June 11-15, Whitehorse YT

SATURDAY
Cinnamon rolls are all the rage here. We stopped at Johnson’s Crossing for “the best” and they did not disappoint. Pioneer RV Park in Whitehorse is as we expect most “parks” to be here, gravel parking lots with the hookups we need. Although our weather is beautiful, we realize the harsh winter doesn’t allow for many frills to thrive. The park is clean and our fellow campers are friendly.
SUNDAY

We drove the Jeep to Skagway AK. Yes, Mom, we had our passports this time! Only one 700 passenger ship was in port and Skagway felt like a ghost town. There were several 2,000 passenger ships when we were here on a cruise years ago. We weren’t able to even squeeze into the Red Onion Saloon last time. Now we walked right in, had lunch and toured the brothel museum with our own madam. $5 for 15 minutes, same as during the Klondike Gold Rush! Madam 50%, bouncer 25%, girl doing all the work 25% - typical! We strolled the nearly empty streets and found this Alaska style fur bikini! Skagway never burned, so the buildings are original, although many have been moved from other streets. The Red Onion was installed backward on its new street. Instead of turning it around, the owner had about 16 inches sawed off the front & rear and attached to the opposite ends. We drove to the Dyea townsite, another Klondike entry point about 10 miles from Skagway that Dennis remembered hearing about on our cruise. There wasn’t much to see, except great views of the fjords. We saw so many sights along this 100 mile trip. Although the gold rush itself was 600 miles away in Dawson City, prospectors looked for gold along the way and we saw remnants of mining operations along the mountainsides. Interesting bears appeared – one standing in the road in front of us before climbing over the guard rail and a mama with 2 cubs. Barb was so excited to see the cubs that she didn’t get a good picture. She was also excited to stand in snow in June. We went from the snow to the desert. Carcross Desert is billed as the smallest desert in the world, at 1 square mile. It’s actually a dry glacial lake bed, but has dunes and soft sand. Our first and last stops of the day were at Emerald Lake. The pictures barely do it justice, as the colors are amazing. We saw this funny commentary on gravel roads while stopped at Emerald Lake.

MONDAY
We received a great surprise today while sightseeing in Whitehorse – stay tuned. We saw Miles Canyon, which can have rough rapids that broke apart many prospectors’ boats. The wood bridge crossing the canyon had a bit of a sway to it and it made us think of the emails we received after posting the suspension bridge pics. Passing the float plane harbor, we made our way to the world’s longest wooden fish ladder. We enjoyed the great art installation and can’t wait to stop again in August as the salmon are spawning. It will be much more crowded then so we learned all about it now. Next up was the Klondike II sternwheeler. The movie preceding the guided tour was just ending, but Dennis wanted to join the tour anyhow. A woman walked right up to Barb and even though they both knew they knew each other, couldn’t figure out why for the first many seconds. Corte Bella neighbors! Barb knows Cindy from ladies poker & hair day. It’s just so odd to see someone out of the normal setting. Dennis & Chuck had not yet met, but that was handled over happy hour back at the RVs, which are about 200 feet from each other! Imagine if we had been in the same place and never realized it! The sternwheeler tour was really interesting. We especially loved the story of the crew loading cord wood for the engine. They would open the loading doors on both sides of the ship then run down the ramps from shore with the cart of wood, hoping to stop before they went out the opposite door into the Yukon River! We made a quick stop at the “plane vane”, the world’s largest weather vane, made from a DC3 mounted on a post. Well, it’s now sunset at 11:11PM and time for bed!
TUESDAY
Chuck & Cindy left this morning. We’ll keep in touch & hope to meet again. Wrapping up our Whitehorse sightseeing, we visited the Beringia Interpretive Center & the Yukon Transportation Museum. Beringia is the former land bridge (actually twice the size of Texas) between Russia & North America. Glaciers formed on both continents, basically stealing water from the Bering Sea, which became a large grassland. Woolly mammoths, sabre-tooth cats, giant bears and many others roamed the plains. So many fossils have been found in the riverbeds and due to gold mining operations. We also learned that the first camels were in North America, but went extinct! In addition to having the fanciest restrooms in the Yukon, the transportation museum was filled with planes, trains and automobiles, as well as snowmobiles, military vehicles, buses, dog sleds, etc. There were some incredibly daring (or crazy) people who came up here in the early days!