Over more than 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles), the legendary Alaska Highway led us from the Canadian Rockies to the capital of the Yukon, Whitehorse. Almost two months after leaving Montreal, we can finally say we’ve made it to the Great North. The Yukon, with its untouched, mountainous landscapes, endless forests, wild animals, tundra, remote towns, and gold rush history. We are eager to explore the Yukon, from Whitehorse to Dawson City. But first, we must face the wildfires, a real scourge that ravages this Canadian province every year.
Wednesday, July 6, 2022
Welcome to Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon, and also the largest city in Northern Canada! Nearly 26,000 people live here, which is about 75% of the Yukon’s entire population! We’re glad to be here in the summer, because we can’t even imagine what kind of winters they must endure, so far north 😅 For now, it’s warm, sunny, and everything is green and beautiful. We’re already charmed by Whitehorse.
However, the city is in turmoil: there’s no internet. Just our luck! After nearly five days on the road along the Alaska Highway, we have work to catch up on. The general outage is supposedly due to fires farther north that have burned through some cables. Everything is down. We wait in line at the bank with half the town to withdraw some cash, since no machines are working in shops, and Jeepy needs an oil change. Then we settle in at Tim’s and try to catch a few drops of bandwidth to get some work done. Easier said than done…
In the evening, we order a pizza and eat it near the city’s dam. It’s particularly pleasant. Before going to bed, we enjoy a magnificent sunset at 11 pm. These endless days are just as magical as they are fascinating!
Thursday, July 7
Good news: the internet is back! Just like the day before, but without the network struggle, we spend the day at Tim’s from 8 am to 7 pm. Then, we go for groceries, refuel (including our two 20-liter jerry cans, since gas stations are rare in the Yukon), and stop by the visitor center to get some info. Fires are still burning along the road, and some sections are closed. At 10 p.m., we pick up takeout from a Chinese restaurant and head back to the same overnight spot.
Friday, July 8
We spend the morning strolling through Whitehorse, with its streets lined with historic Gold Rush-era buildings. The contrast between the perfectly preserved vintage structures and the city’s modern vibe is pretty amusing: a Sport Expert store inside a historic building, old murals showing scenes from the Gold Rush, vintage parking meters, charming period homes that are still lived in. We are captivated by the city’s cinema, preserved… in its original state. We love it!
At the entrance to town stands the SS Klondike II. This massive boat, built in 1937 after the original SS Klondike sank, ferried goods and passengers between Whitehorse and Dawson City, almost 800 km (500 miles) farther north, until 1955. Cargo and passengers arrived in Whitehorse by train, but beyond that point, there were no more roads or railways to go north. Other than walking or using dog sleds, the riverboat was the only option: a perilous journey along the Yukon River and its rapids.
We wrap up our Whitehorse visit with a stop at the canyon.
Today, we’re not taking a boat to Dawson City, but the Klondike Highway. The GPS indicates a 6-hour drive. But that doesn’t account for the fires… After 2 hours on the road, we’re stuck in Pelly Crossing, a seriously remote little town. As expected, the road is closed, and no one knows when it’ll reopen. Maybe tonight… or maybe tomorrow. After some hesitation, we decide to wait. There’s no way we are heading back to Whitehorse and making a huge detour through… Alaska!
Luckily, we’re not alone! Our German friends we met on the road are here to keep us company. They are just returning from Alaska and the Dempster Highway and have loads of advice to share! Not just advice, actually, they’re wrapping up their trip out west and gift us some of their gear they no longer need.
We also meet Alex, a truck driver. The kind who flies down narrow 90-kph roads at 110 and passes like mad. Alex loves our Jeep and invites us to stay at his island near Toronto! Maybe one day 😉 He’s traveling with his son, and the two of them drive nonstop. While one sleeps, the other drives. They’ve been doing this all summer. It’s Friday and they’re heading to the Dempster Highway, the road to the Arctic Ocean (from Edmonton, 3,200 km – 2,000 miles!) for… the third time!! 😲
We wait for 3 hours. Then, a car stops and tells us that the road will open in 5 minutes. Time to go! No way we are missing the convoy, as it’s probably the last one of the day. Alex, despite being chatty, disappears in less than ten seconds. We also pack up quickly, and off we go! A lead car in front, a tail car behind. We are a convoy of about thirty vehicles. The first few kilometers go smoothly. Then, we approach the fire: lots of smoke, reduced visibility, burned trees on the sides, and even some still-smoldering spots. It’s apocalyptic. Traveling in a convoy is reassuring.
After 60 km, we exit the burn zone, and the convoy breaks up. Still a lot of smoke, though. Impossible to spend the night in the area. It’s 10 p.m., but we decide to push on to Dawson City to sleep safely. The road is long and full of construction zones where we drive over dirt. Smoke plus dust, we can’t see much. We enjoy a well-balanced meal in the car (chips, peanuts, and cookies).
We arrive on the outskirts of Dawson City at 6 pm half past midnight, we lose track of time with the endless daylight! 😀 A beer with our German friends, and then off to bed! Friends, thank you again for these few hours and evening spent together. Thank you so much for everything you generously gave us: the Milepost has found its place in our cockpit, and it served us well on the Dempster Highway. The fish was absolutely delicious! And we hope to find some gold nuggets thanks to your gold pans! Thank you also for the America the Beautiful Pass! We will make good use of it 😊
Saturday, July 9
Time to explore Dawson City, birthplace of the Klondike Gold Rush!
In 1896, gold was discovered in the Klondike River. Immediately, gold seekers from around the world arrived, displaced the First Nations who had lived here forever, and built up the town of Dawson City. A few years later, everyone left, some rich, some empty handed, leaving behind scarred landscapes and an almost deserted town. Walking around the town, we can easily imagine the lives of these men and women in such a hostile place and the endless, glacial winters they endured. When Dawson City lost its title as the capital of the Yukon to Whitehorse in 1953, the government built a road between the two cities to appease the locals. That’s how now we’re able to reach it by road Today, the town has 1,800 residents and survives thanks to tourism.
The Gold Rush Buildings
We wander the village streets. All the buildings are beautiful. From the best-restored to the most weathered, they all have a certain charm that fascinates us.
We then join a Parks Canada guided tour. Our guide, dressed in period costume, takes us to the most iconic places of the Gold Rush and passionately shares the story of the town and the gold seekers’ lives in this remote village, which at the time was completely cut off from the world. It’s fascinating.
The Bank
People came to the Dawson City bank to weigh their gold and exchange it for real money.
The Saloon
A saloon with a very cozy atmosphere. The mirrors at the base of the counter allowed gentlemen to try to glimpse the ladies’ ankles.
The Post Office
Bear Creek
The abandoned village of Bear Creek has about sixty buildings, left behind overnight when gold mining became unprofitable. In the various buildings, we find hundreds of archive files. Offices still filled with documents and various items, calendars from 1966, old work schedules with former workers’ names and notes, and old maps marking gold streams in the region. This village operated from the early 1900s to 1966, after the Gold Rush. It was run by private companies that employed young workers doing 12-hour shifts in the mines.
We learn how gold bars were made: the soil was manually sifted, the extracted gold was dried, then melted in a massive oil furnace. The molten gold was poured into ingot molds and stored in giant safes before being sent to the city and sold to the bank.
The Dredge
Along the road, we then discover a huge dredge, sitting in a dry riverbed. At its peak production, it processed up to 23 kg (50 lbs) of gold in 3 to 4 days! Giant iron excavation buckets scraped the riverbed to extract tons of earth and gravel, which were then sifted. The leftovers went to Bear Creek for gold extraction. In nearly 50 years of operation, the dredge extracted 8,500 kg (19,000 lbs) of gold and 49 million cubic meters of gravel. Quite the impact on the environment🙃.
It’s still a question today. On the mountains and near the rivers and streams, we still see massive machines turning over huge amounts of earth. Production isn’t what it was 60 years ago, but the way they tear into the mountains and flip the land is heartbreaking. Dawson City is particularly beautiful, but the surroundings? That’s another story. Huge mounds of dug-up earth and gravel are everywhere. Everything is dug up, turned over, searched, and abandoned: old rusty machines, abandoned trailers, ruins, and old tools. Everything is a reminder of the town’s former life.
Eldorado Creek
We try our luck at Eldorado Creek (a promising name), where there’s a small public area to pan for gold. Indeed, you can’t just pan in any old stream! Every parcel of land belongs to a prospector, and woe to anyone who tries to find gold on someone else’s claim! In this public site, a few rules apply: technically, you can only pan three times per season, and you can only use basic tools: a shovel, sieve, and pan. Honestly, we’re not likely to find much: we clearly lack experience and technique 😅 So, we won’t get rich today!
After spending a few days visiting Dawson City, it’s time to prepare for a great adventure! An adventure we have been eagerly awaiting for several months! Indeed, we are setting off with our 4×4 expedition vehicle on the legendary Dempster Highway, an extreme road leading to the Arctic Ocean!
Are we ready? Check! Is the Jeep ready? Check! We fill up with water, gas, and our two reserve tanks on the roof. We stock up on food and remove the rear fenders, deflate the tires, and remove the ventilation grilles. A quick check of the Jeep to ensure everything is okay? Check! We are ready, Jeepy is ready. Let’s go!
Off we go on a multi-day expedition on the Dempster Highway towards the Arctic Ocean!
