June 15, 2010

The Road from Whitehorse to Dawson City follows the Yukon River.

Not Mike's idea of a shop!

We left Whitehorse taking the Klondike loop rather than the Al-Can highway.  This will take us up part of the path of the Klondike gold rush hopefuls and into Dawson City which was the central location for commerce during the hight of the gold rush and then the location of the Yukon government quarters until 1953 when it was moved to Whitehorse for better accessibility.    We stopped in Carmacks to see a few old buildings left over from the gold rush days.    We have seen several road houses like the one above  spread out over the route.  Many are still little gas station/store operations and many were but have closed.  These small operations along the road do not have access to power lines and operate with generators.   There are miles and miles between them.  Most of the proprietors that we have dealt with are quite brusk, but then so are many of the other locals.  They aren't rude, they just don't have small talk converstions. 

No where I have ever been has felt as remote as where we are in the Yukon.  The landscapes are miles and miles of trees with no manmade structures in sight except for the vehicles on a small paved strip running through the forest.  I think very few people ever go even ten feet off the road.  When we were in the middle of nowhere we passed a man pushing a baby carriage on the road.  We didn't see any homes or cars nearby and have no idea where he came from.

The roads are very bumpy because the freezing and thawing causes the roads to come apart.  The road we are taking actually wasn't built until 1953, and before that everything and everybody came up the Yukon River.  There are still several truckers on the road, but the RV traffic has been reduced by half. 

On most of the Yukon roads we have been on, there is no spray painted graffiti, but instead thousands of names and so and so loves so and sos made out of rocks all over the side of the road .  It seems like the signpost forest, where everyone just copies the first few and the idea grows and grows.  I love it!

We camped tonight on a small river down a dirt road from the highway.  We fished and then ate the results.  I love fishing where there are actually lots of fish waiting to be caught.  You can fish quite late and not realize how late it is getting because of the light.  It was pretty warm this afternoon, around 75 or 80 degrees, but cooled off quickly around six p.m.  I read that this area gets 20.9 hours of light in June.  But when it is supposed to be dark, it really is just dusky.   In the winter the light lasts 3.8 hours, but I have heard from locals that even then, the light can be pretty dusky as well.  One interpretive sign that I read stated that many of the old trappers lived in only a tent, even though the winter tempatures are often -40 or below.  They were some rugged men!