Whitehorse (07/31/2005)

This week we traveled from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory through Dawson City, Yukon Territory to Fairbanks, Alaska. We spent 3 nights in Whitehorse. One of the days we took a trip to Skagway, Alaska. It was really neat. We took a guided bus to Carcross, then a narrow gauge train to Skagway, and finally the bus back to Whitehorse. We saw the worlds smallest desert (the Carcross Desert), the Trail of ‘98 (the trail shown as that snowy line of prospectors climbing to get to the gold), and Dead Horse Gulch (where 3000 pack animals died). We spent several hours strolling the restored historic boardwalk of Broadway and visiting the 2 (count 'em 2) quilt shops in Skagway (along with the passengers of 4 cruise ships).
Another day (in Whitehorse) we toured the SS Klondike (the largest sternwheeler on the Yukon River) (It sure took a lot of wood to run this vessel), the McBride Museum (a complex of log buildings which illustrates Yukon and early Whitehorse history), and took a ride on the MV Schwatka. Whitehorse got it‘s name because the local Yukon River rapids looked like the flowing manes of charging white horses. A dam built in 1958 changed the rapids into Schwatka Lake Reservoir. The MV Schwatka cruises this section of the Yukon River through Miles Canyon and what once was this dangerous section of the river. Now those people seeking danger, ride mountain Bikes on trails on the cliffs above the river. (We know cause we saw 'em.
While we were in Dawson City we walked around the town with it’s old gold rush time Victorian style buildings. We spent 1 evening at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s watching the Cancan dancers and doing a bit of gambling. We also drove 9 miles up Bonanza Creek to Claim #6 where you can do some gold panning for free and you get to keep any gold you find (nope, we didn’t find any). On the way back we toured Dredge #4 and finally got to see the ‘worms’ that formed the land around town.
The drive from Dawson City to Tok was loooonnnnngggggg. We took the Top of the World highway, 185 miles of dirt, smoke, and fog. We stopped at Chicken (roughly half way). It’s a funky little town that once held 400 miners and now has 15 inhabitants in the winter and 50 in the summer. It’s called chicken because the townspeople wanted to call it Ptarmigan (after the birds which provided a lot of food), but they could not agree on the correct spelling (I hope I got it right) so called themselves chicken instead.
Sunday we drove from Tok to Fairbanks passing through North Pole on the way.

Please note: Photographs were provided by Sandra Scotto, Dale Scotto, Sue Norris, Chris Sheridan, and Bob Mulholland