you could think of, including the wringer washers our mother's used and manual and electric typewriters from our youth . . . Are we old enough to be considered pioneers now?

Old Pioneer Visits Village

They were having g a car show at Mile 0 on the Alaska Highway so downtown was hopping and we got Filipino and Indian food for dinner from some of the food booths.

The next day was a long day of driving to Fort Nelson.  At Buckinghorse River we encountered the most expensive gas of the trip:  $2.30 per litre!

We stayed at Triple G RV park, very crowded with Americans headed for Alaska, a caravan of airstream trailers and a bunch of motorbikes.

Here we met another Heather from Kentville, Nova Scotia, but she was a retired army chaplain.  She was attracted by the motorhome's Nova Scotia license plate. 

Awesome sunset here as there are forest fires burning near Fort Nelson.

Williams Lake and Barkerville

We got home to Williams Lake in time for some serious hot weather.  The highlight of our days in Williams Lake was a trip to Quesnel Forks where Cathy was thrilled to find a few flakes of gold.

We then headed north to Barkerville where we camped at our usual campground, Desert Rose.

There were active wildfires in the vicinity and helicopters were constantly flying into the fueling station set up right next to us.  Though Barkerville was still open at this point many people decided not to come and attendance was low.  Later in the month the town was evacuated and artifacts were removed for safekeeping.  In the end both Barkerville and Wells were spared.

 We bicyclesd into Wells to check out the art gallery

And biked back along a rough dirt road.  Not everyone was able to make it up this steep hill. I'm happy to report that my new ebike was up to snuff.

The next day we checked out Barkerville, attended Chinese school, took in a show at the theatre,

And had our portrait taken as a Pioneer trapping family.