Whitehorse to Skagway

This stay in Whitehorse was less about laundry and more about seeing the sights, although our towed car acted up by bucking and snorting on a couple of trips to town. Tom found the local Honda dealer and made arrangements to have a mechanic take a ride to see if the cause could be determined. Ha! During the drive back to the dealer, the car ran just fine, and it's been OK since. Of Course!! Minor RV repairs resulted in a couple of trips to the hardware store. Oh yes, and to the liquor store, as well. Whenever we stop at Canadian Customs, they ask a lot of questions about how much alcohol we're carrying. Their allowable limit is very tight, and we've been over it each time. That hasn't resulted in fines or confiscation, but they're clearly unhappy with us. So, our supply now consists almost entirely of Canadian-purchased beer, wine and liquor. We were about out anyway, so this was a good time to stock up. Oh yeah, the sun came out while we were here. Hooray!!

We took a drive out to Miles Canyon and the White Horse Rapids on the Yukon River. During the Klondike gold rush, so many goldseekers wrecked their boats in that stretch of the river that the Northwest Mounted Police required each boat to have an experienced pilot for the short trip through the canyon.
In 1959, the local power company built a dam on the Yukon which raised the water level and eliminated all but a trace of the rapids. There's a pedestrian bridge across Miles Canyon and hiking trails on the other side. The lake formed by the power dam is heavily used by float planes during the summer.


On returning to town, we stopped at the 210 foot historic stern-wheel steamer, Klondike, which traveled between Whitehorse and Dawson City from 1937 to 1956. It replaced an identical ship which sank in the Yukon River in 1936. The engines and machinery were salvaged and placed in the new ship. It has been totally restored and sits on the bank of the river.


We also stopped by the local airport to see the most unusual weathervane imaginable - a restored DC-3 which had crashed on landing at Whitehorse in the 1970's. It was mounted on a pedestal to swivel in the wind in 1981.

On Saturday afternoon, the gals realized that there were apparently no laundry facilities at our next stop in Skagway, and they couldn't get information on a laundromat, either. So, they scurried over to the laundry room at the RV Park and got everything washed and dried.

On leaving Whitehorse, we followed the route of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad to Skagway. It was built in 1898 to transport goldseekers on their way to the Klondike gold rush and operated until 1982, when economic conditions forced it to shut down. It reopened in 1988 as strictly a tourist operation. The section from Whitehorse to Carcross has not been restored, but the railroad offers tourists several itineraries out of Skagway.
We stopped for photos at Robinson Station, built as a flag station for the railroad in 1900. Rumors of gold in the area brought a number of settlers, but the gold never materialized, so the community soon vanished. All that is left are several log buildings in various stages of decay.



We stopped again at the Carcross Desert which was once the bottom of a glacial lake. Wind in the area formed sand dunes which made it difficult to establish plant life.

Then we headed into the town of Carcross which is the present terminus of the railroad. Carcross stands at the downstream end of Bennett Lake which was the beginning of boat travel down the Yukon River to Dawson and the gold strike. There are several interesting old buildings in town that continue to serve the tourist trade.

From there we traveled through a sliver of British Columbia before reaching the Alaskan border again. The U.S. Customs Agent at the border was the nicest and friendliest we've ever encountered. Once back in Alaska, we crossed the summit of White Pass in a dense fog, (scary!) and descended into Skagway where we'll stay for about a week.

You'll hear about Skagway in the next update.