Up a little later today, as I decided that I would treat myself to a cup of tea and a couple of scones at Starbucks. I placed my order and was asked to go to a waiting area. So, I waited, and waited, and waited while noticing that everyone who was in the place when I arrived had long gone, and that many folks who came in after me had also got their orders and long gone! So I asked one of the “barista’s” where my order was, explaining that many people who had come in long after me had already got their orders and left.
He asked what I had ordered, and then went over to the woman who was taking orders. The he came back and proudly explained to me that barista’s didn’t make tea and that I should have taken it up with the woman taking orders, who was new and didn’t realise that she should make cups of tea.
I replied that as a customer I didn’t make the tea either. I then summed up the situation as “your process and organisation behind the counter is screwed up and you want to blame your customer for not sorting that out. Perhaps you should have gone to business school to learn what customers do, and more importantly, don’t do. Please get my order, before you touch anyone else’s order, or you can give me my money back.”
I could understand that with staff in training things will sometimes go wrong… more so if you are busy (they were). But to then commencing blaming the customer? Even baristas should not be doing that. With all the waiting and commotion, it was well past 09:30 when I set off.
I didn’t realise how close to Whitehorse the junction of the Alaska Highway and the Klondike Highway was so naturally I missed the turn to take the Klondike North! But I realised my error after just a few hundred metres and got back on track. The mountain you can see in the distance at the start of video #1 is called Pilots Peak and apparently is a favourite spot for cyclists, with many tracks.
I was soon into some very nasty weather with low cloud and a very fierce wind that was pushing the vehicle all over the place. Back in 1999 I had the misfortune to get on the edge of a tornado in Texas and this was beginning to feel like that. Strange, because I didn’t think the words tornado and Yukon belonged in the same sentence.
The lake starting at 3:53 in Video #1 is Fox Lake, it’s only ~ 1,200 yards at its widest point but it’s 10.5 miles long. One of the really nice things about this whole trip is the amount of time spent driving along the shores of many beautiful rivers and lakes, often with mountain ranges as a backdrop. England has the Lake District (very pretty area) but it often seems that Canada West is one humungous Lake District with the addition of forest.
As we got North of Fox Lake it became much colder, down to 36° F and there was still lots of snow on the ground. Soon, the cloud was breaking up and the sun was poking its head out to say hello. The mountains had gone, to be replaced by rolling hills. And the vegetation had changed as well, with a mix of silver tree and conifers, none more than ~15 feet tall.
I stopped for a cup of tea and some toast in a little settlement called Carmacks. You can hear my comments on the place at the start of video #1, but it’s a place with a little more than historical significance. It’s the ancient home of the Little Salmon First Nation and it’s named after an American (I originally thought he was Scottish) called George Carmacks.
At different times Carmacks had a trading post and a cola mine but in 1896 he and some family found gold in Rabbit Creek South of Dawson City, though at that time there was no Dawson City as there is today. When they registered their claims to areas of Rabbit Creek word got out and that started the Klondike gold rush, though it took almost two years for the rush of prospectors to get to the area. I will spend tonight in the same Dawson City.
The building you can see me approach at the end of video #1 is a:
• post office
• restaurant
• hotel
• central meeting place for the community
The restaurant is small, but the food and service are great. I decided there and then that I would stop here for lunch on the way back – the only place in the entire journey so far where I ate twice (I would go on to eat twice at Annabel’s Noodles in Dawson City).
I stopped at the Five Finger Rapids on the Yukon River (2:14 in video #2) to take some still shots. The rapids were not really close, so it was difficult to see how much of the river had thawed or how fast the rapids were. They are called the Five Finger Rapids because there are four islands across the river which create five channels for the water to flow through, originally with only one passable. The First Nations name for them translates to “rocks that stand up”.
Prospectors heading for the gold rush area had to navigate these rapids (there were no roads or railways) and they had to do so in canoes carrying all of their equipment and supplies for a year. No wonder many perished on these rapids.
After lunch the terrain changed yet again… to virtually no conifers and short spindly trees. It certainly looked as though the land was being managed rather than just growing wild. Soon I was at Pelly Crossing (I incorrectly call it Pelling Junction at 4:18 in video #2) where I could gas up. Not only did I gas up, but I bought a giant version of a British candy bar I hadn’t had for over 40 years – a Crunchie. This, it turns out, was a very, very bad move. I am sure that the Crunchie of my youth was made of something that resembled real honeycomb, but as soon as I took a bite of this bar, I knew I had made a big mistake. The core of the bar was so gooey and sticky that I couldn’t get my teeth apart. It took a long time to finish this monster and I doubt I will ever have one again.
Look at the color of the bridge as I leave Pelly Crossing – I’ve never seen a bridge painted in such a nice color before. In the video I call the river I am crossing as the Yukon River but that was wrong, it’s actually the Pelly River, a smaller river that flows in from the East and joins the much larger Yukon just to the West of the bridge.
At 6:16 in video #2 I think the snow-capped mountains in the background are in the Tombstone Park. Today’s journey to Dawson City doesn’t take us through those mountains, but fear not, as we will get to know them well tomorrow as the Dempster Highway goes right through them!
I reached Stewart Crossing at about 2 pm. It’s formed by the continuation of the Klondike Highway, which I would stay on, and a spur called the Silver Highway that went East 35 miles to Mayo. Mayo Lakes used to be a gold and silver mining area until the 60’s and is now mined by the Mayo Lake Mineral Company.
At 7:01 in video #2 you can see me approaching this junction – look at the indigenous people’s art on the rock face as I turn left. Shortly afterwards (and continued in video #3) I encountered a type of road surface that was to be very common for quite a while. It’s not asphalt and it not shale either. The closest I can think of is what used to be called “top dressing” in the UK. Look carefully at the sides of the road… there are large drainage runs and in some areas the trees have been cut back to place drainage channels down the slopes.
I was no far enough North to begin encroaching on what would eventually become the Yukon Tundra, where the permafrost is unstable enough to prevent building roads with a concrete or firm base because the unpredictable ground movement would quickly distort such a surface. As we shall see tomorrow, this is why the Dempster Highway is what it is – compacted gravel and shale.
It’s likely that these slopes are taking snowmelt and rain runoff from higher up and this work is done to protect the road. Although the vehicle is bumping around a little, bumps aren’t the main concern here – that is the danger of a loose chip flying up and damaging the windshield. And the large trucks that move goods on these roads don’t need to worry about the bumps which means they don’t need to lower their speed either.
Replacing the windshield on a Subaru Ascent here is not just a matter of dialing up the local Auto Glass shop and asking them to pop out to where you are and fit a replacement. Firstly, they’re unlikely to want to “pop out” the odd 100 miles or more to get to you, but even if they did, they might not have an Ascent windshield in stock. Even if they had one in stock, once the windshield is fitted, the Eyesight system, which is attached to the windshield, must be reinstalled, and then recalibrated. And all of that will cost only the bargain price of ~CA$4,000. Does it make sense to you now that I cringed like a baby every time a truck went by on a road of chips? But wait until we get to the Dempster Highway…. Cardiac country.
By now the bumps in the road were getting bigger and more frequent, even though you could see that many of the holes had been filled in recently.
There’s another great view of the Tombstone Park mountains at 2:08 in video #3 – you can clearly see a mountain completely cover in snow without any bare patches.
A few miles later the weather changed very suddenly from light clouds and sunshine to hail and a very, very dark sky (see 2:46 in video #3). I reminded me a lot of a group of storm cells collecting in the summer in the Houston area – storms that could dump a large amount of rain in a very short time. I was surprised to see this type of weather this far North.
Although I went through this storm it didn’t rain heavily at all but soon, I had another problem, high risk rockfall/rockslide areas. At 3:25 in video #3 you can clearly see one of the causes for these – water gushing down the hillside and taking the shortest path to the river – across the road, which sometimes can wash parts of the road away, as we will find out later in this journey. The river you can see is the Klondike River, which flows into the Yukon River at Dawson City.
At 4:15 in video #3 I am approaching the Klondike Junction – where the Dempster Highway branches off from the road I was on, the Klondike Highway, but it turns out that wasn’t all that I was approaching. Remember my comment from a couple of days ago that I hadn’t seen a single police officer since I left home? Well… I still hadn’t…. until now, until I get to meet two of them at once.
I’m not an expert on traffic laws in the Yukon but I am 100% sure of one thing… if when you ask “how fast was I going?” and the officers reply is “more… more than 50” then you’re home and dry because the only evidence that the officer has is an opinion that you were going too fast, the case will get laughed out of court. Was I speeding? I might have been though I was slowing down to check where to enter the Dempster Highway tomorrow, but if you want to take it further then you really must set up a proper speed trap that will hand you the evidence that you will need in court. She then told me that it was 90 km / hour just around the corner.
There’s a lot of steep slopes one on side of the road and the Klondike River on the other side between the Klondike Junction and Dawson City so I suspect that the road get closed or restricted often during the winter.
At 6:41 in video #3 you can see a series of strange berms on both sides of the road as I enter the outskirts of Dawson City – I’m still not sure why they are there. I finally made it to the Bonnanza Gold Motel just after 4 pm. That Bonanza name is all over Dawson City – probably because Rabbit Creek, where the first gold was found by Mr. Carmacks & co., was later renamed Bonanza Creek. As you can see in the video, the car park was covered in ice, snow and mud – great to walk through with your luggage! But the room was clean and tidy and the staff were a real hoot – great folks.
I had dinner at Annabel’s Noodles in downtown Dawson City, despite the name they served a great Thai dinner.
I decided to sleep in my mountaineering sleeping bag to see how warm it would keep me. I was surprised… in the sleeping bag with nothing on I was warmer than I had been in some beds. Thank you Kirsty for the advice on what type/rating to get.
Got to bed early for an early start tomorrow – needed to tackle the dreaded Dempster Highway.
You can see the stills and videos from today here.
