The Fantasy trip diverted from
the Alcan Highway at Whitehorse to take the Klondike
Loop up thru Dawson City then across into Alaska. I don't know whether the detour was to give
us an impression of what life on the frontier is like, or just to let us see
some of the roughest roads on the continent.
Either way, I'm impressed by the hardiness and resourcefulness of the
people who inhabit this beautiful but inhospitable region.
WHITEHORSE is the Capitol of
the Yukon Territory (not a Province) of Canada. We had the privilege of spending
Canada Day, July 1, there. The city had
the usual parade and a day-long festival appropriate this federal Holiday. Principal attractions to Whitehorse, (other
than the usual Cultural Center and gift shops) are three golf courses, the
Klondike Steamship (now land-based, shown in the previous article) and an amazing fish-ladder. Mind you, it's airport's having a DC-3
mounted on a pole that actually serves as a wind-vane is rather unique.
The Whitehorse Rapids Fishway is the longest wooden
fish ladder in the world (about a quarter mile). It was erected in 1959 to allow salmon
migration past the hydroelectric dam that provides a large part of Whitehorse's
electric power. This ladder is in continuous
usage to conduct research and to inventory the migratory patterns of Salmon and
other fishes thru a large viewing/recording window as the fish pass this
window. The fish choose the ladder as an
alternative to jumping an eight-foot weir that protects them from the spillway
and turbine above it.
DAWSON CITY :
A neat little town just downstream from the confluence of the Yukon
river and the Klondike rivers. At this
point, the river is so wide and fast that the only way across is by ferry.
Population is now about 1350, down from 30,000 at the peak of the 1890's gold
rush. Two great names you know came from
there: Jack London (Call of the Wild) and Robert Service (The Cremation of Sam
McGee).
Jack London came to Dawson City
from San Francisco in his late teens, intent on making his fortune in
gold. He stayed here just over a year,
including their intolerable winter, working his own claim and others along side a
number of other miners of like intent.
He left Dawson City with a serious case of rickets and a clear
understanding that this occupation was not what he was cut out for. However, the characters he worked with and
the ethos of the gold-rush society provided him with enough material to publish
a dozen books and over three dozen articles - which were his path to fortune.
Jack London's cabin was found in the hills near
Dawson City by some folks in the 1930's, who identified it by Jack's
handwritten signature on the mantle.
Understanding that this was a place of significance, to both Alaska and
San Francisco, funds were raised to put a replica (using the original logs from
the bottom half) of the cabin in Dawson City, and another (using the top half)
in San Fran. This compromise was of
course done without the guidance of the American Historical Society. Neither replica has the mantle - it's in another museum. These replicas both still exist, and are maintained for promoting
and providing a clearing house for research into London's work.
Robert Service was born in Scotland and came to the North West at the age of twenty one, as a bank employee.
After 2-years, he wandered from BC to California to Mexico and back to
Vancouver working at a number of menial jobs and basically living hand to
mouth. Ultimately, he got a job at a
bank in Whitehorse in 04. He'd written
poetry off and on over the course of his life, and one of his pastimes was
reciting contemporary poetry at local concerts. It
was for one of these that he wrote and recited "The Shooting of Dan
McGrew". Then a month later,
he produced "The Cremation of Sam McGee".
These ultimately lead to his first collection of poems "Songs of a
Sourdough" which was wildly successful and profitable. Service was transferred to Dawson City in 08
where he quit the bank and took his money to travel Europe. The returned to
Dawson in 12, wrote his third book and left town for good. He died at the age of 102, a wealthy man from
the unheard of feat of profitable sales of his poems while still alive.
Dig the typewriter.
Dawson City picks up the tab to run a ferry across
the Yukon river 24/7 all during the summer season (vs the other season, winter
- when the town essentially shuts down).
The ferry makes a round trip about every 15 minutes carrying up to 6
cars or 2 RV's/trucks. This is the only
access to the road north to Alaska on the "Top-of-the-World
Highway". Susie, Zoe and I used
this on our way out of town. Our friends
Pamela and Terry took photos of our crossing while they hooked up their towd (towed vehicle) on
the far side. Our RV was clean when we left
Dawson, but by the time we reached the end of the Top of the World, a thick
layer the finest dust known to mankind could be found on every surface, in each
compartment, and thruout every nook and cranny of our vehicles.
The tidy little town shown in the first photo above
looks significantly different as you go about 2-miles south-west of town. A Google-Earth screenshot of a patch of land
along the Klondike river is typical of what you'll see all along the stream that Bonanza Road follows southward from the tract in this photo.
These weird mounds of rock
bring to mind the worm-holes described in Dune. They are the tailings (piles of rock) from a gigantic gold
mining device called a Dredge. Bottom
line, they are an artifact of a single human condition… Gold Fever.
Gold Fever is alive today in the Yukon and Alaska,
although perhaps not so well as it was in 1896.
If you zoom in on the west (right) end of front street in the photo of
the town shown earlier, you'll see some bleachers beside a fenced-in area
between the road and the river. This
gathering is the World Panning Championship, held annually, rotating every
4-years between gold-towns from Dawson to Scotland. More on this later.
You are here: Tour Miles 1726-2062
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