Dawson City to Whitehorse, YT, July 26-27, 2011

Jim cleaned the RV at the RV wash station before we left Dawson City. The car and the rig were both covered in dirt and rocks after the trip across Top of the World Highway. It is so nice to be in a clean rig. Probably won’t last long but it’s good for now.
We refueled at the station next door then hit the road. Not long out of town I saw a fox crossing the road. That was about all the wildlife we would see on this trip. We would see lots of water. We crossed several large rivers and creeks. We stopped at a turnout just above Pelly’s Crossing. We could look down on the town and the Yukon River which wrapped around it. We had to cross over the river. At the turnout we met a man from Canada and talked to him for awhile. He was traveling in the opposite direction.
There was one patch of roadway that was under construction and we had to be led through that with a guide car. It was pretty messy but got through that OK. We finally made it to Whitehorse. Whitehouse is the largest town we’ve seen in a long while. The highway skirts the town and our campground is just at the last turn off the highway for the city. We drove into the campground hoping we’d find a spot with no problem. The first thing I was told was that they had nothing. Uh oh! Our luck has run out. After talking to the lady she said she had a site with electric (15 amp) and water but no sewer but she wasn’t sure we’d fit. She also had an unserviced site…no hookups…which was a large pull-through. She said we could check them both out. We decided to take the smaller one with some hookups but we had a difficult time getting into it. Jim finally just headed in and dragged the electric and water hose from the back to the hookups. It was fine and had plenty of room for the tow to park. One problem we had was the tow was making a horrible sound again like a rock was stuck in the brake. Jim said he would check it out in the morning. I didn’t mention that during all this it was raining. These times are not the fun times. We got all settled and dry and had a wonderful evening just getting our plans in order for the morning.
Jim did remove the tire on the tow and found something which had become bent. He straightened it our as best he could and the car sounded fine. We headed out first to a trail and footbridge across the Yukon River. It wasn’t far from our campground and we found it with no trouble. We parked at the trailhead and walked down some steps to right beside the river. We walked across the footbridge and enjoyed the view of the river running fast below. There was a trail along the river and one which was just on the edge. We saw a young woman with her dog walking there…I took a pic.
Jim and I walked for awhile along the other side but didn’t go far before turning back and crossing the bridge again. It was swaying a little….I could feel it moving.
We drove into town and found the visitor’s center where we watched a film about the town. We got some recommendations on what to see. We first walked back out to the river…they have a river walk all down along the river. We decided to save time we would drive out to the fish hatchery and then back into town to the McBride Museum. The fish hatchery has the longest ladder in the world. The salmon that migrate back to this fishery make the longest migration in the world…2,000 miles. There were no salmon yet but they expected them to arrive in the next five days. They have received reports from other locations on the arrival.
We left the fish hatchery and went back into town and parked right at the museum. We went all through the museum and saw some beautiful but stuffed animals. We also went through one exhibit which had lots of stories and equipment from the gold rush days.
We drove the car to the SS Klondike National Heritage Site and took a guided tour of the paddlewheeler. We watched a film first about the days of the paddlewheelers on the Yukon and how they were used during the gold rush days. Our tour guide was very good and knew lots of facts and stories about paddlewheelers and the SS Klondike. The most amazing thing was how much wood they needed to keep the ship running on steam. It was a beautiful ship and must have been an exciting time to travel that way.