sedativegunk

August 30-31

My return trip down the Dempster went without a hitch – mostly. I managed to make the entire trip up and back without a flat tire, a fairly common occurrence on that slate gravel road. The only issue was my ongoing misfortune with the weather. Cloud and rain followed me for much of the trip, though I didn’t realize the worst was yet to come. In the meantime, I enjoyed the scenery…

One fun side note, I stopped at Eagle Plains about halfway down to buy gas and some eggs and butter. By chance, the two cyclists, Jonathan and Asad, were there. They asked me lots of questions about Inuvik, I asked them how their run up the highway was going. Well they said. We parted ways again, with the strange feeling that I will probably see them yet again.

I stopped just north of Tombstone Park at a pull-off at Two Moose Lake. The early evening light on the fall coloured landscape was more dramatic than my trip up. It was getting late for setting up camp but I could afford one quick look-see at the lake and snap a couple of pictures.

A friendly couple greeted me and after exchanging pleasantries I came to learn that she and her husband are photographers. They lived 37 years together in Dawson but, due to her husband’s health problems, decided to move to near Calgary. They have never fallen out of love with the Yukon, though, and they come back every year. Her parting advice to me was to grab a spot at the unofficial campground 2 km down the road on the left. It’s not serviced at all, she said, but you’ll have a spot right by the creek.

I pulled in to the area to find only one other lone camper. I began setting up my tent as the drops of rain began to fall. I hurried and got it done. Now I had to cook dinner but I had no cover. So I set up the stove under the rear hatch of my SUV. Normally this would have worked perfectly however just as I had my speghetti sauce cooking and the pasta boiling, the downpour started. Then I started to get mud rolling off the hatch down onto me and eventually into my food. That mud was backsplash from the highway – nearly concrete on the truck. Until now, as luck would have it! I managed to finish making my meal and eating it down like a wild animal. The extra grit from the mud in the sauce – not a lot but enough to notice – didn’t dampen my appetite in the least.

So disgusted by the weather I abandoned all hopes of sleeping in the tent and relocated to the rear back seat of the SUV (it was a Ford Expedition with 3 rows of seating). By next morning it had cleared up (mercifully) so I was able to pack away a somewhat dry tent, cook up some oatmeal and get on the road.

With the rain cleared and with food in my belly, I set out to do a couple of hikes in Tombstone Park. First, Goldensides trail.

With the brilliant weather and time to spare I decided to retrace my steps and once again hike the Grizzly Lake Trail that I did a few days before on my way up the Dempster highway. I did not regret that decision as the view from that trail was picture perfect.

I arrived in Dawson in the late afternoon (Thursday, August 31). I had got a tip from someone that the place to camp was on the other side of the Yukon River, a short ferry crossing away. I found the place easily, set up camp and decided to walk to town. A ten minute walk to the ferry and a ten minute walk from the ferry into town. Time to check out the town.

Dawson is at opposite ends of Skagway, Alaska on the route taken by the goldrush prospectors from 1898 to 1900. Like Skagway, the town has historic charm with Klondike-era buildings and wooden sidewalks. That’s where the similarities end. Skagway is a tourist trap. Everything is manicured to within an inch of its life to please the cruiseship crowd. Dawson survives a lot on its local economy – such as it is – and snags whatever tourists are passing through on the road to Fairbanks, Alaska. It’s a charming place with old style hotels and even a casino, the latter attracting Alaskans from the other side of the border.

While Skagway seems to have all the private investment it needs to maintain its old looking buildings, Dawson relies on Parks Canada’s ownership of many of the properties. Much of the town is a National Historic Site, but even then, some buildings are just left to decay naturally.

It would make for a good ghost town, but it’s anything but. The city bustles after dark when many of the bus tour folks are safely tucked away. My first night I went to Sourdough Joe’s for excellent fish and chips and then moved on to the Downtown Hotel where they feature the sourtoe cocktail. This unusual activity is much like the Newfoundland initiation of being “Screeched In”, except instead of kissing a cod and chasing it with bad rum, you kiss a desiccated human toe, which is then dropped in your drink of choice and you drink it down. In case you were tempted, you must NOT swallow the toe (toes are not easy to come by!). The penalty is severe. (For funny reading about this, you can google “sourtoe cocktail”.) Your name is then recorded for posterity and you get a scroll to prove your initiation. I am an inductee. My drink of choice was a shot of Yukon Jack, thanks for asking.

My accomplices in the induction were two girls from Victoria, Aiden and Vera. The three of us then moved on to Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall for the midnight show. The entertainment was excellent. Later we moved on to the Pit, a dive bar for locals, where the music was fun, the crowd was bearded and plaid-clad and the drinks were cheap. For the first time on this trip, I would stay out until the bars closed. Glad was I, since it was rare on this trip to encounter a clear night. And on this night, as the girls and I found a street meat vendor, we looked up to see northern lights. Stuffing our faces with elk sausages, we admired the green and purple show above our heads.

The following day I checked out the town, walked the riverfront, had lunch at a great French Canadian-owned restaurant called the Red Mammoth (I would go back after dinner for dessert) and tour the Keno, a sternwheeler riverboat built in the 1920s that used to sail the Stewart River (tributary to the Yukon) to transport ore from the Mines near Mayo. The Keno was made obsolete with the construction of roads during and following World War II. It is now drydocked and is a National Historic Site.

The following day I returned to Whitehorse to prepare for the next chapter of my northern adventure. On the ride down, I stopped at a campground canteen for breakfast and came across some quirky signs!