Blogs from Dawson City, Yukon, Canada, North America - page 3

First impression of Dawson City... Between Whitehorse and Dawson City on a stretch of 600 km, there were only a couple of little towns with a few houses. The road was carved out of the forest and seemed endless. The trees looked sometimes like pipe cleaners and there were big piles of trees and bushes along the road where they ad been stacked after the widening of the road corridor. We stopped at the fife finger rapids, some beautiful lakes and kept on driving through the forest. We stopped every opportunity and on a potty break for Koya, I spotted a huge porcupine and quickly grabbed my camera and went hunting. This was a rodents with a coat of sharp quills, that defend them from predators. Most mature porcupines are about 25–46 in long, including tail. ... read more

The tour group I had met in Inuvik was also experiencing Dawson City. Some had taken a trip up the Top Of The World Highway the day before, and now they were back in town. One of them, Alice, hadn't gone and I met her the day before. She mentioned that she had heard of the Paddlewheeler Graveyard. That sounded intriguing and nostalgic. She was going to go and find it, and I asked if I could go along. I was welcome. We met at 9:30, along with their tour leader Tony, and took the ferry (another free one, do you hear that provinces?) across the Yukon River. Then we walked through the government campground and onto a path into the forest. When the river is lower it is possible to walk along the sandy bank ... read more

I got up and wanted to find out about the solstice. I couldn't remember which one moves from the 21st to the 22nd. I thought it was probably the summer solstice because that would make the halves of the year between winter and summer more equal. If it was December that went from 21 to 22, then it would really skew the halves, at least to my way of thinking. So I went to McDonald's for breakfast and searched it. Drat it!!! This was the summer solstice. And it had moved because of the leap year this year. I cogitated for a moment and just decided that I didn't care. When I was little there was no question that summer began on June 21st. So I don't care what the astronomers say. I could go on ... read more

August 8, 2011 DAWSON CITY, YT Today is our 47th Anniversary!! What an interesting place to be spending it. The tour bus picked us up at 10:00 a.m. and took us up to the top of “The Dome” for a view over the city of Dawson and the surrounding area. From there we traveled out to one of the largest Gold Dredges ever built which operated from 1905-1965. Dredge #4 was designed in Ohio, but many of the parts were built on-site here in Dawson City, and then it was put to work in the Klondike River valley. As you can tell from the pictures, it was designed to move huge quantities of dirt and the dredges dug up this entire river valley and all the feeder river valleys for miles around. The valley is now ... read more

July 16th, 2011 Yukon River Campground 62 degrees with high clouds with possibility of some sun. Starting mileage 11909 Crossed by ferry to Dawson City. Checked out the very small farmer’s market and bought a large sack of really fresh, washed Swiss chard for $3.50 and 1 zuke for $2.00. Town is absolutely full of people!! Lots and lots of them are young people in for the Music Festival plus the usual crowd that come to town on a Saturday to shop. Drove around town and read the historical signs on about half of the buildings. Looked at the fully restored Robert Service’s and Jack London’s cabins which were less than a block from each other. We then toured the ½ of the City Museum and watched a black and white, very interesting, documentar... read more