Weekend in review

We were without cell service again, so I am doing the whole weekend in review.

I returned to Whitehorse via Air North on Friday (totally recommend them, if you have any need to fly to Whitehorse) where the family picked me up. Bob wanted to see the SS. Klondike before we left Whitehorse, so we did. We only had 15 minutes before it closed. Yikes! Not quite enough time to see it all, but enough to get a good idea of it. The self-guided tour sheet helped make the most of the short time we had available. 

In the dining room

With evening coming on,  and the kids hungry & tired we decided to park ourselves in the Wal-Mart parking lot, along with a whole bunch of other trailers – some of which I’m pretty sure had been there the whole 8 days we’d been in the city. Now that’s taking it to extremes. As black top boondocking goes though, this was pretty sweet. Free WiFi from Macdonald’s, Starbucks, Coles and a bunch of other stores within walking distance, and it was actually pretty quiet. Well, except for the ravens who decided at 5 in the morning to go tapping on the roof of the trailer and then try to call me outside. Not sure what they were looking for, but when I peeked out the window they were all staring at me. Kinda creepy actually (the birds! the birds!).

The next morning we headed out of Whitehorse on the Alaska Highway and a short ways up the Klondike Highway to Takhini Hot Springs. The pools are obviously a well-known local attraction, since there were many locals, and even a kid’s birthday party going on. It probably helps that there is also a big climbing wall and zip-line there. They looked fun, but were fully booked. The pools were nice & warm, with the main one being warm bathish and the hotter one being pleasantly warm. We spent quite a bit of time there before finally getting out for a late lunch. It was now after 3 and we finally started our drive (what is it with us and these late afternoon starts!). Next stop… um, I don’t know. But we did pick a direction – north, towards Dawson City. 

Big cinnamon bun

Five Finger Rapids (the closest channel was the safe one)

We stopped at Braeburn Lodge to get treats and a gigantic cinnamon bun (very tasty). We stopped at Five Finger Rapids to read the panels about how the Klondikers had trouble negotiating this section of river and the sternwheers had to which themselves upstream. We stopped to fuel up, since we need to do that a lot (24.7L/100km baby!).  We drove until the kids were whining they were hungry and tired and so when the sign for the Tatchun Creek Yukon Gov’t campground appeared, we pulled in. I’m really starting to like these gov’t campgrounds. They’re inexpensive with well-maintained, treed sites and free firewood. They feel more like what campground camping should be, and at this time of year, are pretty quiet.  This one has… a creek (could you guess from the name?) running beside it, which Bob & the kids checked out this morning.

Tatchun Creek

Throwing rocks in the Yukon River

Tintina Trench

Today we drove the highway the rest of the way to Dawson. This stretch has a whole lot of empty highway, punctuated by some interesting stops and information boards, and amazing views. Pelly Crossing has a beautiful lookout from the hill just north of the village. One turnout had information about the continent of Beringia and how the area was tundra plains a long long time ago (and I got to hear more about what the kids learnt about at the Beringia Centre in Whitehorse). Another turnout was beside the Yukon River where the kids took time out from their busy schedule to throw rocks in the river. Our last drive-time stop for the day gave us an excellent view of the Tintina Trench, a fault line that runs through the Yukon. This was interesting to me, as I didn't realize we actually had fault lines running through Canada. We arrived in Dawson late afternoon, picked a campground (which took a ridiculous amount of time), backed in (which also took a ridiculous amount of time), and then fought with the hitch, which refused to open until we babied it just so (first time we've had to fight with it since we were in Blackfalds). By that time it was getting late, the kids were wild and we still needed to make supper.  Oh well, there went my intentions of checking out the town today. I did some laundry instead, because, you know, kids get clothes really messy, without trying very hard - especially when there are creeks & rivers to check out. At least that’s pretty much caught up. Until tomorrow…