Dawson City (08-23-14)

On the shores of the mighty Yukon sits Dawson City, Canada. Dawson was at the heart of the Klondike gold rush.






    
 
In 1896, when Skookum Jim and his pals discovered gold in Bonanza Creek, they set off a massive stampede of would be miners who flocked to this area to strike it rich.

By 1904, heavy equipment such as dredges, were being used to strip the river of it’s gold.  Bonanza Creek turned out to be one of the richest creeks in one of the richest gold fields in the world.

Although large dredges are no longer used, gold mining operations, both large and small, are still the main focus of this town.











The sides of the streets are piled high with tailings, for miles on end.

The town itself has retained it’s old world feel, with colorful storefronts, dirt roads and elevated boardwalks.

Random thought:
I have decided to invest in some weather predicting hardware.  The weather forecasters up here are just as accurate as their counterparts further south.  This summer has been one of the wettest on record, and we’ve spent a lot of time trying to reach areas where the sun was supposed to be shining, only to find more gray skies and downpours- so I am going to start using a Weather Rock.


  If it’s wet- its raining,  if it’s white-it’s snowing, if it’s warm-its sunny, if it’s gone-it’s windy.

Exit- Stage Right! (08-22-14)

Someone once told me that when the Fire-weed stops blooming in Alaska- summer is over.  Well, folks, the Fire-weed has stopped blooming and we have started our trek south.

Our road of choice is the Klondike Trail, which is actually 3 roads-  the Taylor Highway in Alaska, Top of the World Highway in the Yukon, and the Klondike Highway in the Yukon. 

 This route has a reputation- as both a beautiful, scenic byway, and a dangerous, slippery road. Indeed, 2 motor homes have “fallen off” the Klondike Trail  this summer.

The Taylor portion was the spookiest for me.  Much of the road is dirt, and it has soft shoulders with sheer drop offs.  Paul was confident and the truck handled fine, but the passenger admits to some white knuckle moments.

Its not a road that anyone takes when they are in a rush nowadays, for sure.  We took two days to drive it, spending one night near the Canadian border.

There are very few towns along the way, but the few that are here are definitely full of character!


 The town of Chicken has a population of about 200, mostly gold miners.  The story goes that the original inhabitants really wanted to name the town after the state bird- the Ptarmigan, but no one knew how to spell it, so they settled on Chicken. 

There are 3 business downtown, as well as an overgrown chicken.  The signposts point out distances from such places as Clucker’s Hall, Illinois,  and Chicken Scratch, NC.

The historic post office has been open since 1903, and receives mail twice a week.  There is no phone service in Chicken and the water and electricity are generated locally.

Once we crossed the border, the view got even more incredible.

 

The road was in pretty good condition and an easy drive.

This is why they call it Top of the World. 

You can see the road skirting along the tops of the ridges for miles.

We did drive through clouds at one point, but we only got rained on a little bit so the road didn’t get too slippery.

Eventually we landed where the Klondike Trail has been bringing people for over a century- Dawson City.