I arrived In Yukon on Wednesday and will be here for the next three weeks. It was late afternoon when I landed in Whitehorse so I spent my time walking around town. I stumbled upon their food truck festival and enjoyed some really good poutine!
Thursday I was up and out the door early to go white water rafting on the Tatshenshini River. The river starts in the far northern triangle of BC wedged between Yukon and Alaska. The drive along the edge of Kluane National Park was beautiful.
I saw this guy just before the turnoff where I was going rafting. Sorry about the lousy photo but I was trying to not scare him off and took it through the windshield of the car:
We were on the river for four hours, all class 3 and some class 4 rapids. We must have seen a dozen bald eagles many of them very close to us. I don’t have a waterproof camera so I don’t have any photos. I’m told the rafting company will be posting on The Facebook some photos they took of us so I may have something later. It was a great experience with good people (a couple on the trek is coincidentally on my Habitat team!) in a beautiful part of the country.
Yesterday I started the day checking out Miles Canyon just south of Whitehorse. This is the Yukon River.
Later in the day, I went hiking near Kusawa Lake. Not sure what to expect I thought I better be prepared and get some bearspray. Off to Canadian Tire I go. After signing forms and paying $50 for the stuff I was out the door with my controlled substance and ready to hit the trail. Here are some pics:
What next to do? Well how about drive to Skagway! It was already afternoon so I figured I would just go down for dinner and come back. Sure glad I did. The road from Carcross to through BC to the Alaska border must be the most spectacular I’ve ever driven. The last 20km through BC is a steady climb through White Pass. When you hit the US-Canada border you are in the clouds. On the other side it’s 14 km of decline into Skagway.
Skagway is a tourist trap. It’s the jumping off point for cruiseships coming from the south. So the town has rush periods through the day when the place is crawling with tourists. Then it’s a ghost town. I got there just at the tail end of the last rush of the day when the tourists disappeared and were replaced with local hippies and hipsters. What’s cool about the town is that it’s in a completely different climate. Yukon is continental and dry. The trees are scrubby and stunted. On the Alaska side of White Pass is the Pacific, so it’s essentially rainforest.
I walked around town, had a meal and happened upon an old cemetery that caught my eye. A little creepy (like Hollywood creepy) but very cool.
Before leaving Alaska, I drove to nearby Dyea, the site of a former boomtown during the Klondike goldrush days. The town is all gone now but it was cool to drive the narrow windy dirt path and walk through the rainforest. I also made sure to wade into the Pacific, since I will be doing the same in the Arctic ocean in about 12 days (and was in the Atlantic ocean two weeks ago in Maine).
Driving home I stopped for a couple more photos. This was just inside the BC border:
These were taken near Carcross around 10:45 pm.
Oh and check out the licence plate on THIS vehicle in the parking lot of the grocery store. “Honey, I’m just going out for a pack of smokes.” (That was 10 months ago)
sedativegunk 