Canada - days 34 to 38 - Carmacks, Whitehorse and Skagway

Five finger rapids. You can see a little island in the river, there are actually three others, dividing the Yukon river into 5 making it a particular hazard for paddle steamers during the gold rush days. To get to it we go down those steps, about 220 of them, followed by steep terrain

Day 34 - Carmacks

We knew there wasn't going to be much to see, and we knew that we were going to have a rubbish drive. We've met so many people complaining about this bit of road, and it started as soon as we left the campsite.

At the rapids. The flow is something approaching 10km/hr and only this nearside channel is deep enough for the steamers to pass through

I think we were relatively lucky though, Sunday, less people, no rain but enough guide cars to keep everything moving. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't as bad as lots of people make out on the Facebook groups.

We stopped at 5 finger rapids and did the lots of steps down and up again before continuing on to Carmacks.

One of the information boards had this photo of a steamer passing through

It felt like quite a long day by the time we arrived and we wanted to shower and for Brian to post some blog. Despite this I made him go for a little amble along the river and we hit the visitor centre with a lovely guy in it. He gave us some hikes so we set off to do one. We did the ascent and got a view, but it looked a bit like rain, and my ankle felt a bit sore, so we went down again.

Carmacks, on the Klondike Highway by where it passes over the Yukon River

We showered in the van, for the first time, neither of us really liked the look of the old showers at the site and we haven't even finished one of the two bottles of gas the van came with. It was ok and we both felt a lot better.

Our walk from our campsite in Carmacks up to a viewpoint

Blog then, why not do it in the bar with a pint? So that's what we did. He'd done some of it off line yesterday, but had no faith it wouldn't vanish so we were very pleased when it didn't. Good beer, good food and a good day 

Day 35 - Whitehorse

More stops on the Klondike Highway towards Whitehorse. This is an old roadhouse, the Montague on an old overland trail. The trail, Whitehorse to Dawson City, was constructed in 1902 to offer an alternative to the Yukon river. Roadhouses were built every 30-40km and had barns, corrals and stables, the journey taking five to seven days. Air travel and construction of the Klondike Highway closed the trail in the 1940's and only a few remnants remain. The roof was taken to Carmacks where it is still in use on their roadhouse

And we've gone full circle. We are back at the campsite we stayed at before we set off. They had a good book exchange then, but it all seems to have gone German in the last fortnight, so that's no good 

We left Carmacks, stopped for a short hike and viewpoint before heading to the Yukon Wildlife Preserve. We got a discount from Fraserway and were hoping to see all the animals we might have missed while driving. It was 5km round the park, but felt like a lot longer walk than that, but I think it does when you go slowly.

A leaning log cabin by the Montague roadhouse, another relic of the old overland route

Anyway, we did see moose, elk mountain goats and caribou (which are the same as reindeer), not particularly close to as they have such big fields to roam in which is lovely. The only things we didn't see were the lynx and foxes but this isn't such a surprise, though slightly disappointing. 

Bison at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve

I suppose it's wrong to say that the things that made us smile the most though were the ground squirrels or gophers. Bounding about, chasing each other, into holes, standing and shouting at us. Very funny.

Stopped at the supermarket to get an easy dinner for tonight and some stuff for our train trip on Wednesday. Had to drink the whole bottle of wine we had left, which is a lot for us at the moment, and had a very chilled evening 

Ground squirrels or Gophers. Cute little things with so much energy they can run very fast

Look at this Elk, obviously the dominant male and so proud of it. Who would challenge him!

As we walked round two of these birds landed in trees near to us and made such a noise. They clearly weren't happy with us being there. We liked the name too, they are Lesser Yellow Legs 

Another visitor to the park, he's a male Mountain Bluebird, very eye catching. This photo is all my own work and unmodified, it's exactly as taken. I think it's really good!

Day 36 - Whitehorse

We woke up and leapt into action far too early really. We had to pack and sort out what food was left in the van. Empty the grey and black waters and fill with fuel. He set the limit at $200 and it took all that and only seemed a little under half! It's a big beast!

What nobody's told us was we were meant to bring it back vaguely clean so they could see if there was any damage. Nobody had told us that and the little overnight rain had done nothing but turn the dust into mud. It was filthy. She let us off though!

We visited a First Nations wood carvery workshop in Whitehorse. They have carved canoes from a solid tree trunk, totem poles as well as a miriad of wooden tools, spoons and decorative art

Our hotel is not really a hotel, but was all that was available at a sensible price. The place we stayed at before we did our drive was now very expensive. It's actually quite nice, a room in a house with a shared kitchen, not that I intend to cook here, though I have made sandwiches and being able to do breakfast is always good. There is no reception, but I had managed to get hold of the owner so when. Fraserway brought us round we could drop off our stuff, so giving us freedom.

He was currently carving a head of some sort

Our first stop was the train station as we are doing a coach and train journey through the mountains to Skagway in Alaska tomorrow. The lady in the ticket office knew who we were. We are the only ones going tomorrow it turns out! 20 or so today, and the day after, but we will have a whole coach to ourselves apart from a lady who is just using it as a bus service. It'll be very odd! 

Really pleased to see this little train operating on the old narrow guage railway through the town. I thought is was completely disused, but they operate it for tourists during the short summer months

Second stop visitor information, just to say thank you for all the help they gave us. The place was absolutely heaving. It turns out that at 09.00 tomorrow a race starts on the river to Dawson City. 444 miles (715 km) .They have three days, have to stop for a 10 break at Carmacks but apart from that it's up to them. There are canoes, kayaks, single and multiple and even stand up paddle boarders which in a river going 8-11 km/HR sounds crazy! It's a shame we will be on the train so can't see them set off, but perhaps that's why it's only us one the train!

This is the start of the next day (day 37) on our way by coach to Fraser to catch our train. Apparently this is one of the most photographed points on this stretch, albeit a bit cloudy. It's (unsurprisingly) Emerald Lake and I suspect the peak behind is Mount Gilliam at about 2000m

The whole town feels so different from when we were here at the very end of May, it's certainly warmer, though is also wetter, but there are so many more people and vehicles, it's a whole new place!

A bit of lunch and a bit of a walk before coming back to check in. Fortunately we were first in what has seemed like a steady stream of people, and even more weird he has brought us all 500m from where we expected to stay to a little terrace of houses, which are his 'upgrades' . I do quite like it but there is something slightly unnerving about being driven round the corner to somewhere else though it is possibly more central.

Dinner was at a place we tried to go to last time only to find it shut. The spicy noodles were fab though, glad we tried again. Curry tomorrow!

We stopped at Carcross and these two buildings are the oldest businesses in town, the pink one being a general store serving people back in the gold rush days 

Day 37 - Whitehorse to Skagway and back

Despite yesterday starting wet, it warmed up quite considerably. There were children in bathing costumes splashing in the water fountains. Today was cold and wet. We were back to fleece layers and left to go to the station wearing our waterproofs and carrying our down jackets. 

This is the remains of The Tutshi Sternwheeler that was burned. The framework gives the old outline

We arrived at the station, to meet the lady just getting the bus to Skagway, and the bus driver Jim. We did then have to go via the campsite we left yesterday to pick up 5 more people doing the trip, so 8 of us on a full size coach.

Laid out inside were the old engines that drove the paddle wheel. A steam driven piston drives a rod in and out. The rod extends through the back to drive a crank on the paddle wheel creating  the circular movement to drive the ship through water

First thing to be pointed out was a cliff with some mountain goats on. Before we saw them though there was a mountain bear. As usual Brian and I were the only ones to see it and I don't think anyone else believed us.

Waiting to get onto our train on the White Pass line, built in 1900 to provide a better way of getting prospectors and equipment up the desolate landscape from the seaport at Skagway. It was later invaluable in getting men and equipment into the interior for construction of the Alcan Highway. It's a 3ft narrow guage track and is now designated an international historic civil engineering landmark in the same class as the Panama Canal, passing through some amazing scenery on its descent to the port 

Our first stop was Carcross which we had been tempted to try and get to in the van until we booked this trip. Lovely little town, though not all the shops were open when we stopped. It was mainly a wee stop but there was lots to see.

It rattles along in an old fashioned chug-chug fashion and you can only be wowed at the engineering achievement of it's construction of the time

We arrived at Fraser in good time, but I guess the train wasn't going to wait for us. We were first onto our allocated carriage and walked down nearly to the far  end. Nobody else could really be bothered it seemed so we got the seats on both sides of the train that we could bounce back and forth on. We could also go and stand outside at the front and the back, though it was too cold to stay out there for long.

Amazingly the train is just coming to a stop to pick up hikers. It's a marked station but no platforms seem to exist, hikers were waiting at the trackside just by the red waggon you can just see beyond the bridge. They were helped up and off we went again

The scenery was stunning, an amazing two hour train journey passed in a flash. Finding a moment to eat our sandwiches was really tricky! His pictures will hopefully show some of this.

Passing the official USA/Canada border

We weren't allowed off the train, once we'd arrived in Skagway until the US border guard had walked through as we all held our passports up to our faces. She didn't check our ESTA or our I94, which we already had, but perhaps the ticket office had done that. We got back on the bus to be taken the very short distance into Skagway. They used to make people walk this, but apparently it was too confusing for people to then be picked up in town, so poor Jim had to take us to show us where he would collect us from!

The wooden cross on the bolder down there marks the resting place of two railway construction workers who were crushed beneath it when it fell. It's estimated to weigh 500 tonnes so couldn't be moved, the mens remains are still where they were crushed

We were slightly late, so our 2 hours had been reduced a little, but that was fine. Skagway, a town of 1100 people was overrun by the 4 cruise ships that were in! We'd encountered some of them on the train, either making the journey up and getting on a bus, or getting off a bus and getting on the train. The rest of them all seemed to be in town, hideous! We managed to entertain ourselves in the museums though before heading back to Jim. 

On the right you can just make out a path. That is the Chilkoot Trail and was the original route traversed by tens of thousands of men who climbed these desolate hills in search of gold. The railway was completed a couple of years later to make it easier but, today the Chilkoot trail is a recognised hike that many people still do

Fill out customs forms for Canada, and off we went. He took us out trying not to run over any of the people who just seemed to amble across the road infront of him, past the two housing sites set up by the two bus companies required to home the 80-100 bus drivers required in the summer months! We had to stop at Fraser again, partly as this was where Canadian Customs was but also we had one more passenger to pick up. Having not been scanned or stamped into the US this time, our passports were scanned back into Canada. Hopefully this will remove any confusion we may have caused at our last border crossing.

The port city of Skagway. It's kept its frontier charm but is a massively popular cruise port with a capacity of up to seven huge cruise liners. Today there were four big ships in and the place was heaving. That's quite typical during the summer months

The last passenger was Ryan, who has just finished his 9 years of study and is now 1 week into a 9 month trip taking him from Anchorage, through Canada and the US, into Central America and all the way to Ushuaia at the Southern tip of Argentina. We talked to him, about travel and South America all the way back. He's going to have a great time.

We spent time in museums as the bars and restaurants were full

Apart from a few lay-bys and to be told that the mountain goats we'd seen on the way out were still in exactly the same place as they had been on the way out as actually they are stuffed (though I couldn't see the bear). The only place we stopped was the Carcross Desert. The worlds smallest. This was at our request, and I'm not sure the 5 together were impressed, but we enjoyed it. Turns out it's not a real desert but we liked it 

The Red Onion Saloon, the place to visit apparently. It used to be a brothel upstairs and for US$20 you could do a tour up there. You can see the queue outside so we didn't bother

Back to Whitehorse, Jim almost managed to drop us off at the door, but that would have been bad in a big bus, and we went straight out to the Indian we ate at last time we were on town. Yummy again, and the waitress remembered us, what we ate, what we drank and that I don't like cilantro! That's impressive 

On the coach ride back we had several stops at viewpoints. This one had to be done!

Day 38 Whitehorse

A relaxed start, well we won't have one tomorrow.

Out to get some breakfast, then back to do a little planning, what else do you do when it's raining?

Looking at the map, there is a set of stairs almost opposite our house, which go up to the airport, so once the rain stopped we thought we'd go and explore. The stairs seem to be the fitness centre of Whitehorse, there were people running up and down like nutters. We didn't!

The Carcross Desert, dubbed the worlds smallest desert, except its not a true desert, more the result of glacial action and settlement at the bottom of a dried lake

Got to the top and there was the airport, and a sign saying caution, active runway, and caution, jet blast. So I messaged John in the UK to see if there were any planes expected. We had about 5 minutes till one came in, over our heads from Dawson City, but the earth didn't move for me.

Another must stop. Photos taken by Ryan, our fellow coach passenger just starting his 9 month trip 

We carried on around the airport to the world's biggest weather vane. A DC3 that swings so its nose always points into the wind. Not sure the regular chimney stack could take it! This was outside the transport museum, so in we went. As ever Brian can spend forever in a museum and I had to drag him out, but it really was very good.

Today,  walk up the 200 odd steps to the plateau on which the airport is. We were hoping for a fabulous view over Whitehorse, but the trees have grown! Instead we waited for a plane to land by the 'Caution Jet Blast' sign

We had a Thursday market to get to twenty minutes in the opposite direction from the house. We popped in and met the third mining geologist to have stayed here in three nights. This one was from Gloucester though, so we did have a bit of a chat.

A little walk further round and we came to the main airport entrance and its showpiece, the world's largest weathervane, a DC3 mounted on a swivel so the nose always points to the wind. How cool is that!

The market was bigger than it looked, though we didn't buy anything, except dinner from a couple of the food trucks which was absolutely brilliant. Fish and chips for him and BBQ brisket and Mac and cheese for me.

Just got to repack, blog and shower before our 04.30 pick up for the airport tomorrow!

And some mammoth statues!

And lots of other old stuff. That led us to the Transport Museum, which was really interesting. It didn't look very big so we thought we'd be in and out but, oh no, it was bigger than it looked and full of stuff

Old aircraft, cars, trucks, dog sleds, anything to do with transport. A good two hours of anyone's time (and could have been longer, except she told me we've got to go!)

The dedication of the people who have restored these machines is astounding. This helicopter (the oldest in the Yukon) was left abandoned in a remote area after it crashed in 1952. The tail was found 160km away! It has been painstakingly restored

This beautifully restored Fairchild plane looked similar to the photo below and restored to its former glory

How some of the stuff arrived here before restoration. How on earth do they do it?

A section taken from a balcony. I could have spent a lot longer there. Not least was an exhibit containing a section of a crashed plane  along with the amazing story of pilot Ralph Flores and his passenger Helen Klaben who survived 49 days in temperatures of -40C with little food. Their plane crashed in dense jungle in February 1963 and no rescuers could see them from the air. The rescue was called off and eventually Ralph walked 2 miles to a clearing to erect a giant SOS with an arrow pointing to where they were. It was randomly spotted by an airman flying supplies to a remote settlement and they were rescued. Amazing story, we had to read the whole thing. Their families have now retrieved the remains from the jungle and plan to rebuild the plane and hope to complete the journey they started when they crashed!

A silly picture to finish. Who wants to challenge me with these?

Canada - days 31 to 33 Tombstone NP to Moose Creek

Our pitch at Tombstone National Park Campsite. Great views behind and in front

Day 31 Thursday Tombstone National Park 

We both woke up about 05.30, and thought that was probably it, until we woke up at 07.20. This is late for us, and we had wanted to make a fairly prompt departure. By the time we were up and breakfasted, dumped black and grey and filled fresh water. We then had to go to the supermarket to stock up on fruit, coffee and porridge the staples for breakfast. Bread and pate, the staples for lunch and nothing for dinners. We have two portions of chilli, a frozen pizza and the fallback chunky butter chicken soups!

The dark peak you can see in the distance is Tombstone peak. Apparently it looks like a tombstone

Our plan, Tombstone Mountain Campground. The only sensible campground up the Dempster Highway. All gravel and goes over the Arctic circle to Inuvik and then the sea. We weren't going that far. We got to the campground and found more people here than we expected, so jumped in the first available pitch we found. We found a much nicer one as we were driving out to the interpretive centre, so we didn't need to have 'panic picked'. 

Passing the Continental divide. Waters flow to the Pacific Ocean one side and the Arctic Ocean on the other

They recommended we did do a bit more of a drive, so we continued to kilometre 152, out the other side of the park, just shy of the Arctic Circle at 

65.06249N, -138.12785W. The scenery was amazing, but it was quite enough driving for us for one day. 

Two Moose Lake. The two mooses weren't there, but the ducks were and I think that white is a swan

We did see one moose at two moose lake, and I saw a wild horse that they warn about on the road. I also saw one of the three varieties of ptarmigan, but no pictures.

There's a moose in the distance, near two moose lake 

A glass of wine and some chilli before meeting the people from the centre at 19.00 for a two hour nature walk. It has to be said, we didn't see much but we did have a good time.

Evening walk from Tombstone campsite to Beaver lake. The greenery is a beaver dam, that they estimate has been there for a hundred years and created the lake that is now used as a stopping off point for migratory birds

Having not done any of the short hikes here, we decided to stay another night and miss out one of our planned stops back to Whitehorse, but it's still a very relaxed plan.

Day 32 Friday Tombstone National park.

 A relaxed start as it was jolly cold and we were staying put. I was thrilled to say hello to two of the three cats that live in a van a couple of spots down. They get taken out for walks and are allowed outside in a harness on a long lead attached to a line between two trees. The two I was introduced to were very friendly, so that was a good start to the day.

Our walk the following day alongside the North Klondike River. It's still partially frozen with icebergs shearing off from the ice pack

We set off on a trail from the campsite 2.5km each way, which I know isn't far, but my first little walk on uneven ground. Very pretty, but sadly as we got to the end, with the benches, and amazing view of the river, the first rain spots fell. We could see it coming in, so hastened back to the van. We got back in just as the rain and hail began in earnest! 

A selfie on the ice frozen river

It didn't last that long though after lunch. Brian vanished and I found him talking to an English/Canadian couple who were strongly recommending the slightly steeper walk from the Tombstone viewpoint. This had already been the plan so off we eventually went.

A grizzly bear on the road up to the carpark of the Goldensides hike into the mountains. We waited while he walked up the road to the carpark at the top

We had just turned off the road to go to the carpark, when there infront of us was a Grizzly bear. Not huge, but certainly not tiny either. We waited while it went up the track while a van wanting to come out waited for it to come past. He wound down his window as he came past and said they had seen two. 

We watched him for ages while he munched his way round the grass at the edge of the carpark, not in the least bothered by our presence 

This was the medium, the big one was somewhere else! We spent ages just getting into the carpark. The bear was going all around the edge, munching on the grass. We felt like we were at a safari park. It was exactly what we'd wanted, amazing viewing and we felt very safe. It went over the edge at one point and we were just debating whether we should get out and hike or not and it reappeared and carried on round, eventually going off the edge again just behind the van. 

Click on the following link to see a YouTube video of the grizzly bear we saw:

YouTube of Grizzly bear

Again, we sat and debated what to do when a car with three people pulled in. We told them what we'd just seen but they smiled and ambled off up the track, no bear spray or anything. The couple in the last car in the carpark were just walking down the track and had seen nothing, though we did have a long chat about the road conditions between here and Whitehorse. They are not the first people to say the construction is making it all very difficult.

On the hike we intended to do after the grizzly had wandered off and we decided it was safe. Halfway up there was a radio mast

We finally decided it was probably ok to do the hike but still felt a bit vulnerable. That got our steps in though.

Then off over the hills, keeping a sharp lookout for bears, bear spray to hand!

On our return we thought we'd better report it to the interpretive centre, who took it all very seriously, filled out a form for the park ranger. Annie, our guide from yesterday was going off to have a look because where it left the carpark was really in a direct line to the campground, and actually directly to us!

Having left Tombstone, we headed back down the Dempster Highway and onto the Klondike Highway to stop at the lookout over Tintina Trench. This might look like a scenic view (which it is), but it's also a view over a very wide fault line. 55,000,000million years ago, the hills in the distance would have been 450km further to the right from where we are standing. The slide was once quite rapid, but today it's very slow, but still moving

I've spent ages looking and seen nothing, except two cars stop on the road, in virtually the same place for a really long time. What were they looking at?

I did go and find the English/Canadian couple after dinner to show them some video of our bear, and Brian has just met them two hours later, just heading off to go and see what they can see. It was a real privilege to see it, so close, so unbothered by us and for such a long time.

Dinner tonight was pizza out of the freezer. Yes, not only does this van have a full size fridge, it also has a freezer, and an oven that gets up to temperature! That's all more than Ted had!

A birding talk by Annie rounded off the evening of a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Day 33 Saturday Moose Creek 

It looks like we've saved all of the roadworks for tomorrow, as today really wasn't too bad. Gravel all the way back down the Dempster Highway to the Klondike Highway and then actually quite reasonable to the campground, another $20 parks site. Despite only half the trip being gravel I still had to sweep the dust from the outside. Some days we've had to sweep the dust from the inside, the sink, the table and seats, really quite horrendous.

A brief stop at a lake on the way to Moose Creek to see mum duck with, we think 7 chicks behind her

Only one stop on the road, which is really quite unusual. This was the Tintina trench, 1000km from just south of Watson Lake to Circle, North Alaska 

It's a fault that has slid 450km from one side to the other and is still moving, though only about 0.5mm a year.

Moose Creek campground had huge numbers of big mosquitos. Jackie was ok with her special hat, but I only had my waving arms to try to fend them off

This is probably our last Parks Canada site which is a shame as it's our second mosquito infested one. It's peaceful with lovely pitches amongst the trees, has a good walking trail along Moose Creek and the Stewart River which we've done, but pretty much as fast as we could to avoid the big black biting things. We are back in the van now watching them butting up to the mosquito netting! We met a couple and their dog as we set off, and walked past them sitting outside their van as we returned. Why are we so attractive? Although all the camps offer free firewood we haven't chopped any or lit a fire. It's not been cold enough and we can't really see the point

Moose Creek, beautiful in the late afternoon sun

A little cabin in the woods by the Stewart River. There was no-one at home, but someone lives there...

I took this photo through the grubby window. A hunter or a fisherman perhaps

Mr Red Squirrel came out to say hello

Wild roses growing in the forest

But all the while these huge mosquitos tried to get into our camper. Fortunately we had mosquito nets on all the windows and door