Blogs from Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, North America - page 6

July 15, 2011 SKAGWAY TO WHITEHORSE Before leaving Skagway we had opportunity to do a little shopping (for souvenirs) and visit a few more points of interest around town. Our drive out of Skagway took us UP the long 9% grade that we came down on our way into town and across the border into Canada again. We were able to catch a few more interesting pictures of glacier fed lakes. The wildflowers along the roadside were also a beautiful sight. I kept looking for a photo opportunity with masses of wildflowers in the foreground and the mountains behind, but trees kept getting in the way! In Whitehorse the group was scheduled to attend the “Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue” but we chose to skip that and have a quiet evening in our “home away from home”. ... read more

Whitehorse, Yukon, 2 juillet Pas mal de route depuis trois jours! Parti d'Anchorage mercredi soir, je suis maintenant à Whitehorse, Yukon, plus de 1500 km plus loin. Mes attentes face au parc Denali furent pour le moins refroidies. Un temps maussade, l'impossibilité d'entrer dans le parc avec la voiture, un horaire de navettes qui ne faisait pas trop mon bonheur, bref, j'ai dû renoncer... Mais, au moins, un petit trou dans les nuages m'a permis de voir le sommet du McKinley et j'ai respecté ma promesse de me prosterner devant cette grandiose montagne. De là, un petit arrêt à Fairbanks, deuxième ville de l'Alaska, de laquelle j'avoue qu'il y a peu à dire. J'ai donc filé vers le Yukon et entré au Canada (le 1er juillet, quel timing!) par la "top of the world highway", passant ... read more

Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon territory, largest city in the Yukon with population of around 25,000 - half of all the people who live in the Yukon. This is so believable as we have been in towns with only 492 people recently. We actually found a Wal-Mart. Whitehorse was named because the early settlers called the Yukon's rapids "whitehorses," thinking that the rapids looked like the mane of white horses. This explains why our Brit friends call white caps "whitehorses." OK, that makes sense. I'm not sure I ever knew why we called them white caps! We plan to be here for several days, so tomorrow is a "see-the-city" day. This will be our last provisioning city before we enter Alaska. We are trying to learn what we can take back into America. Seems strange to ... read more

We left Beaver Creek on another cold and wet morning and headed off to Whitehorse. It was a full day on the bus but we made a stop at . It was a town of 800 people but they had an amazing amount of facilities there. There was a convention centre and a curling rink so weddings and sport was well catered for. We had some tasty turkey and salad sandwiches in the convention centre hall and then headed off down to check out the visitor’s centre and bakery at the other end of town. Later in the day (around 4:00pm) we arrived at a place called Uncommon Journeys. This is a place where you can learn to manage a sled dog team and go mushing. The owner there gave us a ... read more

Watson Lake was a very little town just over the border from BC. We stayed the night here and unfortunately I had one killer migraine. BJ spent the night uploading the last blog and choosing photos to publish with it while I slept and tried to get rid of the headache. In the morning we gassed up and headed out to find the Signpost Forest. This is the BIG attraction to Watson Lake. It all began in 1942 when a homesick solider posted a sign with the mileage to his hometown on the marker in town, after that a tradition began. What started with a few signs has now grown to a collection of signs and oddities that number over 55,000. There are street signs and town signs from Germany, Switzerland, Australia, and America… almost any ... read more