Dawson City Yukon

We traveled to Dawson City through Chicken, Alaska and over first the Taylor Hwy then, on the Canadian side, the Top of the World Hwy. The Canadian/USA border crossing is in the middle of nowhere at the top of a mountain. The closest habitation to it is 10 miles away at Border Alaska, and that is just a house, airstrip and a "store".

We had to wait 10 minutes or so for someone to come out of the border crossing and talk to us. I guess they were playing chess with their USA counterparts. ;) The thrill for us was that right after the crossing, there was a small herd of caribou. I stopped and rolled down the window while simultaneously calling to the girls to see the caribou. Big mistake. The caribou heard me and started running away. I got some pictures of the rear ends of caribou.

The Taylor Hwy is pretty rough, while the Top of the World Hwy is better. It wasn't raining, thank goodness because I wouldn't have wanted to do that road in the rain. As it was, it took us 6 hours to drive from Delta Junction to Dawson City with a brief stop at Chicken to top of the tank with $5.70/gal gas.

To get to Dawson City and continue on the Klondike Hwy, you have to take a (free) ferry across the Yukon River. We had to wait 20 minutes to get on the ferry.

Dawson City is an historic town built during the gold rush of 1900's. It once was a booming town with all the amenities that San Francisco had at that same time. The houses and buildings have been restored and there is a great walking tour that you can take through town. They have Jack London's cabin (or half of it) here. They also have a wonderful theatre called the Palace. We went to see "Fiddle Rush Too" which was a play/music/dancing performance that gave some of the true stories of the people that made up Dawson at the turn of the century.

We drove 12 miles outside of town to go gold panning at the family run Goldbottom Mine Tours. We didn't take the tour instead opting to just pan. They have 15 year old triplets who help with the tour and teaching people to pan. $21 each buys as many hours as you can stand panning, pay dirt and all the equipment. The girls loved it. Andrea and Justin as two of the triplets and both are sweet as they could be. The third triplet is in Spain with their mom at the world panning competition. Who knew???? Dad runs the tours and digs the paydirt and grandma helps with parts of the tours. They have a mammoth skull and some teeth and a huge tusk on display. They also just discovered another mammoth skull up the creek. During the ice age, this area was never covered with ice.

Surprisingly, the girls liked Dawson well enough that they asked to spend a second night. We spent the first night at Goldrush Camp inside the city ($34 + $2 for a 6 minute shower, I couldn't manage to use the wifi) and the second night at Guggieville RV Park ($19 with Good Sam discount +$1 for a 2.5 minute shower in an individual room, where I am not having any trouble with the wifi). Today we will probably go to Whitehorse if I can ever get the girls up.

Update, the girls wanted to pan for gold again. This took most of the day so we are spending a third night in Dawson City.