Whitehorse, Yukon Territory 6/7-6/10/08

Again, another 6am departure. We planned on driving about 140 miles today. The roads were a little straighter, a little less hilly, but a lot less paved. Shortly after we left Watson Lake, we traveled in loose gravel for what seemed like hours. Dominic slowed down to about 25mph in order to keep the gravel off the coach and the dust out of our engine..I felt like Pigpen in the Charlie Brown cartoons-we had a huge dust cloud around us. It was easy to see oncoming traffic because they, too, were surrounded by the dust their own tires kicked up. It was lovely. I travel with a cup of coffee in a cup holder near the dashboard-each time I drank from it, I imagined all the road dust I was ingesting…I wonder how many calories in a pound (or liter?) of dust?
Again, we stopped at rest stops for pictures and sightseeing. We saw a moose, a bear, and finally, a caribou (we’d never seen one before). The road ran parallel to a few different rivers for a good part of the day and the rivers were framed by huge snow capped mountains. We admired the immense beauty around us and say-“Hey, that looks like Alaska!”
We had another ‘must-do’ today, this time in the way of MUKLUK ANNIES. This is a campground, restaurant, boat trip, car/rv wash all rolled into one. The ads say ‘free camping, free rv wash ‘. Annies is known for her delicious salmon bake. So, we pulled in and were going to stay the night-what could be so bad having a free night of camping, a good meal and another adventurous ‘must-do’. But, it was early (almost noon) and the campground was as dusty as the entire road we just drove through. We took a group vote and decided to move on. There were, however, a few sights that I wanted to see in town that we missed because of it. Since we’re passing through this area on the return trip, we’ll give it another try.
So, on to White Horse-the capital of the Yukon. We arrived at the campground with no reservations (we haven’t made any since we started the trip) and were told they had no room at the inn! So, we’re dry camping (no electric, no water, no tv, no sewer) for the night and will get a full hookup site tomorrow. We drove into town, stopped at the visitors’ center, chatted with the gal about Hillary vs. Obama, prices, taxes and how the USA is perceived by Canadians. She also gave us points of interest in the area, we saw a short movie on the natural beauty of the Yukon and the name of a good Chinese restaurant to go to for dinner.
It’s now 8:30pm. It’s still light out and will be for at least another 4 hours. That makes it so difficult to go to sleep, but it’s been a long few days and my body doesn’t know the sun is still shining…
We’ll probably be in White Horse 2-3 days and I’ll continue to tell of our tales of travel as they progress…until then, the sleepiness has overruled the daylight and I’ll say good night for now…
The weather was cold, raw and gray. We went into the campground office and the man behind the counter asked if it started snowing yet. We laughed and joked back, chatted a while and then went back outside. Well, we quickly learned that he wasn’t joking-the snow was falling quickly and the flakes were large. The ground was soon covered and I felt it was so ‘right’ to have snow while we were in the Yukon Territory-very appropriate, indeed! We found out later, that this is the first time they’ve EVER had snow in Whitehorse in June!
We went into town and explored. We stopped in at the brewery (where else to go on a wintery day in June?) for a much advertised free 2 hour tour (complete with free samples). We arrived just as the tour of about 10 people was starting. The young tour director was barefoot and made a point to apologize for his lack of shoes. It seems he was partying too much the previous night and left them somewhere in Whitehorse, but he can’t remember where! So, we are getting to experience and appreciate the laid back, friendly manner of the folks up here. I found it very refreshing and a reminder for me to take life a little less intensely.
So, the tour was kind of light (he was, remember, recovering from a rough night!) but he did, as promise, offer us free samples of their many different varieties of beer. Seems there was no real limit to what we tasted. Since I’m not much of a beer drinker, I took a glass for myself, took a sip and handed it to Dominic. As we stood around drinking the samples (large samples, I must say), we started to take life a little less intensely and feel more like a true Yukonite (is there such a word?). As we moved through the different beers, we started chatting with Louise and her husband, a couple from Quebec. We soon found her accent and frequent pauses to remember how to say a particular word in English very amusing. She had a bubbly personality (I don’t think it was from the beer) and a real ability to tell a story. She told us of places they traveled and we compared notes with our tales. Her enthusiasm soon captured us and we listened to her adventure in a town south of Whitehorse called Carcross. She loved the drive down there the day before and told us we must go. She kept saying it was “Cute, no really Cute. Very cute, cute, cute”. So, on Louise’s suggestion, we decided to venture toward Carcross the next day. The weather was dreary (again) and it seemed like a plan.
Carcross was about as large as my motor home. Our first stop was at the Carcross museum. We arrived just as a few busloads of tourists came. As we pulled in, Dominic noticed white mountain sheep on the hill behind the museum. I quickly pulled out my camera and started clicking away, as were many folks getting off the bus. After a few minutes, we realized these were fake animals. Then, we went to the museum, which wanted to charge a lot of money to walk in the gardens (it was raining) and even more money to see the archives. So, feeling dumb and violated, and after seeing the tour buses and fake animals, we decided this wasn’t a place we wanted to be. We continued on to the actual town-we were waiting for it to become ‘Cute, Cute, Cute’. In town, there was a great old store that had that musty smell when you walk in that old stores usually have. Here was a mixture of authentic old stuff mixed with authentic new souvenirs made in China. It even had the required expensive ice cream cones that all tourists love.
So, we left and continued our search for Louise’s cute, cute, cute place. We walked the street (the only street) in town and saw small, colorful houses on blocks (not sure why they were lifted like that) and also saw a post office. I like to photograph the many different styles of post offices that we see in our travels, so we went over and went inside. The entire building was small, but there were 3 women working there. Not sure how it all came about, but they started asking us our birthdates. They were celebrating the year of the rat and it seemed that Dominic and Ralph both had ‘rat’ birthdates. So, all 7 of us in this tiny building were laughing and kidding about the rats when one woman disappeared and returned with some plastic rat noses and ears. She told the guys they needed to put them on-and surpisingly, they did! Our cameras came out and we all had a good laugh.
While in Whitehorse, we also hiked to Canyon City, walking across a suspension bridge to get there. In typical Yukon laid back style, there were no trail markings or maps except for a very simple one at the entrance to the trail. We walked and walked along the river looking for the ruins of Canyon City. We never saw them, but rather saw a plaque that depicted where the city had been!
Whitehorse was a small city, Yukon style with a slant toward tourism. It offered me just a taste of the Klondike, but I felt it had become a tourist haven and not ‘the real thing’. I expect (hope?) we’ll see more a authentic Yukon as the miles progress.