Rex and Nancy's Travels - "ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST" - JRR Tolkein

We continued on to Dawson City along the Klondike Highway. We saw a moose running beside the road but just as we got the camera ready he headed straight into the trees, so… no moose picture today. We arrived in Dawson City around 10:30 am and set up camp at the Gold Rush RV Park. We took a walking tour with a guide dressed in period clothing. He told stories and took us into buildings that are only accessible through the tour – the post office, a bank, and the Red Feather Bar. He explained about permafrost and how buildings that are built directly on the ground sank. It took the early settlers a while to figure out that you needed to construct buildings on elevated foundations. Here is a picture of two buildings built directly on the ground. We walked to the Yukon River and looked at the SS Keno sternwheeler (smaller than the SS Klondike in Whitehorse) and the Klondike Spirit paddlewheeler – a tour boat. SS Keno Klondike Spirit

We drove about 2/3 of the way to Dawson City today on the Klondike Highway. It was rainy and overcast most of the day. We saw a Lynx right after we turned onto the Klondike Highway and a fox later in the morning. We stopped at Braeburn Lodge for one of their world famous cinnamon buns. One bun (or cinnamon roll) is big enough for 4 people! It will make a wonderful breakfast for a couple of mornings. This afternoon we stopped at Moose Creek Campground, a Yukon government campground adjacent to Moose Creek and the Stewart River. It is a really nice campground with nice wide roads and long, wide sites. But, we did find the mosquitoes everyone warned us about. They are huge and swarm you anytime you are outside. There are a lot of wild flowers blooming, especially lupine and roses. We took the dogs for a short hike to Moose Creek between rain showers. Hopefully, the sun will shine tomorrow. We didn’t go too far because the mosquitoes were really bad and swarming on us and the dogs.

After doing some much needed housecleaning we went to the Yukon Transportation Museum and the Beringia Centre. The transportation museum had displays showing all kinds of transportation in the North from the goldrush days to the building of the Alaska Highway. Included were dog sleds, sleighs, boats, railroads, airplanes and trucks among many others. The Beringia Centre details the ice age past and has exhibits on the Woolly Mammoth, Giant Steppe Bison, Giant Beaver (bigger than the one we saw at Beaver Lodge) Scimitar Cat and more. We enjoyed both museums very much. The weathervane at the Whitehorse International Airport is unusual – a full size Douglas DC3. It actually turns with the wind. Today was also bath day for Camille and Cody – they sure do smell better now. We went back to watch the Frantic Follies again. We tried to talk them into doing the last half first so we could leave early but the actor we talked to didn’t think much of the idea. It was a great show and we would high...

We heard on the radio this morning that they closed the Alaskan Highway between Dawson Creek and Watson Lake again because of the fire. We are glad we drove that section earlier. Rex spent the morning rewashing the truck and 5th wheel (he could only use a bucket of water and a brush as they do not allow you to wash with a hose here). We then went into Whitehorse and visited the MacBride Museum which has some great displays about Yukon wildlife and history – from the First Nations peoples to the gold miners. The museum was really interesting. We walked by the old log church and “log cabin skyscraper” the Yukon’s first high rise! We toured the SS Klondike, the largest sternwheeler on the Yukon River. It is now a Canadian National Historic Site. The SS Klondike I was built in 1929 in Whitehorse and ran aground in 1936. The company immediately built the SS Klondike II using the upper decks from the SS Klondike I. The Klondike II steamed into Whitehorse for the last time in August 1955. We...

We decided to take advantage of the RV wash and get the 5th wheel clean before we left this morning. for Whitehorse, YK. You know the saying “if you want it to rain – wash your vehicle”, well it’s true up North also. You guessed it, not more than 20 miles down the road it started raining. It rained on and off all morning and a long stretch of the road was under construction – which means dirt. Both the truck and 5th wheel are filthy dirty. Oh well, they needed the rain! More beautiful mountains, rivers and lakes between Watson Lake and Whitehorse. The only wildlife we saw was a fox and some eagles - We are still waiting to see our first caribou (we keep seeing signs that say “watch for caribou on road”. In Teslin we stopped at the Tlingit Culture Centre, which has displays on the lifestyle of the Tlingit people and the “power of the mask”. They had some totems out front, displays of masks, clothing, and a couple of native canoes. We also drove by Teslin Lake which straddles the BC-YT ...

We had a leisurely morning – I did laundry (and it is much cheaper here than in Jasper) and Rex washed the truck - the campground has an area where you can wash vehicles & RVs for free. After lunch we visited the Signpost Forest. When the US Army was building the Alaskan Highway they erected a signpost pointing the way to 5 or 6 cities. A homesick soldier posted his hometown on the signpost and the tradition began. Anyone can post a sign here and the city erects new posts as needed. There are more than 61,000 signs posted. We found a sign from Fort Collins and one from Loveland. We visited the Northern Lights Centre – a planetarium, which has the screen on a domed ceiling. We watched a short animated film about astronauts – it was kind of dumb. We then saw a really nice film about the Northern Lights. The film gave some background on the lights and then showed actual footage of the lights set to music. It was really nice.

We left Ft. Nelson and drove along the Testa River Valley and into the Northern Canadian Rockies – another beautiful drive. We stopped at the Muskwa River overview and took pictures of the Muska River and Stone Mountain. We drove over Summit Pass, the highest pass on the Alaskan Highway at 4,250 ft., and into the McDonald River Valley. We saw many Stone Sheep on the road coming down off the pass. Towards the bottom we saw a moose. We stopped at Muncho Lake which is a beautiful blue-green caused by a lot of copper oxide leaching into it. A little ways beyond Muncho Lake we saw a bear and also a number of bison. We then entered the Liard River valley where we encountered a lot of smoke in the air. The young man at the Ft. Nelson Visitors Center told us there was a fire here but that it was going North and there shouldn’t be any smoke in the valley. When we got to Liard Hotsprings Provincial Park, where we planned to spend the night, it was so smokey that we were concerned about Rex’s a...