Alaska Trip 2011: May 23 - Whitehorse, Yukon Territory

This is page 11 of our Alaska 2011 trip journal. Click here for the first page. If you want to bookmark this journal, http://jeanne-travels.blogspot.com always links to the newest page.

Whitehorse, with a whopping big population of about 20,000, is the captal and largest city in Yukon Territory. About two thirds of the Yukon population lives in Whitehorse, which explains why the rest of the place is so sparsely populated. It is the "big city" in this part of the world. The city has several museums and attractions, and we plan to spend a couple days here.

Yukon River

This overlook shows part of the Yukon River, with Whitehorse in the background. From here it looks like the river is frozen, but I think it is just this location. The boat you see across the way is the S. S. Klondike, a historic site we visited later in the day.

MacBride Museum of Yukon History

Of course two of the most significant events in Yukon history were the Gold Rush, and the Alaska Highway, both because they brought people to this remote part of the world. Other displays were devoted to the formation of the mounted police, the First Nations, famous Yukoners and more.

This engine was used by the White Pass & Yukon Railway. More about them in a couple days.

Look! There it is! The elusive moose! Oh wait... it's stuffed.

The placards did not mention the white moose, so I don't know if it was an albino, or just a color variant of some kind.

What I liked best about the museum was the amazing display of stuffed animals and birds. They did a terrific job on this display. After seeing these, I'm sure I will be better at identifying some of these.

You can identify the muskox by the short, square legs. Ok, I have to give Dale credit for that comment, but it made me giggle. If you can't see it in the picture, it is just a muskox hide draped over a rounded form that has square legs, like a table.

On display outside the museum is this large copper nugget - the largest ever found in the Yukon. It's as tall as the eaves on the cabin behind it.

The S.S. Klondike

Before there were roads in the area, the major means of trasportation to and from the Klondike area was along the Yukon river. S.S. Klondike is a sternwheeler that was used during this era. The restored boat is now a Canadian National Historic Site.

The cargo hold

Engine room

Observation lounge

Cabins along the deck

View from the deck

The stern wheel

Oh No! Dropped the Camera! Wah!

While on board the Klondike, I dropped the camera and it broke. Don't know if I hit the shutter trying to grab for it or what, but this is the last picture it ever took. (R.I.P.) We still have the old camera that works quite well, but it's so big and bulky compared to my little coolpix. Yes, I'm pouting. Wah!

Long story short, I decide I can't live without my little compact camera. I found a Canon sure-shot at local Walmart for only 88 bucks. Features are similar to the old one. We'll see how it does.

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Alaska Trip 2011: May 21-22 - How Will We Know if the World Ends?

This is page 10 of our Alaska 2011 trip journal. Click here for the first page. If you want to bookmark this journal, http://jeanne-travels.blogspot.com always links to the newest page.

Today we ventured back into the Yukon Territory wilderness. So if the world ended today as predicted, how would we know? No cell serice, no internet, no radio... Maybe the whole thing will pass us by if they don't know we are here? Our next major destination is Whitehorse, the Yukon capital. Looks like it will take us two days to get there.

Watson Lake to Teslin

There was an old log cabin along the road at this pullout. No indication around as to what it was for or how long it had been there.

From the same pullout, here is a view of the road ahead. This is near the Swift River.

Seems like we have always been able to find a nice, scenic spot to stop for lunch. Maybe it's because there just aren't that many ugly places. A couple of these are windshield shots, from before we pulled over for lunch.

Here is a view looking down into the valley from our pullout. This marshy area looked like it would be a good place to spot moose, but we still didn't see any.

Several places along the road here, there are rocky embankments like the one in these pictures. People have taken the larger rocks and spelled out messages or names. It's hard to see in these pictures without looking at the larger view, but it was plain as day when I took the pictures.

Rancheria Falls

This area had a nice nature trail to the falls. Ok, I admit I did not walk all the way to the falls, but I did get some nice pictures of the boreal forest along the trail. A boreal forest is the northern forest south of the arctic tree line. The trees are mostly pine and spruce, with aspens in some areas. The ground is frequently covered with moss, rather than other ground cover.

Gnarly old tree trunk!

I could be wrong, but I think this is moose scat. I put my foot in the picture (but hopefully not the scat!) to show the relative size - it's much larger than deer scat. But I'm not a wildlife expert, so please feel free to set me straight if I am wrong.

This is as close as we have come to seeing the elusive moose (elusive to us anyway) but we are hot on the trail.

Still No Moose

Another beautiful overlook, with lake and marsh below, but still no moose. There were actually two lakes you could see from this overlook. One of them was frozen, the other was not.

Still no Cell Service

We arrived in Teslin YT, where once again the phone showed service, but still calls would not go through. Maybe the world really did end, and we just don't know about it yet? (Just joking of course.)

We had a beaautiful view of the lake, and might have rested a day or two here if we had cell service and good internet. But we have been several days where no one could reach us if they needed to. We did manage to get a connection by going up to the restaurant, but that was about it. I'm still way behind on the journal, but I am NOT going to upload pictures at Canadian rates ($2 per megabyte).

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining - just telling the story of our trip. We fully expected to go through areas where there would be no service, but this one caught us off guard. Nothing in our research indicated we would be quite so long without service. What made it frustrating was that there were a couple phone calls we needed to make. I really did expect to make connection in the towns along the way. Live and learn.

May 22, Looks Like the World Did Not End After All

Or if it did, we missed it.

Teslin advertises itself as the Gateway to the Southern Lakes. I guess all things are relative. It's hard to get your mind around something north of the 60th parallel being referred to as "southern" but it is, after all, southern Yukon. There are a number of lakes around here, and it appears water-related recreation abounds in the summer.

Gloomy, Rainy Day

Considering we have been on the road for three weeks, and it is spring, we really haven't had an extraordinary amount of rain, and most of it has been light. So I can't complain when we have a rainy day here and there. It is to be expected. These windshield shots show rain spots and occasional wiper blades. It's all part of the story.

It's just as well it was rainy today - It seems this stretch of road does not have very many pullouts. We did find one in time for lunch, and the rain had slowed down a bit, so we got some pictures without the wipers in the way. Clouds are still obscuring the mountains though.

Marsh Lake

Just in case you were missing those rainy windshield shots, here are a couple more. This is one of the southern lakes, Marsh Lake. It was just thawing, so it was part water, and part broken ice. The ice seemed to have an aqua or green color to it, and I was wondering if it was an illusion due to the ice. These pictures did not pick up the color very well. Too gray out, I guess.

Back to Civilization

We arrived in Whitehorse on Sunday afternoon, and were relieved to find that we finally had cell service. We will stay here two or three days, depending on what there is to see and so. So far, we have traveled 3500 miles, not counting separate sightseeing trips in the trailblazer.

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Alaska Trip 2011: May 20 - Off to Watson Lake

This is page 9 of our Alaska 2011 trip journal. Click here for the first page. If you want to bookmark this journal, http://jeanne-travels.blogspot.com always links to the newest page.

Today we traveled from Laird Hot Springs to Waston Lake, We saw more bear and bison, but still have not seen any of the elusive moose. Seems we have managed to miss them the last couple times we havve veen in moose country. But we'll keep trying. Total miles so far: 3233.

Liard Hot Springs

Friday morning we took another dip in the spring before taking off. This time we remembered the camera, so there are a couple pictures. You can really see the steam rising off the pool in the crisp morning air.

We also got some pictures of the swampy area around the spring. They had a boardwalk to get across this area.

Bear!

We have spotted several bears already on the trip, but so far not much luck getting any pictures. This time was no exception. We saw a singleton, and then a few miles down the road, a mama and cub. We also saw several bison on this stretch of road, but thought we already had some good pictures of them, so did not take any more.

Whirlpool Canyon

This pretty little canyon is at a sharp bend in the river. Apparently when the water is higher, it spins around and makes quite a whirlpool. The last picture shows where the whirlpool dropped logs along the shore like a pile of toothpicks.

We had a bit of a misadventure here. The turnout was too narrow to drive around to get back out. You can't back up when you are towing a car four-down, so we had to unhook the car, turn both vehicles around, and then put everything back together. This is not a huge issue - it only takes about 10-15 minutes, but we try to avoid it whenever we can.

Yet another pretty pullout

What a beautiful day we are having! Sunny and warmish, trees are in early stages of leafing out. Here is another picturesque overlook. I think that is the Liard River below. From time to time around here, we see patches of old road. We think at least some of them are the old Alaska Highway, before they reengineered and took some of the kinks out of it. Hard to say - they might also be old roads to some place that does not exist any more.

Despite rumors to the contrary, we have found the Alaska highway to be in good shape. The few rough spots are clearly marked, so you don't hit them by surprise. Half the Interstates in the U.S. are in worse shape than this road. It's been very pleasant driving.

Welcome to Yukon

The sign says, "Welcome to Yukon". This is the first of several times we will cross the border between Yukon and British Columbia on this stretch of road. The border between the two follows the 60th parallel, but the road wanders about a bit in this area.

More Bears

We finally spotted a bear in a location where we were able to pull over and get some pictures. These were taken through the side window. We thought this one might have been a grizzly, though we aren't certain. It was definitely browner than the others, but I know color is not the only indication. It was also larger, but I'm not sure the silhouette is right.

Historic Mile 627

I don't think there is anything particularly significant about this mile marker, other than it happened to be across the road from the pullout where we stopped just outside of Watson Lake.

We have not had any cell service since we left Fort Nelson on Wednesday Morning. We were hoping getting back to civilization at Watson Lake would do the trick. We did get a 5-bar signal in town, but we still could not make or receive any calls. The campground did have wi-fi, but only if you carried the computer up near the laundry room, and even then it was poor. Most private campgrounds claim to have wi-fi these days, but sometimes what you get is laughable.

Signpost Forest

When the Alaska Highway was under construction, a guy from Danville, Illinois, was feeling homesick, and put up a sign pointing to Danville. Other soldiers liked the idea and started putting up their own signs, and the signpost forest was born. The tradition continues today, with people leaving everything from fancy engraved signs or license plates, to scrawling something on a paper plate.

At last count, there were over 10,000 signs in the forest. When they run out of places to add signs, I guess they add some more posts. The original signs did not survive the years, but they have a replica of the original in the interpretive center nearby. We haven't decided if we will leave a sign or not, but we do have to go through Watson Lake on the way back, so we are thinking about it.

Here's Dale pointing out to the people at the interpretive center that the picture in this exhibit is backwards. Probably got the slide upside-down. Apparently no one had noticed it before this. Look at the numbering on the next picture to see. You might have to click to make it bigger, but it's definitely backwards.

More Watson Lake

After supper, we went to a showing at the Northern Lights Space and Science theater, which is kind of like a planetarium. This was the first day they were open for the season, so they had a special showing of two films for the price of one. The most interesting was the one about the Northern Lights, since we are not likely to see Northern Lights on this trip. Because of the long days and short nights, it just doesn't get dark enough.

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