We have about 8 hours on the road today. Getting this placeholder update out before we depart in the likely case of no cell/data access.
Our destination, Dawson City, Yukon Territory, sitting about halfway between Skagway on the Pacific and the Arctic Ocean, is our northern-most stop at just 2 degrees latitude from the Arctic circle. It was also the epicenter of the Yukon gold rush from 1896 to 1899. Not a very long run, eh?
One more from yesterday’s ride up to Whitehorse: (allegedly) the world’s smallest desert. Sand, you say? Yep, created as glaciers ground rock down to sand many millennia ago.
We departed Whitehorse at 8:00am, heading up the Northern Klondike Highway. Not that it all isn’t as picture worthy as yesterday’s run, because it is, but it was much like this and variations on the same. Submitted for your listening enjoyment, a song we sang several times on the bus: Rocks and Trees by The Arrogant Worms.
We weren’t far up the road when all traffic (and I use the term lightly) came to a stop. Down around the corner, half a mile from there, a VW Bus had gone full flambé. No one hurt, but the VW was literally toast. Took at least an hour to get rolling again. Oh, and not a single horn was tooted.
One of many roadhouses in the Yukon, this one being open air, in a bit of disrepair, and no longer in use. Bit of a fixer upper, but it’s got a nice skylight and good bones.
Totes adorbs. 🥰
Another rest stop for bathrooms and snacks, by the Yukon River in Carmacks, YT. Named after George Carmack, who owned a trading post nearby and a coal mine. A few years later, George (or his wife, it’s unclear which) and two others discovered gold in a creek near Dawson City and staked Discovery Claim. That’s the event that started the Klondike Gold Rush.
I’ll finish today’s updates tomorrow. It’s been a hella long day, and it’ll be getting “dark” in a couple hours. 🤪
June 6th travel: 330 miles by motor coach from Whitehorse YT to Dawson City YT.