[Originally sent September 5, 2001]
Northern Pride!
Hi again folks!
Last time I wrote, I had just gotten to where a White Ford Explorer had pulled over to pick me up at the outskirts of Whitehorse, heading for Dawson City, Yukon…
Northern Pride
Tuesday, July 17 – After getting my gear stowed away in the back of the truck, I was introduced to Will and Russ and Winnie, the dog. Will and Russ were a couple… of middle-aged guys, from Whitehorse. They were on their way to Keno City (population: 22) to spend a quiet weekend away from the big city of Whitehorse. Will was a high school teacher, who worked with ‘at risk’ students, helping them find practical work experience to improve their future job prospects. He was also a professional composer. He had composed songs for Yukon’s millennium celebrations and hymns for his church, among many other works.
He and Russ had met a few years back in Toronto during the Pride celebrations and Russ had moved to Whitehorse shortly afterward. They seemed to me to be happy and to have made a great life for themselves. They were both originally from the south, but it was obvious that they had both been captured by the spell of the north and they talked fondly of its charms.
As with Jim and Mary before them, I couldn’t have met up with better people to show me around their particular leg of the woods. They were enthusiastic boosters of the northern experience and I could see, that telling me - a northern neophyte - their stories and showing me the places they had fallen in love with was, for them, a kind of way to relive their first encounters with the north.
Now that I was here, finally in the north, after years of imagining it, I was starting to see and understand the effect it had on people. It was hard not to be effected in turn, when you experienced the country first hand and you had true believers like Will and Russ to guide you through it.
We were traveling up the Klondike highway, a road only a few decades old. Before it’s construction, the Yukon River was the route of choice to Dawson’s gold fields. Now we drove primarily along the river valley. The scenery along this narrow, winding road is rugged and mountainous, but not with the high peaks, like on the Cassiar route. There were pristine lakes and huge swaths of territory that had been burned out in a great forest fire a few years before. Crazily tilted black sticks; remains of millions of burnt trees, thrusting through the purple landscape of fireweed made for a surreal landscape on this part of the road.
It’s great getting a ride from locals who know where to stop for pictures and sight seeing. We stopped at the famous Five Finger rapids, where the riverboats would winch themselves up the river using a cable permanently installed through the white water section. We stopped at a place (the name escapes me) famous for the size of their cinnamon buns and of course, we had to have one, which we split between the three of us because it was the size of a large dinner plate and four inches thick!
Will said we should stop at the Moose Lodge. As we drove up, the first thing I noticed was an old derelict pickup truck sitting out in front of the lodge, waiting for gas that was never going to be served, at the ancient (and empty) gas pumps. This eccentric place consisted of a main log lodge, several small log cabins for guests and a large, screened gazebo with tables in it for when the tour buses stopped in. It was surrounded by strange giant sculptures of mosquitoes, made from knotty old pieces of dead trees. The only phone (not working) was out front, twenty feet up a tree, with a ladder to reach it.
Inside, it was very rustic with low ceilings and lots of varnished wood. There were some tables, an old cast iron stove and lots of cheap souvenirs. A bearded fellow standing at a counter ran the place with his wife, who was nowhere to be seen. The place had a generator for electricity (only run for a few hours a day), no phone, no internet, no communication with the outside world except from visitors! Once again, there were cinnamon buns! These were just small, but I have to say these were the best I’d had yet. They must have had a pound of butter in them; they were so rich! That third bun that day pretty much did it for me for cinnamon buns for a while!
We had a little picnic outside, before we set off again. The sun was bright and kept the real mosquitoes at bay while we ate…
We drove about seven hours, I think, which passed pretty quickly; the guys were such interesting hosts. They decided that they would take me all the way to Dawson City, which was hours past their turn off, but they had planned on going there later that weekend anyway and so, they just reversed the order of their trip. That was great news for me because, as usual, on these northern roads, a car went by only about once or twice an hour.
We passed the junction of the Dempster Highway, which is about 40 km before you get to Dawson, in the middle of nowhere and was the only route to Inuvik. The guys said they could take me back there on their way back, the next day. I had truly been fortunate to get this ride!
Dawson City
When you approach Dawson City, the first things you see are these strange piles of gravel on both sides of the road. They are shaped like giant worm casings; six or so feet high, fifteen or twenty feet across and curving, anywhere up to a hundred feet long. This is the gravel left behind by the dredgers; huge machines with rows of large, toothed buckets, that scoop the river and creek beds up to be processed for gold and then dumped back out… These piles fill every valley around Dawson and stretch for miles. Ecology and esthetics are of no concern when gold is the prize.
When we finally reached downtown Dawson, I was totally beside myself. Talk about stepping back in time! The streets of Dawson are left unpaved and the town must appear very much as it did during the gold rush. For one thing, many of the original, unrestored wooden buildings still line the streets. Boardwalks take the place of concrete sidewalks. Newer buildings are either restored originals or built in the old style, so that the whole town looks like something out of a history book!
We drove the streets for a bit, then crossed the Yukon River on the small ferry. This ferry takes you to the only other road out of town; the ‘Top of the World’ Highway, which heads for Alaska along the spine of the mountains, with breathtaking views to both sides. We drove up it for a few miles; just long enough to say we’d done a piece of it and check out Dawson from high above.
Just before you cross the ferry back to Dawson, there is a hostel on the river’s edge. This was where I planned to stay that night. The guys where going to find a spot to camp near town and after waiting for me to check for vacancies, we arranged to meet in town at 11pm to go up ‘The Dome’ to see the midnight sun…
Next time, I’ll continue with my adventures in Dawson and the final leg of the journey to the Arctic…
Until next time, take care everyone…
Steve
