Saturday, July 22: The Klondike Route

We woke up to more rain today.  My throat has been killing me as I’ve been nursing my third cold since hitting Alaska a few weeks ago  I wasn’t excited about packing up in the rain.  It means dragging all of the things that we placed outside for the night: tire, grill, generator, and much more (and rides on the floor of the camper while we drive) back in dripping wet.  So we took a more leisurely morning making a hot breakfast and cocoa while the kids stirred and Tim packed stuff. I was grateful that the rain had stopped by the time we had wrapped up breakfast and turned into a beautiful day.

We are taking a different route home and today we would take the Top of the World Highway, also called the Taylor Highway.  It heads through Chicken, Alaska population 12 - only 3 in the winter.  It’s some of the most beautiful wilderness driving anywhere. 

My reading material. The Milepost is a lifesaver, a mile by mile log of the Alaska Highway and all other routes.

Back in 2004 when Tim and I moved up here Alaska had some of its worst wildfires on record through this area - 6.6 million acres burned.  I have a distinct memory of a huge owl (probably up to my waist) hopping along the side of the road as the black trees behind it were literally still burning.  Actual flames were still licking the ground and various trees in some of the more freshly burnt areas of the highway.  Nothing, and I mean nothing was visible except a thick smoke for miles and miles, even in places that weren’t burning.  We could barely see Chicken itself when we pulled in for gas, as the few buildings would be easy to miss.  So this is our first time enjoying the countryside as well as our kids.  We made a stretch your legs pitstop and panned for gold (mining is still alive and well here) and checked out the gift shop and the bridge that connects the RV park to the rest of the town.

The road turns to dirt and gravel once you leave Chicken heading south.  Then begins the truly stunning portions of the Top of the World highway.  You truly feel as though you really are on top of the world as the road winds right along the ridge of mountain top after mountain top, barren landscape because there are no trees above treeline.  If you ever have the chance to drive it, it is worth it.  The Canadian border is right at the top and we had absolutely no problems getting across (Tim was worried about the frozen fish in the coolers).  All of this area is the Fortymile Creek area where a bulk of the Klondike Gold Rush occurred in the 1890s.  This road was once a pack road through the Klondike to the Yukon River.

At the end of the Tap of the World is the Yukon River with Dawson City right on its banks. In fact, the only way to get to Dawson from this side was to take a ferry across the Yukon.  The current is so swift that it isn’t cost effective to build a bridge, or maybe not even possible.  In the winter, the river freezes solid and the cars simply drive over, which I find absolutely terrifying.  Everything, even semi trucks get on that ferry or drive over the ice.  It seems crazy.  And it was a little surreal to have been here on our move up 20 years ago with just the two of us and our jeep and a couple of bikes and now here we were with 7 kids in tow and pulling a camper with a 15 passenger van.  The kids and I walked on the ferry for the trip over and then watched Tim take the van over next.   

Dawson City has a tremendous amount of gold rush history.  Unfortunately, because of time working against us now, it was 4:30 instead of 3:30pm and everything was pretty much closed up for the day.  Also this was some of the first truly hot summer-like weather we had encountered.  We were wearing shorts and sweating in the heat.  None of us really wanted to walk around for long.  We hadn’t had a chance to acclimate to heat after spending the entire summer in 60 degree weather.  So we drove around town a bit just to get a feel for the community that has stayed true to its gold rush roots, past Jack London’s cabin (where he wrote White Fang and The Call of the Wild) and then headed out.  Crazy, but within in ONE mile we had a beaver cross the road, saw a moose and her baby on the side of the road, and also had a bear lumber across too!  It was an exciting few minutes of driving.  All of them hit the woods before we got any photos.  But the kids were pretty psyched to see all that wildlife.

Jack London's cabin

There were too many beautiful lakes and rivers to count as we continued through the endless wilderness to Whitehorse.  We pulled a long one today and finally hit the campground around 12:30am.  Wanting to make us much headway as we could tonight since we had plans to make a few stops the next day.