Category: Western Canada

Day 71-72.

After short visit at Haines Junction (Kluane NP) Visitor Information Centre, with supplies loaded, we drove short distance and settled quickly at Kathleen Lake Campground (for two nights). With weather improved, mix of sun and clouds, we were ready for a hike. We decided summiting King’s Throne Peak was probably too much for that day, but hiked up to King’s Throne “seat”- bottom of the bowl below it. Trail starts easy at Kathleen Lake (near campground). It then turns into good workout on steep rocky slope, almost scramble with fading trail in places. Joanna again could not resist and hiked higher to see what’s on the other side of the mountain. Piotr just guessed – more mountains. Upon return, we relaxed on lake’s shore. Enjoyed long day with sunny weather to cook dinner. Piotr refreshed his skills chopping wood logs. It was good, well organized NP campground.

Next day weather was mixed and hard to predict. We used the day for two short hikes. On Rock Glacier – a pile of frozen rocks, rather than a big chunk of ice like the other glaciers we visited. Interesting feature to explore, even in light rain. Then very easy, almost flat trail (old forest road) to St Elias Lake, enjoyable in better weather.

We left the final decision whether to go to Haines for the following morning.

Day 73.

With rain in the forecast on the coast and car ferry sold-out, we decided to skip Haines, turn inland and drive around to Skagway. It was all day of slow driving watching mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes passing by – car tourism. We passed Whitehorse again (without stopping this time), but spent some time in Carcross. Important station on White Pass & Yukon Railway during gold rush. We liked the small town, now just tourist destination, visitor center, good coffee and pastries. We walked a bit on Carcross Desert (large dune, not true desert) – what a change after walking on glaciers. Plus short evening walk on Lake Bennett.

We settled for the night further along Klondike Hwy at almost empty Conrad Campground on shore of Windy Arm of Tagish Lake. It is located on the grounds of long closed and dismantled copper mining operation.

Day 29.

Driving 400 km on Alaska Highway. We made it to Whitehorse in late afternoon, checked out a couple of campgrounds (we did not like overcrowded RV Park and a recommended place did not allow car camping). We ended up driving back to Caribou RV Park (recommended). The place is not big and is packed quite densely, but it has a lot of character (European owners), real bathrooms and good food served out of food truck. We made a few stops on the way of course: in Teslin (at the bridge and Tlingit Heritage Centre), Johnsons Crossing (to see what is left of collection of cars abandoned after Canol Road construction during WWII) and Marsh Lake (Joanna discovered new iPhone soft light filter=dirty lens).

Day 30.

Time for Whitehorse and we were getting deeper into gold rush history. We started the day walking along Yukon River Miles Canyon to historic site of Canyon City and towards Schwatke Lake. Whitehorse Falls, now submerged after the river was dammed, were treacherous waters to be conquered by river boats carrying people and cargo. Jack London navigated boats through rapids on the way to gold fields. The water is still running fast through the canyon. It has intense blue-green color.

Day 31.

Dawson City was next, to get there we drove on Klondike Highway, 600 km in two days. Now we were visiting places where the gold rush was invented. Carmacks first, not much left from the old days (Montague Roadhouse, hotel and post office). But the Mighty Yukon River is still flowing north. Five Finger Rapids was another difficult navigation spot on the river (at high water). It was short, but steep walk down from highway parking lot to river’s cliff to view the rapids. Klondike Highway seemed endless and empty (it really was). We saw larger areas destroyed by wildfires as we approached Stewart Crossing (some fires still smoldering, the highway was just re-opened). With road construction slowing us down, we decided to camp at Moose Creek Campground (nice not crowded), just 25 (slow) km past Stewart Crossing. With long daylight, we had enough time for a walk down the creek to Stewart River. Wet forest and marshes. As we were reading nature trail poster about not all mosquitoes being “bad and biting”, mosquitoes diving at our backs did not feel constrained by science.

Day 32.

We enjoyed reading about and viewing Tintina Trench: 1000 km long linear depression on top of fault line cutting across Yukon in part of which Klondike River flows until it merges with Yukon River in Dawson City. Then Joanna heard hissing noise – flat tire, nail or something. We drove 60 km on spare to Dawson City. Flat tire was fixable by local shop. With the problem temporarily solved, we rented private room with kitchen for two nights. We enjoyed the stay. Walking around town and visiting historic buildings from gold rush era, walking along Yukon River (rivers and steam boats provided key means of transportation back then), spending couple of hours at Diamond Tooth Gerties (evening show, beer and friendly talking with other tourists) and walking at midnight in what looked like almost full daylight. The whole town is like a living museum, very interesting.

16Day 33.

Gold rush in Bonanza Creek. We joined organized tour of Dredge 4 Historic Site (Parks Canada), bought tickets and rented pans the night before at Dawson City Visitor Center. Park ranger gave us good overview of gold rush era activities (1896-1999), how dredges worked, how gold was dug up etc. The entire valley floor is covered with mounds of dirt and rocks dug 100 times over by prospectors. Some shafts and rusting machinery can be found along interpretative trail. Gold mining claims and some operations continue. We did not dig, but tried panning in Klondike gold rush spirit (no luck).

Panoramic view from Midnight Dome was great (some wildfire smoke was in the air): Dawson City, Yukon River and confluence with Klondike River. Later we walked on river trail to the confluence, stopped at governor’s mansion and Jack London cabin (museum), looked around to identify more historic buildings described in guidebooks. Grocery shopping was just an attempt, but good enough to cook dinner at home (always good to have pantry under the deck, in our car that is).

We discovered that the punctured tire was also wearing off much faster than the rest and was already mostly bald. It was OK to drive for a few hundred km, but we still had thousands to Chicago. Shipment of new tires would take several days. We decided to go 600 km to Fairbanks (rather than 1100 km to Anchorage) to look for them. It was second major change of direction. Fairbanks was not high on our list of destinations.