We had an uneventful trip from Mayo to Dawson City. The weather was good and we had a strong tailwind which helped the fuel mileage. When we arrived in Dawson City, we were absolutely astounded. There was hardly a tourist around. We checked in at the Dawson City RV Park and were one of five RVs for the day. Today is the same except there is one less and it 5:45PM when you expect to see the lineups start to get in. Found out that there were two problems. First, the weather has not been the best. Second, the US portion of the Top of the World Highway between Chicken in the USA and Dawson City has been closed down due to washed out roads and bridges. This has happened twice this year and had really cut down the traffic from Alaska. The Dempster has had its problems also. Shut down twice in the past couple of weeks. Currently, there is one lane traffic in places and long delays at the two ferries that are on the Dempster due to high water and debris in the water. So, it is very peaceful and quite here in Dawson City. It has also changed out travel plans for the next few weeks. We are not going to travel the Dempster Highway to Inuvik. We will go as far as the Tombstone Mountains and then come back here in just a day trip. We will take time to see and do everything we want to in Dawson City and then head back to Whitehorse. A few days there to get the truck serviced, do some fishing, and then head for Yellowknife in the NWT. At least that's the plan for now. N has reminded me that Yellowknife has a lot of diamonds and she would like to see what a Polar diamond is. Is that a message?
Back to our current status, we arrived in Dawson City and had enough time to walk down town to see a few things, including this interesting little house boat cabin. The person in the canoe is just looking at it. Looks like he is traveling the Yukon River by canoe with all the gear he has with him. N assured me that the walk downtown was only two km. However, some 3 km later she admitted that she might have made a math error! It was a great day and we did have a good long walk (about 7 km total) which we both needed after spending so much time driving lately. If you look at the picture carefully you will see blue water around the cabin and brown water on the far side. The blue water is the Klondike River feeding into the Yukon River which is the brown water. About 500M downstream from here it is all Yukon River brown.
This morning, which happens to be Wednesday, July 28, 2010, we crossed the Yukon River by ferry and drove up on the Canadian portion of the Top of the World Highway. This is one of the most fantastic drives we have ever taken. Neither words nor photos can describe the beauty of this drive. You literally are on top of the world. The first 14 km out of Dawson is all up hill. A lot more photos will be on the next album posted soon.
We spent the afternoon doing our walking tour of Dawson and tonight is fun and games night. We are off to Diamond Tooth Gerties. I'm going to spend a bit of money on the slots. We will watch the 10:30 floor show with the dancing girls, then drive up to the midnight dome to watch the sun set, hopefully before 2AM. If I survive the dancing girls, I'll post again tomorrow or Friday.
Todays quote:
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.
- Bernard Berenson
Cheers
P & N
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