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Published: August 21st 2007
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Gold Dredge Tailings
Miles of this "mine trash" scar the landscape around Dawson. Dawson City: Maybe if the cruise ships had left Skagway alone, it would look like Dawson City. We really liked it. It has dirt streets, wooden sidewalks like in the cowboy movies, and many original buildings, some of which are obviously NOT restored. Those that are restored are Victorian style, painted in the rainbow of colors popular at that time. New buildings fit into this style, including the government building. You have to look closely at signs, because sometimes the sign on the false front of the building is not what’s inside. Dawson is a real town, not a tourist showplace, and the business is still placer mining. (Yesterday, Tom actually got a lesson in gold mining from a local couple, retired federal civil service, who gold pan as a hobby. He also learned from a miner we met in a campground that you don’t just take your pan and wander out into a stream and start panning. Someone still owns that claim, and you must find out if the claim owner will allow you to pan. You may also need to buy a government permit, of course.) Dawson’s gold mining heritage is also displayed by the ruined earth for miles
Far North
This is the farthest north we've been on this trip: 50 miles up the Dempster Highway around the town. Gold dredges were used in the streams, and the tailings (largely river rock) are piled like small mountains everywhere.
Dempster Highway: OK, it’s time to get out the Canadian atlas again. We’re in the northern Yukon, and are heading from Dawson City up this highway to Inuvik. The road is about 450 miles long, gravel, and doesn’t go anywhere except Inuvik. If we want to go to Tuktoyatuk, north of Inuvik, we’ll have to wait till November for the water to freeze over and the “ice highway” to form. Note to the Pyrdoms: don’t worry, we’re not planning that. We stayed overnight at a Yukon government campground east of Dawson City, and headed up the highway yesterday. It took us a little longer than planned, because we needed propane and the Klondike River Lodge, which advertises in Woodall’s and the Milepost that they sell it, doesn’t. However, they did sell us a sewer dump for $5 and have free drinking water and a pay car wash. We’ll probably use that when we come back down to the paved highway. By the way, diesel is $1.35 per liter, which is $5.20 per gallon, and a 20 pound
propane fill (back in Dawson) was over $25. No more good deals: the Canadian dollar is now worth the same as the US dollar. We expect prices to be higher in Inuvik.
We drove up to the Tombstone Mountain campground, and yesterday afternoon, we took a short walk in the tundra and Tom rode his bike up to the top of the nearby mountain. Road biking here is a challenge due to the narrow roads and gravel surfaces. The big trucks are always in a hurry and take up most of the road, but Tom says the normal size cars and trucks are more of a threat, as they are no different than drivers in the US who think it’s fun to get REALLY close to bicyclists. It was HOT, as warm as we’ve seen it the whole vacation, but this morning a front came through, and now it’s down to the low 50s and raining again. We took a 5-6 mile hike up the North Klondike River this morning, and know better how hard the work of the miners was just to get to their claims. We’re holed up in the camper this afternoon, and are hoping for good weather tomorrow, so that we can continue our trip north. If it’s bad, we’ll probably head back down to the main highway. We’re only 45 miles up the highway at the Tombstone Mountain Campground, but so far the road has been excellent.
The good weather came through - kinda. We drove north about five miles, far enough to see how hard Tom’s ride was, and then to the top of the Pass at 4140 feet. There’s snow up here and it’s autumn. Yellow leaves are falling and it was 37 degrees F this morning. We traveled a little farther north and went into the fog, so we turned around, knowing that we weren’t going to see much more. We went back to the rip-off Klondike River Lodge and tried our best to get the mud from the Dempster off the camper and truck. Their “high-pressure” car wash has less pressure than the showerhead in our camper, but they’re the only game in town and they know it.
As we passed along the Klondike Highway from Dawson City to Whitehorse, we went through one of the longest stretches of road with no sign of people, except for a few speed demons who passed us. This was not the most scenic road we traveled, but it did remind us of the place from which Tom and I both retired. This section has been re-named the Stringer Memorial Highway - check the photo, guys.
We’re working our way slowly back to the south - today’s plan is to drive through another gold rush Mecca: Whitehorse and travel toward the west coast and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, via the Cassiar Highway. More news when we return to the land of the internet! Tonight’s upload is brought to you courtesy of someone near this campground with an unsecured wifi hotspot. There’s a lesson here …
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John & Michelle
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Stringer Highway
Hi tom and Sandy What an insightful (or inciteful) observation. We're really enjoying your reports! Keep going and be safe. John