Saturday July 4, 1998 - Dawson

Yohan isn't moving. He drank some water yesterday but won't take it today. I did manage to get him to eat a little rice and milk at breakfast. I thought maybe I would walk into town and buy some canned dogfood for him. The camp operator came by to collect the fee and she said that there was indeed a veterinarian in town and gave me his name. She and her boyfriend operate the campground in the summer and then spend the winter at their cabin the bush mushing dogs. There are so many dogs in town, every night you hear barking and howling from across the river.

Ray and Laurena are at the site across the road from mine, I asked them to keep an eye on Yohan while I walked into town. It would be faster that way if there were lineups for the ferry. At the Visitor Centre I asked about the vet. He has a pager but no phone number, so they paged him and I left a message for when he called back. I bought the dogfood and checked again at the Visitor Centre for a message from the vet but there was nothing so I returned to camp. I stopped to talk to Ray and Laurena briefly and then returned to my site, where there was a man looking at Yohan, who had moved himself from the tent where I left him over to the truck. It was the vet! I was impressed that he arrived at my campsite before I did!

When he saw me he said, "This must be the patient."

The vet, John, examined Yohan and took lots of notes. He listed all the bad things that might be wrong with Yohan, but without labwork or X-rays he couldn't tell for sure. The nearest X-ray machine was in Whitehorse, over 500 km away. But he said that it was amazing that Yohan survived the shock and that gave him hope for Yohan's survival. he recommended that I get him to Whitehorse as soon as possible for X-rays, and to keep him hydrated. Also, he said I should go to the Copper Road Veterinary clinic in Whitehorse; he said there were two clinics and Copper Road was run by a woman who was very good. He said Yohan's best hope was her.

He was very kind but he left me feeling quite depressed about outcomes. I had supper with Penny and James and prepared to leave first thing in the morning. In the news they said there was a forest fire at Fox Lake which is on the way to Whitehorse. In the evening we could smell smoke which I thought was from the Fox Lake fire, I hoped that wasn't going to be a problem. I wanted to get to Whitehorse in time to get Yohan into the vet clinic before it closed for the day, and I hoped that if I left early in the morning I could make it.

Friday July 3, 1998 - Dawson

Downtown Dawson

Yukon River - sunny

I am enjoying just doing nothing, "another day in paradise". But my plan is to leave for Edmonton tomorrow morning. I regret leaving the north, the long days, the wilderness. Laurene said that they may call Alaska "the last frontier" but there's hardly any wilderness left there. There's an awful lot of RV drivers who just want to talk about road conditions, like their whole trip is about the road conditions. And there's a woman in site 20 who sells paperbacks and tapes to bored RV'ers.

I took the ferry across the river and drove into town to do some shopping for my trip tomorrow. Ice and a few other things. Then I got in line for the return ferry trip across the river, hoping to spend the rest of the day just hanging out at the campground. It was a long lineup because a lot of people want to go to Alaska for July 4th, mostly Germans and very big RVs. A lot of us were just standing around chatting while waiting for our turn on the ferry crossing, Yohan crawled under a van to get out of the sun. Then the ferry arrived and started boarding, the lineup of vehicles started moving forward.

Suddenly I heard Yohan yelping, he was scrambling out from under the van that had just run over him. The woman driving had not seen him there, she was very upset when she realized what had happened. I didn't know what to do so I tried to get him back to the truck, he was obviously in a lot of pain and limping badly, he could walk but I had to lift him into the truck. I didn't know whether I should stay in the line to get onto the ferry or get out of the line and see if there was a veterinarian clinic in town. The man in the truck behind me had a local phonebook, he looked for a veterinarian listing but there was none. So I decided to stay in the line and get back to the campground, it took another 30 minutes to get there (I'd already been in the lineup for 90 minutes).

Yohan could walk a bit, his eyes were bugging out of his head and his tongue and gums were really white. Penny, who is a nurse, took a look at him and said he was in shock. I had a tent that so far I had never needed but I dug it out of the back of the truck and spent a half hour trying to figure out how to set it up. I thought it was the only way to get Yohan out of the sun.

My plans are now changed. I will stay on here in hopes that Yohan improves, but I don't think moving him is a good idea. I bought beer while I was in town, I'm glad I did because now I really need one.

Thursday July 2, 1998 - Dawson

View from Top of the World Highway

Yukon River - sunny and hot.

In the morning I baked some bannock over the fire, one plain loaf and one vegetable loaf. That took until noon. Since Gert and Helga had left the campground and they had a nicer site than I did, I then moved over to their now-empty site. After setting up I left to drive the Top of the World Highway. I did not want to go to Alaska so my intention was to just drive to the border and back.

A little ways down the road was some construction and Nona stopped me. She didn't recognize me at first but when I said her name then she did. She called Charlotte over to talk while I waited. They said they were at the same campground as I was but they would be working tonight.

I continued driving, with a couple of side trips up some rough tracks just to see whatever there was to see. Just before I reached the Alaska border I saw Ray and Laurena. Were they ever surprised to see me! They were coming from Alaska and headed to Dawson City. I told them about my trip up the Dempster and staying in Inuvik, and they told me about their trip through Alaska. Ray is still wheezing but he had medication for it.

Ray, Laurena and Sparky on the Top of the World Highway

I turned around then and headed back to Dawson. This is a chip seal road running along a high ridge so you're looking down into valleys on either side and can see mountain peaks off into the distance. this is why they call it the Top of the World, you're looking across at the peaks not up. The views are better heading east than west (in my opinion), but still not as great as the Dempster. I think it is more impressive to be looking up at the mountains not across.

The road crew were on supper break so I did not see Nona and Charlotte on the way back. When I got back to the campground I went looking for Charlotte. Last night I was in site 72 and she was in 84. I actually saw her dog Elsinor and her trailer in the morning but I did not recognize them at the time. When I got to Charlotte's site she had company for supper so I stayed a short while and then went to Ray and Laurena's site for gin and tonics. After that I went back to my site for supper then took a walk along the beach to Penny and James' site. They also had moved, they were now in site 48 right by the river.

On the way along the beach I saw a funny looking dog in the woods. I stopped to look at it and it looked at me and Yohan and then turned to go back into the woods. I then realized it wasn't a dog at all, it was a fox. It was all black with a white-tipped tail and looked like it had a kind of mask on its face like a raccoon. When I told James about it some other campers there said that there was indeed a fox hanging around the campground and it had stolen a potato from their campsite. Then James, Penny and I walked down the beach with the dogs to see the sternwheeler wreck.

Yohan and the sternwheeler wreck

James said it was actually several wrecks piled up together. When they first built the road to Dawson they didn't need the big sternwheelers anymore so they shoved them up into the forest beyond the town. Those sternwheelers burned 4 cord of firewood an hour to go upstream on the Yukon, so there was a pretty busy commerce in cordwood all along the river. The wrecks furthest away from the shore are in better shape because they don't get bashed by the river ice.

I got back to my campsite at midnight and I could still see sunlight on the Midnight Dome overlooking the town. I wanted to move my truck but I forgot that I left a thermos and water bottle in the shade behind the rear wheel. I ran over and broke them. That was 2 litres of drinking water! Oh well.

Wednesday July 1, 1998 - Dawson

Yukon River - clearing, sunny and warm.

I camped overnight by the highway and a creek. There's a large culvert under the highway for the creek, I watched some swallow-like birds swooping over the creek and through the culvert under the road, chasing the numerous mosquitoes. I heard a clucking sound a saw a ptarmigan out on the tundra.

I stopped near Tombstone Moutnain and drove up a microwave tower road with a fabulous view of the head of the North Klondike River and Tombstone Mountain. A little later I stopped at the Tombstone campground (where I had stopped in a picnic shelter on the trip north to Inuvik) and talked to the women at the Nature Centre there. The big purple flowers I have been seeing everywhere are called Willow Herb / Dwarf Fireweed / River Beauty. They often grow on rocky banks of rivers here, hence the name River Beauty, but they are related to the Fireweed, only not as tall. The birds I saw yesterday in the Richardson Mountains were Longtailed Jaegers, and their populations cycle with the ptarmigan (11-12 years). They hit a low in 1995 and are on the rise again now.

I also talked to a woman from Anchorage who is cycling up the Dempster with 3 friends. One drives and the other 2 cycle and they take turns. She said they left Dawson City yesterday morning and plan to cycle 50-80 miles a day. Sounds like a great trip!

I took a little side track down to the North Klondike River. This part of the Dempster follows the North Klondike into the Klondike River proper, which isn't far now. I can see blue sky to the north and grey sky to the south. No sun, too bad.

Yohan won't eat his food. I used to put cheese whiz on it to entice him but I have run out and am using peanut butter which I guess he doesn't like as much.

When I reached the end of the Dempster I stopped at the Klondike Lodge which is at the junction of the Dempster and Klondike highways. I bought ice for my cooler and ran into Jack and Jackie from Chuk Camp in Inuvik.

When I got to Dawson City I also met Gert and Helga and Penny and James at the Visitor Centre. Penny and James and I took our dogs for a walk along the dike. They diked the whole town after a big flood in 1979. The town is right at the junction of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers. James said that an Indian resident told him that they moved the whole town and all of its buildings three times in order to mine for gold underneath it.

For Canada Day there was a big town barbecue in a park on the waterfront so we lined up for a salmon dinner. but just as we finally reached the barbecues they ran out of salmon. We got our money back and had salad and buns for free. Later I met someone at the Visitor Centre who told me about Tent City. Across the Yukon River is the provincial campground, and next to it is Tent City where you can camp for free. A lot of young people who work in Dawson City over the summer stay there. To get to the campground (and Tent City) you cross the river in a little ferry; this is also the way to the Top of the World highway to the Alaska border.

The Yukon River ferry at Dawson

I crossed the river with Penny and James and decided to stay at the provincial campground since all the people I knew from Inuvik were staying there. I found a campsite and then went to visit Gert and Helga who were leaving for Alaska the next day. I took a walk along the river on a gravel beach to see the paddlewheeler wreck just upriver from the campground.