Life, family, and travel

Farmland, Mountains, Streams, Desert, Redwoods - All in One Day

July 18th

When I left Mt. Begbie Lookout this morning, I was resigned that most of the scenery would be more of the same small rolling hills.

However, the further south I drove, the larger the hills got and the prettier it became.

I stopped at the Painted Hills and read the informational sign. The BX stage coach served the Cariboo area until the Canadian RR destroyed their wagon road through Frasier Canyon.

Here is the wagon road they followed along the hills.

Near the same place is a good example of where lava flowed several times and each time the color changed slightly.

At Spences Bridge, I read about where the lower side of a mountain slid off and buried 5 natives and dammed the Thompson River for over 4 hours. When the river finally washed through the debris, it swept down river and swept over an Indian village drowning 13 persons. I looked for some sort of evidence, but could not see anything I could take a photo of for this blog.

As I was going through Cache Creek (the town) I noticed that the landscape had changed to something that looked like the high desert of the American South. It was pretty arid (although they were irrigating) but it was a pretty radical change.

I kept driving south and the scenery just kept getting better.

I pulled into Hope BC. for fuel. I was amazed to find they have chain saw carvings down their main street. I thought I had seen some great carvings before, but these were world class carving. They had one or 2 on each block and several along their waterfront. I spent a couple of hours wondering around taking photos. There were certainly too many to exhibit here, and I’m sure I didn’t get them all. Some were whimsical, some were realistic, and all amazing.

And of course my favorite from the movie “Harry and the Hendersons”.

I finished up the day at the Maple Bay campground part of the Cultus Lake Provincial Park. This place is wonderful with huge redwood trees everywhere and moss covered Oak trees. I told the ranger I wanted a good spot and he obliged giving me a very nice secluded spot in the woods. I was not near the lake but I thought I could suffer just this once.

 

Fort James Historical Site

July 16th

After doing a lot of research last night, I finally decided to stay here one more night and take a day trip to Fort St. James Historical Site. By doing this I did have to backtrack a little bit but it wasn’t too bad. I did get to see some things that I missed yesterday.

Logging and pulp paper mills are major industries in this area. For pulp paper mills it takes a different type of wood than it does for timber resulting in a different technique of harvesting the wood. For timber you would usually selective cut only certain trees leaving the remainder to mature. For pulp paper mills, you would clear cut a section of land then reseed it to making it ready to harvest again in 30 to 40 years.

I understand this, but it sure looks ugly when you see it in such a pretty area.

Here is a photo of typical rolling hill scenery just west of Prince George.

I believe this is overlooking the Nechako River West of Prince George. As you can see, some of the land is becoming pretty flat.

 

I made it to the Fort St. James Historical site by late morning. As I was one of the first ones to arrive, I was invited to judge a Salmon baking contest between about 6 of the local restaurants. I had to sample their wares 2 or 3 times, just to make sure ;-D 

The one I ended up picking eventually won the event (the team from Mt. Milligan Mine) with a marinated salmon steak with secret herbs and spices. It was great fun even though there were no prizes etc, just for the bragging rights.

This place is wonderful. 5 of the buildings are the original buildings erected around 1884 and re standing in the original locations. They have erected several more buildings (because the originals were destroyed by fire) using the original blueprints / sketches from the Hudson Bay Company. In each building (and additionally doing odd jobs such as gardening etc) were re-enactors or interpreters that would give information about what they were doing or about life during that time.

Most of them were in their 1st or 2nd year but still pretty knowledgeable. Here a few of the buildings. The general warehouse and fur warehouse:

The fish cache where they dried salmon or meat for the long winter.

One interesting note about this building, the men in the men’s house would repair their rifles and step outside and shoot them to make sure they were zeroed in. They shot at the main corner post of the building. Aver the years, the wood has shrunk slightly and the holes appear smaller than they really were. They also did this at the general warehouse building.

Here is a close up of the fish cache corner post.

This one is of the corner post of the warehouse.

The men’s house. This was much like free sleeping quarters that were used by any visitors or pack train hands to sleep and ready their equipment for the next stage of their journey. It was not a boarding house as all of the men had to be self sufficient.

On the inside of the men’s house, they had newspapers hanging on the wall for insulation. These are not the original newspapers, but with the help of old photographs, they contacted the London newspaper company and got reprint of the original pages and provided them to the site.

While I was in the Men’s house, I spoke quite at length to the interpreter named Shawna. She had been there for about 7 years and knew the house inside and out. I got her to pose for one photo, and finally got her to speak a little on a video. I really wish I could post the video of her as she did a magnificent job.

Before I left, I asked her about one piece of furniture that I couldn’t figure out. I thought it might have been something or stretching furs etc. It turns out, it’s a reproduction of an original chair that she let me sit in. She then gave me some props and grabbed my camera and took my photo. I guess she got even with me. (I’m sure she has done this for others, but it was quite fun!)

If you look real closely at the top of the above photo, you might be able to see some figures written on the wall. They also used this building as a part time school and because they had no blackboard, they wrote the multiplication table on the wall. They discovered little things like this when they were restoring it.

I listened to a family of Nak’azdli natives singing their original songs. I also got a little bit of video of this until I was rudely stepped in front of by another European.

I’m not positive about the canoe that had been hollowed out by hand whether it was an original or not. Either way, it was impressive about how much work it must take to make it.

For the kids, they have erected a timber post playhouse and the kids could insert the side boards into slots on the support timbers to make it into a building. It was a great idea and it kept several kids busy most of the afternoon inserting then taking out the boards. 

All in all it was another wonderful day that came to an end way to quickly.

 

Power Lines instead of generators - Back to Civilization!

July 15th

Left fairly early this morning as I wanted to get to Prince George today and run some errands. I did stop at a landmark in Fort Fraser near where the last spike was driven for the Grand Trunk Railway in 1914.

As I was going through Vanderhoof, I saw a brand new facility to wash trucks and trailers. As I had heard that most all of the bad roads are behind me, I stopped and washed the truck and trailer. It took me about 45 minute’s altogether but it was sure worth it. The dust from the repaired roads had absolutely infiltrated everything and I couldn’t touch the truck without coming away dirty. I spent most of the time on the truck but did soap and rinse off the trailer pretty quickly as well.

I made it to Prince George by mid afternoon. I found a Wall mart (believe it or not) and stocked up on a few groceries as well as laundry supplies. I found a pretty nice place called Blue Cedars Campground that had all the amenities and they promised I would have good Wi-Fi.

The first thing I did was gather up everything that I thought was dirty in the trailer (because of the dust) and took it to the local laundromat. They only had 3 washing machines that were working so I used all three right off the bat. When they were finished, I used up 2 of the machines again. Just about 2 minutes after I started the second batch, 2 separate ladies came in with about 5 loads apiece. A lady from Germany won out.

I talked with her for quite a while my clothes were drying. She filled me in on their agriculture, forests and what it was like to travel over here. The one thing she couldn’t get over was how big Canada was and how few people there are (Canada is 2 or 3 per sq mile; Germany is 250 per sq mile. I’m wondering about the number of people in Germany as I think most of them are over here). Her name was Ingrid (A Swedish German?) and she sure looked more like a Swede that a German. She also told me about a good place to sightsee about 25 minutes north of here. I might extend my stay here one more day and drive up there after I do a little research tonight.

As I was driving over here, I noticed that the scenery had changes substantially again. Most of the big mountains are gone and giving way to smaller hills with more agriculture. Another sure sign of my getting back into civilization was the presence of power lines adjacent to the road (most everything up north was run either locally by gas turbines or by generators). Another sure sign was that I could see multiple golf courses at every town.

 

Sockeye Salmon and Totem Poles

July 13th

Not too much to talk about today. I decided to stay here one more day because it’s such a nice area. I needed to do a little maintenance on the truck and trailer as well as rearranging my stuff for when Cindy joins me.

The big excitement of the day was a guy drove one of those obscenely huge motor homes with a Hummer/fancy car on the back of it into a ditch while trying to park. I went over to offer my assistance but there were about 25 people standing around and trying to help. It was obvious he didn’t know what to do. The camp host finally came along with some large timbers and had him out in just a few minutes. I was going to photograph him but it just didn’t seem right somehow.

Late this afternoon, Don and Vyonne Griffin from Nimpo Lake BC stopped over and we had a nice long chat. They are good friends with Marvin, the camp host and worked together at the aluminum mill in their hometown.

They offered to take me down to the fish ladder that I couldn’t find yesterday and I readily accepted. I found out that I had driven right by it as there is a locked gate at the entrance now. That didn’t bother Don, he just walked right on by it. The Sockeye salmon are just starting to run. He mentioned that the last time he was here, he would see at least a dozen in the air at one time trying to jump the falls. I saw several and finally got a photo of one. It was a nice time.

When we got back to the campground, he showed me a photo of a 55 pound salmon that he caught last year. (Did I mention he’s 82)? He also told me about going moose hunting last year with a group of 6 and he was one of 5 that got a moose. He was a gentleman and an all around nice guy.

July 14th

After 2 wonderful, sunny, warm days, today I awoke to cold, windy day with promise of rain showers later. As I was hooking up, Don came over and wished me luck on the rest of my journey. There are not too many people like him back home.

I stopped in Gitanyow BC to look at totem poles. I read that these authentic totem poles are not necessarily of a religious nature, but rather of the each family’s history. Here are just a few that I could find. Some of them were very ornate while some were a little on the plain side.

 

Here s just a scenery photo on the Cassier Hwy near Gitanyow that I thought looked good.

I stopped at the Kitwanga Fort National Historic site where a wooden fortress was erected many years ago. I started to hike up to the top but it started to sprinkle so I just took photos from the highway. Maybe next time.

After I turned onto the Yellow head hwy, I stopped in Hazelton at the tourist visitor center and located a sign about Catline, an early packer who was evidently pretty darn good at his job.

While I was there, I noticed a lot of locals stopping at a little grilling truck and getting lunch. I wondered over and ordered a sandwich and small fries for myself. They were excellent and I don’t think that it was because I haven’t had any in a long time either!

My last tourist stop of the day was at the Moricetown Canyon and Falls on the Buckley River. For centuries the first Nations fishing spot where they would come to trap, spear or net salmon.

While I was there, a native was trying to net salmon, but I don’t think the run had gotten up this far. I never did see him pull anything in.

After that, the rain became harder albeit pretty intermittent. I continued towards Prince George and finally stopped at a rest area for the night.

 

 

“You can’t miss it!”

July 11th

Not too much happened today as I didn’t have far to go. I took a couple of scenery photos but as usual, it was raining and overcast most of the morning.

I didn’t even see any wild animals. You’ll notice that I’ve just about quit taking photos of moose. They are about like white tail deer are back home, they’re everywhere.

I finally stopped at Mezidian Provincial Park. I got a great site right by the lake (about 10’ away!) I’m planning on going up into the Stewart area tomorrow to look at glaciers so I thought this would be better than parking along side of the road.

July 12th

I got up early and left because I had heard that the best time to see the lower (Bear Glacier) was in the morning. I drove through Bear valley and I think it might be the most scenic drive of the trip. It kind of reminded me of the Poudre Valley in Colorado that I hiked in quite a few years ago. Of course, each road that I have driven on had its own unique scenery but this was exceptional. The valley would be wide for a while then close up to a couple of hundred yards wide.

Throughout the drive, there was snow close by in many locations where avalanches had come off the mountains recently. It is amazing the power that avalanches have! One that I could see closely had tree trunks 3’ thick just snapped off.

The first Glacier I came to was Bear Glacier.

I drove into Hyder BC and stopped at the visitor’s center. Not too much of a town. I did learn that the town used to be built on pilings and that a major flood had wiped out the town many years ago. All that is left is the old pilings.

A man named David Guillard led a group of engineers to conduct an exam of the Portland Canal in 1896. Along the way, he erected four storehouses along the canal. These are the oldest masonry buildings in Canada.

I stopped at a wildlife viewing station in Hyder AK. When the fish are running, it’s an excellent place to see both black and grizzly bears feeding on the fish side by side. Unfortunately, the fish were not running, so no bears.

I continued up the Salmon Glacier Road. It’s gravel, bumpy, dusty, narrow road. Of course the locals and the Europeans didn’t use courtesy and slow down, but most of the RV’ers were pretty nice about it. I took a couple of video’s to show how narrow it gets sometimes.

(Cindy:  We will be having a get-together/cookout in the fall, once Chuck is home and I've compiled all the videos that we haven't been able to see.  We'll be showing those plus a slideshow of his best pictures then, and everyone who has been following Chuck's adventure is invited.  More later.)

After about 25 miles, I made it to the overlook of Salmon Glacier. It’s pretty awesome in its own right. It’s the 5th largest glacier in Canada. Here is the lower “Toe” of the glacier.

And here is a photo at the summit looking down on top of it.

I would liked to have gone a little farther but they had closed the road to take care of avalanches.

Did you ever throw a snowball on the 12th of July?

As I was heading back down the road, I noticed several places that avalanches are just waiting to happen.

 

I did see one adolescent black bear that was laying on a rock (it got up to +- 81 degrees today! The hottest I have seen since I first got into Canada!)

The campground host told me that the Sock-Eye salmon were running at a fish ladder just south of the park. He gave me directions and said “You can’t miss it”. Well I did. I stopped and talked to a young lady who was tending here garden. She also gave me directions that were different from the campground host and she also said “You can’t miss it”. Well I still did! I drove down little 2 track roads that I thought I was going to have to put the truck in 4 wheel drive. I think I even drove through a willow thicket.

Dejectedly, I finally gave up and came back to the trailer to catch up on my log. I think if anybody else says “You can’t miss it”, I’m going to turn around and just go somewhere else.

 

 

That Bear's Ignoring Me!

July 10th

After dumping my tanks, I stopped at the front office of the Northern Beaver Post RV Park where I stayed last night. They have a wonderful hand carved door that I wanted a photo of:

They had several other carvings as well. First a typical Indian chief:

The other appeared to be a native of some sort.

I would like to have purchased a couple of wooded burl bowls but as usual, they were WAY too expensive.

As I started down the Cassier Hwy, I noticed that the trees were different. It appears that this is a different eco-system than up north.

One of the first animals I saw was a cow black bear and 2 cubs. I noticed that the cow’s fur is almost brown rather than black.

Just a few miles down the road I came upon an adolescent black bear. He crossed the road and stopped on the bank and started eating some sort of berries. I felt insulted because when I stopped, he turned his back to me and sat down while he ate!

Of course I ran across a couple of sheep licking minerals from the side of the highway. I was pretty sneaky and they didn’t appear to mind at all.

I saw a pretty waterfall at the 2nd North Fork Creek. Again, my photographs do not do it justice.

I drove by Hope Lake even though there were several spots to pull over. It was just too early.

I also stopped at the Jade City to look things over. I almost bought somebody special a VERY expensive gift. Evidently I didn’t see all of the zero’s on the little tag on the back. That was a close call. I wish I would have gotten a photo of it. They had numerous other items in there that was just as nice, but I couldn’t afford any of them. The rock you see under their sign below is Jade. They have their own Jade mine about 60 miles south of here and they provide 92% of the world’s jade. The lady said she has owned this store for about 25 years.

The mountain you see here is a dormant volcano named Mt. Edziza with its adjacent cinder cone, I think. I could be wrong on this one.

I only made it about 200 miles today. They were doing a lot of work on the road. Every time I came upon a flag person, I ended up waiting at least 20 minutes. Each time we had to wait for a flag car (one of those “Follow Me” trucks). One time I waited for about 25 minutes then followed the truck for about 20 miles and there was not any work being done. I asked the next flag person what that was all about. She said they are putting down new tar and chip sealer. If you drive over 50 M (35 MPH) you run the risk of pulling it up so the government requires a pilot car until it's sealed. We don’t use them down home. Go figure. There were several long stretches where they had dug up the old tar and chip as well as the rock underneath. This was horrible. I drove between 10 and 15 MPH and was wondering if that was too fast. It shook stuff off of the walls in the trailer and really loosened up the truck. It sounds like a regular rattle trap now.

It's getting so I really hate to see these signs. (It means that there is broken pavement, frost heaves or something bad ahead).

 

Heading Back

Cindy: Well, finally Chuck called in from the great white north!  Gas and food is SO EXPENSIVE up in AK and Canada that Chuck is feeling the pinch and spending as little as possible on campgrounds, which means that he rarely has had access to wifi.  Between that, and the extreme cost of roaming charges on the cell phone mean not a lot of chit chat on the home front - but he did check in today so I'm back to posting.  If you'd like to find him on a map,  look up Prince George on a map of British Columbia.  That's the area he's in today, July 15.  

 

Chuck:  

July 8th

Not too much to write about today. I waited until 8:30 to send my latest log updates to Cindy. By the time I had accomplished that and walked back to get the truck, the line of RV’s waiting for the dump station was about 30 long (everybody usually leaves between 8:00 and 9:00). I finally got my turn, filled up with gas and took off back south. As I was re-tracing my previous route, I didn’t take to many photos. One that I did take was of the massive piles of tailings along side of the road left over from when the big dredges were working the area. These piles went on for several miles on both sides of the road.

I finally stopped at a turn out at Dabergs Lake (near mom’s bakery) for the evening.

July 9th

I took off fairly early as I wanted to get to Whitehorse before Cindy left in the afternoon. (That’s the only place that I had cell reception). I took a couple photos of scenery on the way that I’ve probably taken before but they still looked exceptional. I wish the camera would show them as well as the naked eye.

I made it to Whitehorse and called Cindy. Nothing really major happening at home. I stocked up on groceries and topped off with fuel.

I did see something that a lot of people don’t get to see. It’s an eagle’s nest I saw on the south side of Whitehorse. These things are huge. This one looked to be about 7’ to 8’ across.

I did take a photo of the continental divide from the back side.

Here is some graffiti, Canadian style.

I made it to just short of Watson Lake where I will be turning south on the Cassier Hwy (route 37). It’s part of the western access route that will ultimately take me down to Seattle. The only thing bad about going this way is I won’t be able to say that I drove the Alaska Hwy, BOTH WAYS, and survived. Maybe next time.

Dawson City, home of the Gold Rush and Diamond Gertie

July 7th

As it was raining until about noon, I hung around the trailer and didn’t do too much. Afterward, I took a stroll through town to see the old buildings. An interesting note, the roads are all dirt / gravel and they had left a wooden boardwalk as a side walk through town. I guess it was to add that old time look to the town.

Most of the older buildings were not restored. Most of them had a window display either showing what they sold, or a little bit about their history.

The Jack London cabin actually came from the north fork of the Henderson creek about 75 miles south of here. The cabin was dismantled and half of the logs were made into a replica in his home town of Oakland Ca. The remainder of the logs was made into the replica shown here.

Robert Service actually did live in his cabin where it sits. He wrote several of his poems here as well.

Of course they have the SS Keno. This sternwheeler was the last to ply the waters of the Yukon River. It was built in 1922 by the British Yukon Navigation Company.

Then we have Ruby’s place. A typical house of notorious reputation and that also provided laundry service (that’s quite a combination).

Certainly there were many more old houses / buildings that are just too numerous to mention here. I did get photos of many of them.

And finally, the star attraction, Diamond Tooth Gerties casino. The oldest legal casino in Canada. I found out after it was all over with that the building was actually a communal hall until the government took it over and turned it into Gerties around 1972. Gertie was a real person who ran a gambling hall during the rush. She liked to wedge a diamond between her 2 front teeth. I went in about 7:00 and did a little gambling on the slot machines, had a sandwich and took in the early show. I was sitting at a 4 person table and a lady sat down with me. She was originally from Liverpool England and through several moves, now lives here in Dawson City. I believe she said she was a retired factory worker. A little later 2 more ladies sat down with us. 

One was from Anchorage and her mother was from Pennsylvania. The noise from all of the people talking and the drum / piano music made it pretty hard to understand a lot of what they said. The show was quite entertaining. Of course the main singer was Gertie with help from an actor playing Arizona Charlie Meadows. They had a 4 girl chorus line that did the can-can as well as several other dance steps. One of the little skits the girls did involved 2 of them lying down and the other 2 straddling them so that the first girl’s legs appeared to be attached to the other girls. It was quite fun. One of the ladies had ordered drinks and they came right as this was happening so I didn’t get photos or video. I tried to get photos later but I was too far away. I did get a few short videos that I can show when I get home. They did a lot of audience participation that went a long way towards pleasing the crowd.

The main singers.

And the best I could do for the chorus girls.

(To view a video of Gertie's, you can go here. This isn't Chuck's, but somebody else who managed to get some video.)

 After it was all said and done, including the admission, the sandwich and gambling, somehow I came out $4.00 ahead. I definitely did something wrong!

 

Struck Gold!

Cindy: Chuck's posts are fewer at the moment, because he's coming back south on the same route he went north on, and has already written about, and photographed, "everything there is to see".  LOL

July 6th

I was thinking last night as I lay in bed about how things change but still remain the same. During the gold rush, very few miners made any money. Most of them went home broke. The only ones who consistently made any money were the scoundrels, cards sharks and business men who sold the miners the goods they needed at exorbitant prices. After looking around yesterday, it’s still the same. The tourist and gold seekers still flock in, and although the scoundrels are gone, the business men still sell the goods we need at exorbitant prices.

When I woke up this morning my numbers (Chuck checks his blood sugar levels) were pretty low. I quickly ate my last Nectarine and started to fix breakfast. My milk had gone bad and my last 2 eggs didn’t look very good. I stopped at the office and asked where the best mom & pop breakfast joint in town was. He recommended that I go to the Eldorado Hotel where he always eats breakfast. The food was excellent. While I was eating, I got to talking to a gentleman at the next table named Marcel Choquet from Edson, Alberta Canada. He was up here for 2 reasons. The first was that one of his ancestors was from this region and had a glacier, mountain and a mountain pass named for him. He owned a store and had a claim in Dawson City and he wanted to find the location of them, if possible.

The second was he wanted to find a bunch of gold and get rich. He was pretty nice, but he seemed to pop up everywhere I went today. It almost seemed like he was following me around.

I went back to the KLONDIKE Visitors Association claim to try my luck at panning. I know that this stream has been dredged many times and innumerable miners have worked it since the rush, but it couldn’t hurt, and you never know.

I knew the river bed and banks are no good so I went up a dry creek bed and dug out under a pretty big sized rock that didn’t appear to have been previously disturbed. I was smart this time and took my clarifier with me so that I didn’t have to carry all of the big rocks back down to the stream.

(read about gold panning, and watch videos, here)

I have learned that an old fat man does not kneel in or beside the water if he doesn’t have to. I took one of my flat Rubbermaid buckets with me and used it to hold the water and pan into it and just got more water when need. I sat it on the tailgate of the truck and did my panning there.

I guess I looked like an old time panner. Everybody who came up there stopped and came over to watch what I was doing. I explained my method, how to distinguish gold from the pyrite, ect. to every one of them. Even to the old Swedish guy who just walked up to the truck and took my bucket down and kept asking if each chunk of Pyrite he found (IN MY BUCKET) was gold. Marcel found me and watched for a while and went off to find his riches up on the hill. I don’t think he ever did find any gold so he got out his metal detector and started looking that way. I think he found a whole hand full of old nails. He was giving them away to just about everybody. He did find an old pick point that had broken off and gave it to me. That was pretty nice of him.

One couple that was very courteous about their questions was Larry and Bonnie Barnes from Vagina (SP) Saskatchewan.

Cindy: I googled "vagina" state park, and I don't recommend anyone else using that particular search word.  I think Chuck mispelled the word, but don't know.

They didn’t want to pan, they were just curious as to how it was done. They were more into geocaching. Evidently there is a cache somewhere close by and they wanted to find it. They are on Geocach.com under Z95WY4. I think their password (?) is something like doraoeaksheway. They were very nice people.

Here is a photo of Marcel.

An here is a photo of Larry and Bonnie

I did receive a compliment today. An old timer said he wished he had thought about using my water bucket method when he was a lot younger because it sure would’ve saved his back. I told him he just started out too young. He should have waited until he was old and broke down and he would have thought of it in a hurry. He just laughed.

And now for all of you who have been waiting so patiently. I finally struck it RICH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is my first gold - it's the little yellow speck southwest of the quarter.

And out of my 2nd bucket, a whole lot more! (specks at 6 and 8 o'clock)

And so my cumulative effort for about 6-7 hours of work is, TA DAH...

I can finally say that I did not get skunked on this trip. Although, if I was a miner, it might not be worth it, but is sure was fun. If I was to guess, I panned about $0.25 cents worth of gold.

I’m not sure if anybody else found any gold. There was one family with 3 teenage sons that whooped ever now and then so I assume they found a little also.

 

Airplanes the size of Mosquitos

July 4th

I continued driving toward Whitehorse. I did take a couple of photos, but not too many as I have been over this road before. This is along the Alaska HWY about 40 miles from Whitehorse.

I went clear into Whitehorse to fuel up then backtracked a little to the Klondike Hwy which leads directly to Dawson Creek. I spoke to a lady while fueling up and she just raved about a little bakery on the Fox River called, get ready, “Mom’s Bakery”. As it was close to lunch time I tried it out and it was a wonderful little spot. After I purchased a small cinnamon bun (talk about a sugar high) I went outside on the patio to enjoy it. As there were only 2 tables, 2 ladies I spoke to inside invited me to join them. They were Amy from Egan MN and Karen from Seattle WA. They were old friends, grew up together etc. Amy was a retired school teacher who was on a 4 year trip to see the US. Karen moved to Seattle after being in Costa Rica for quite a few years helping to build an Eco-Habitat to save hundreds of square miles of forest. We really hit it off well and had an enjoyable time. Unfortunately, I did not think to get their photo. I did get a photo of Tracy the owner, baker, buss boy, janitor, cook, cleaner, wood chopper, garden keeper and all around do everything lady (her words, not mine).

After I ate, I went back inside and bought a loaf of Sourdough bread. (When I stopped for the night, I had a couple PBJ sandwiches and it was great!) It’s too bad everything is so expensive up here, I would have liked to bought several more loaves.

That’s Tracy on the right sitting with another customer.

This is a scenic of Fox Lake. It's one of my boondocking places.

I stopped at the 5 fingers Rapids. They were named by the miners for the 5 channels formed by the rock pillars. Actually, the safest channel is the one nearest (lowest) in the photo. The area across the river is where the woodcutters cut and stockpiled wood for all of the Stern Wheelers on the Yukon River.

I finally stopped at a place called Gravel Lake. It was WAY farther than I wanted to go today (380 miles). Every place I had researched was either not very good or had somebody staying there. The one pace I was very interested in had some agate deposits up on the side of the mountain. The only turn off for it though was about 10’ wide adjacent to the highway and I didn’t want to spend the night that close.

This was a rest area with toilets and bear proof dumpsters. The only thing wrong was I was almost eaten up by the airplanes (mosquitos) while I was setting up the trailer. This is the view out my front door.

July 5th

Boy! It might have been a mistake to stay here last night. I only opened up the door once to get into the trailer and I killed at least 50 airplanes last night. I think they were breeding inside the trailer. It got so bad that I had to put on insect repellant just to get to sleep.

My first stop was the Tintina Trench. This is the largest earthquake fault in North America. It extends several hundred miles from Canada into Alaska. It’s also one of the major bird migration routes in the Yukon.

As I was really close to Dawson City, I first went to the visitor center to find out about the attractions and camping areas. I decided to stay at the Gold Rush Campground right in Dawson City. It’s owned by the city and provides electricity and water and appeared to be the most economical around that still offered Wi-Fi.

After a short nap, I went for a drive to see some of the sites. My first stop was the top of the Midnight Dome. Original it was thought that on the summer’s solstice, they would be able to see the sun at midnight. It turns out, that the Ogilvie Mtns to the north hide it for about 2 hours a day.

From the top of the dome, I could see just about the entire town of Dawson city.

I was also able to see the Bonanza Creek where it all started. Take note of the barren hills where the early mining companies used hydraulics to wash the gravel down from the hills. Hydraulic mining has been banned now.

Next was the Dredge #4 that was built in 1912 for the Klondike Mining company. It’s the largest wooden hulled bucket line dredge in North America.

Of course I stopped by the Discovery mine, then on to Fox Gulch where they erected a pipeline / trench system to bring water 70 miles from the little twelve mile river. This is part of the trench.

Of course no visit to Fox Gulch would be complete until seeing a FOX!!

I finally stopped at Klondike visitor’s center claim. This claim is kept open for tourists to be able to pan for gold for free just to get a taste of what it was like back then. I spoke to an old local guy there and he said every once in a while, somebody will find a little color. As I didn’t have all of my equipment with me, I’ll go back up there tomorrow to try my luck. I’ll also take a couple photos as my batteries have given out today. While I was there I spoke to Bill from Alberta and an exchange student named Frita (?) from Germany who was living with him. He has been up here before and found a few flakes and when he told Frita about it, she just had to come. It was fun watching the tourist try to pan. One family especially came up, panned for about 30 minutes, said there was no longer any gold around here and jumped in their car and left. We all got a little chuckle about that.