Wednesday July 8, 1998 - Whitehorse

Wolf Creek campground - sunny.

I took Yohan into the Copper Road vet clinic first thing in the morning, and met Marina Alpeza, who owns the clinic. She is going to do two X-rays of Yohan to look at his rear end and his chest.

I returned to the clinic around 1 pm and Marina told me that they had done one X-ray of his rear end and did not see any broken bones. She would do the second X-ray in the afternoon and I should return around 5 pm for the results.

Aside from time at the clinic I mostly wandered around town looking at things. I also chatted with the folks at the Holodeck, who assured me that my dog was in good hands with Marina.

When I came back at 5 pm I had to wait for an hour and a half, the clinic was very busy with many emergencies. I was hungry, tired and anxious. By the time Marina came to see me at 6.30 pm I was in tears from frustration. She showed me Yohan's X-rays. His diaphragm was OK, his liver was swollen, and he was seriously constipated. His poop was backed up to his ribcage! She didn't know why his liver was swollen, it might just be the stress of his injuries. But when I asked she said that she saw no reason why I couldn't continue travelling with Yohan, that he would slowly recover from his injuries.

The clinic did up the bill for a grand total of $420. That included antibiotics, cortisone, a laxative, high fibre dogfood and copies of the results of his blood tests. They had sedated Yohan for the X-rays so when they handed him over he was too dopey to walk, I had to carry him out to the truck.

I went straight back to the campground. I can't remember what I ate, I was just so exhausted. But relieved that things appeared to be much better than I could have hoped for. I thought at the very least I would have to return to Vancouver, and that I was going to lose Yohan. But now it looks like he's going to be okay and I can continue on to my next stop in Edmonton.

Tuesday July 7, 1998 - Whitehorse

Wolf Creek Camp - cold and clear.

I went into the vet's office at 9 am this morning. They told me I would have to wait to talk to the vet because they were busy cleaning up Yohan. During the night he had pooped and peed in his cage and was a terrible mess, there was even poop in his ears. The vet came out finally and said this was a good thing, it showed that his digestive tract was still functional.

He said that I should come back around 11.30 am and take Yohan out for a couple of hours and see what I thought of his condition. I left to do some errands, in particular I checked my bank account to see if I needed to move some money around to pay Yohan's vet bills.

They gave me Yohan with the IV catheter still attached to his leg. He seemed wobbly and dispirited but looking better than the night before. They gave me a can of dogfood and said to give him a quarter can every hour.

Yukon River sternwheeler, dry-docked

I took Yohan for a walk in a park by the river where he pooped and peed again. Then we went back to Wolf Creek campground where I moved to a better site. He seemed hungrier now, he gobbled the small amounts of dogfood I gave him.

When we went back to the clinic they wanted me to keep Yohan overnight. The vet wanted me to feed Yohan special dogfood for kidney failure and they did up a bill for me which I am fairly sure is incorrect but I'll get that straightened out tomorrow. If all goes well they will do the X-rays tomorrow. In particular the vet wants to see if Yohan has a herniated diaphragm. I tried to give Yohan the special dogfood but he didn't like it. I don't blame him, it doesn't look good or smell good.

Tomorrow I will have to decide whether I am continuing this trip or not. I may be returning to Vancouver much earlier than planned.

Monday July 6, 1998 - Whitehorse

In the morning I just washed up and packed to drive into town, I didn't eat. I found the Copper Road Veterinary Clinic. The vet on duty was just temporary, and he was not encouraging. He said that in addition to whatever injuries he had from being run over he was also sick. The eye discharge that he had never really gotten rid of since Inuvik was indicative of a systemic infection and he was way too thin. he doubted that Yohan could handle the anesthetic that would be needed for doing an X-ray. He recommended that I save myself a lot of grief and expense and just have Yohan put down.

That just wasn't an option. I didn't drive all this way just to be told to put him down. So I thanked him and asked where the other vet clinic was, since I'd been told there were two clinics in Whitehorse. The vet backtracked. He said if I didn't want to put him down then the second option was to put him on an IV for hydration, do some bloodwork, and maybe give him a wopping dose of antibiotic for the infection. I agreed to that and left Yohan there. I went to the Taku Hotel for breakfast and then to the Holodeck Internet Cafe to check email. I also dropped off some camera film for developing.

Whitehorse tourist

After running a few errands I returned to Copper Road to find out what Yohan's status was. The vet said he thought he'd guessed pretty well, that Yohan probably has chronic kidney failure and so he's terminal. He may or may not pull through this crisis. But I opted for continuing treatment. They would keep him on the IV, give him some antibiotic and if he recovers enough for an X-ray, they'd do it. The vet guessed a broken pelvis and also a broken tail. He said the pelvis would heal itself but his tail would have to be amputated.

It was pretty emotional. The vet was clearly making a case for pulling the plug due to 'quality of life'. Yohan did look awful and he knew where he was and didn't like it. He never liked being in a vet's office. But the good news was that the woman who owned the clinic would be back the next day, and as the temporary vet put it, she had a way with old dogs, she could pull them back from the brink of death. So I left Yohan there for the night and then went to the Wolf Creek campground to stake out a campsite.

Whitehorse log hi-rise

After securing the campsite I returned to town and went to Whitehorse's brand new and very first Internet Cafe and Computer Game Parlour, the Holodeck, to see if I could get on the internet. No.

The Holodeck is run by a young man and his Mom, both dog lovers who sympathize with my situation. Most of the people here are teenage gamers, but there is the odd traveller like myself checking email. It's a darkened room with computers arranged in a circle of booths, each one with a headset and a joystick. Their Internet connection is tenuous, but I can live with it. It also has a tiny lobby area with a couch and a TV running endless Star Trek movies and TV episodes. So if no computer booth is available you can watch Star Trek to your heart's content.

While I waited for internet access I chatted with the owners about hotmail, ISPs, dogs and places to eat. They recommended the Taku Hotel which is where I had breakfast earlier in the day. They said it had good basic restaurant food at reasonable prices.

In the evening I returned to my campsite and did a major cleanup of the inside of the truck, repacking everything. I screwed down the bedframe sections so they wouldn't slide around on rough roads. I also rearranged the cab of the truck so that Yohan would be sitting in the front not in the space behind the bench seat.


I'm not sure what I'll do now, I am reluctant to go home but maybe I should.

Sunday July 5, 1998 - Lake Laberge

Lineup for Fox Lake fire convoy

Lake Laberge - windy, sunny and hot

It was cool, cloudy and smoky at the Yukon river campground and I couldn't sleep. I was up at 5 am and feeling like Yohan was doomed and I couldn't bear to be alone without him. but he got up and walked around, peed and ate some which cheered me up; maybe he'll make it after all. Ray came by and helped me get Yohan into the truck and I left around 7.30 am without saying goodbye to anyone.

At the Dawson Visitor Centre they said that there was a fire on the Dempster which is where all the smoke was coming from, and that the road to Whitehorse (the Klondike highway) was open. Once I passed the junction with the Dempster the smoke cleared.

Bear by the side of the road

I had put Yohan on the front bench seat instead of behind where he usually sat. Sometime after we passed Pelly Crossing he was struggling to change position so I reached over to help him. In doing so I swerved the truck into the steep-sided ditch on the side of the highway. There was no shoulder on the side of the highway, just a 4-5 foot embankmenty down to the ditch, overgrown with 2-3 foot high bushes. I thought for sure the truck would flip over and Yohan would be killed but amazingly I just ended up driving along the ditch because I never took my foot of the gas pedal. Which I did now.

I came to a stop and looked around. The ditch was about one car-width wide and the embankment was too steep to drive back up onto the road. Also it was deep enough that anyone driving past on the road would never see me. I decided that my only hope was to keep driving along the ditch in hopes of finding a spot where the embankment wasn't too steep for me to drive back up onto the road. I drove slowly along the ditch, hoping there wouldn't be any boulders in the way, which I wouldn't be able to see anyway because of all the bushes. I tried a couple of times to get up the bank but bottomed out each time. Finally I found a spot where I could drive back up onto the road.

As soon as I was out of the ditch I stopped and put the flashers on. I got out of the truck. I was shaking from nerves and Yohan looked bug-eyed scared. I'm sure he thought I was trying to kill him! I checked under the truck to see if I had done any damage but I couldn't see anything obvious. So when I was a little calmer I continued driving until I got to Five Finger Rapids. there was a big mess in the back of the truck from my episode in the ditch, mainly a blackened cast iron frypan that slid around all over my clothes. I checked the oil and the transmission fluid levels and the tires. Everything seemed OK and there hadn't been any suspicious engine noises so I carried on.

Around 4 pm I reached the lineup for the convoy through the forest fire at Fox Lake. It was very long. Apparently they had let a few cars through earlier in the day but things had gotten worse and they were debating whether to let anyone through today at all. I could see thick smoke and trees burning on a ridge west of the highway. Waterbombers circled. They carried containers of water that they dumped on the fire, but it just looked as if they were dumping thimblefuls on a conflagration. The RCMP said that the smoke on the road was too thick and they didn't know when the next convoy could go.

Some people turned around and left the lineup. I looked at the map. There were two other routes to Whitehorse, one involved backtracking to Dawson and heading to Alaska and the other also involved backtracking but not as far. The word was that there were fires on that road too, no one knew if you could get through or not. In any case it meant 2 or 3 days of driving even if the road was clear. Fox Lake is just north of Whitehorse; if I could get through Fox Lake I would be in Whitehorse in an hour or so. It did not seem worthwhile to try another route.

Fiddlers entertain the lineup

So I waited, we all waited. There was a travelling group of child fiddlers in the lineup, they moved slowly up and down the lineup playing their fiddles. They were from Whitehorse, returning from a tour of Yukon towns. I talked to a nurse from Haines Junction and told her about Yohan. She gave me a plastic glove and showed me how to squirt water into Yohan's mouth by snipping a small hole in one finger, filling the glove with water and then twisting it closed and squeezing it. It took two of us, one to hold the glove and the other to hold Yohan's mouth open. He didn't want to drink.

I was wearing my Great Northern Arts Festival T-shirt that I bought in Inuvik and it turned out that the woman who founded that festival was in the lineup. She didn't live in Inuvik anymore but said that seeing me wearing the T-shirt made her proud of what she had done. I also met a guy who was transporting an airplane and a tank full of fish. The airplane had foldup wings and sat on a trailer along with a big plastic tank of fish. Apparently if you stock an otherwise unoccupied lake that does not have native game fish in it, it's yours. So he had a lake picked out and was going to fly in with his tankful of fish to claim his lake. He has lived in the Yukon for 20 years, working construction in the summer and spending his winters in Costa Rica.

After waiting about 4 hours we got the word that they were going to start the convoy through the fire. We had to drive single file and maintain a constant speed close enough to the next vehicle to be able to see it through the thick smoke. Of course you had to keep all your windows closed tight. The smoke was like a very heavy fog and there were blackened tree skeletons and grey ash on the ground. There was no underbrush. Occasionally there were unburnt patches and also plumes of smoke and fire shooting up from the ground. It was like a scene from hell.

A squirrel that had been run over by the vehicle in front of me was still squirming on the road while its mate streaked back to the ashen forest. I couldn't stop. It was just misery everywhere.

I don't know how long it took to drive through, it was just too shocking to see what a forest fire looks like from inside. In any case it was too late to get to the veterinary clinic in Whitehorse so I stopped at the next campground on Lake Laberge, just north of Whitehorse. I would have to take Yohan in next morning. I fed Yohan and cleaned up and went to bed without supper, I was too nerved up to eat.

A helluva day!

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.

Tuesday June 30, 1998 - Dempster Highway

Peel River ferry - sunny and warm

Now I am waiting for the Peel River ferry, the river is a lot calmer than it was the last time. They are grading the approach to the ferry.

This morning I had a cup of coffee with the Gwich'in elder, Robert Alexie Sr, who operates the Nitainlii Camp. He told me stories about the unusually early spring breakup and caribou return.
He said that the guy who ferried us across the Peel River last week was new, only one week on the job, and his boss was pretty mad at him when he heard that he'd gone ahead and ferried us across. It was very dangerous.

Robert offered me a certificate for the Order of Arctic Adventurers, Arctic Circle Chapter. I said I already had one from the Inuvik Visitor Centre and he grinned at me.

"Wouldn't you rather have one signed by a Gwich'in elder?"

I agreed that that would be superior so he signed one and gave it to me. He asked what day I crossed the Arctic Circle and put that date on my certificate.

I went into Fort McPherson to see the Tent and Awning Factory and the Grave of the Lost Patrol. I can see where this would be a very muddy town in the spring!

At the factory they just got new embroidery thread so the prices on their embroidered bags has been raised and they don't have any unembroidered stock. Oh well. I saw Liz and Clem's names in the factory guest book, I guess they were in yesterday.

I also went to the cemetery where the Lost Patrol are buried.

In 1910 a party of four RCMP constables set out on the winter solstice from Fort McPherson headed to Dawson, an 800 km trip. Setting out in the dead of winter was a mistake, so was dismissing their Dene guide when they left the Richardson Mountains, and not going back when they first realized they were lost was the last mistake. Their bodies were found the following spring just 40 km out of Fort McPherson, and their diaries told a terrible tale. Three died of starvation and the fourth shot himself. They had eaten their dogs.

Fort McPherson cemetery

The town is fairly typical, dusty with boardwalk sidewalks and large square houses. In the cemetery all of the graves have white picket fences, I've seen that a lot in Haida Gwaii, northern BC and the territories.

Yukon border

The border between the Yukon and the NWT is very bleak. There are no trees and it is very windy. I can hear birdsong but cannot see any birds, they must be in the low bushes. Creeks are tiny but frequent. Muskeg.

I stopped because I saw a hovering bird—hawk-sized, with a white head and a very long narrow tail. I don't know what it is and it flew away when I let Yohan out of the truck. I stopped in the middle of the road, didn't bother to pull over. This could be the end of the world, no radio, no nothing.

Rock Creek

Stopped on Eagle Plains by a creek with the Richardson Mountains on the east. There is less wind here and good sized trees in the creek ravine. Willows too. There were three fish in the creek catching insects in a pond on the downstream side of the culvert under the road. They might be Grayling: 10-12" long, brown-gray very ordinary looking fish.

Ogilvie-Peel Viewpoint

Arctic Circle

Arctic Circle outhouses, held down by cables

I stopped briefly at the Arctic Circle and then passed through the town of Eagle Plains around 2 pm.

The great metropolis of Eagle Plains, pretty much all of it

The girl at the gas station remembered me, she said, "You got through just in time" referring to the last time, because they closed the road the next morning.

Old forest fire

Since then I've been driving through forest, half of it burned. Now I am at the edge of the Ogilvie Mountains after driving a treeless ridge with a great view. I saw none of this on the way up. All I remember about the Ogilvie-Peel Viewpoint on the way up is the driving rain and the outhouses. I never saw the mountains.

Yohan and the Ogilvie Mountains

Well, onward we go. It's 5.15 pm and I don't think I'll make Dawson tonight. There's lots more traffic now: semis, RVs, cars and trucks mostly headed north; a few trucks headed south.

Black spruce, fireweed and foxtail grass along the roadside

North of North Fork Pass

There are washouts and mudslides all the way from the Ogilvie-Peel Viewpoint to here, a little north of the North Fork Pass. Mostly on Engineer Creek.

I think this is where the mudslide I encountered last week was

Debris in the river

There are lots of uprooted trees on the gravel bars in the river, caved-in riverbanks from being undercut by high water and a large section of the road that was originally built right in an old creek bed that is now completely washed out. It is just rough rock now, they haven't finished repairing it.

There are road repair machines and trucks all along this section and a a few men working. The first one I met told me what to expect for the next 20 km or so. He said there was a rock elephant on the mountain skyline a little ways down the road but I couldn't see it.

I saw a black bear by the road and a moose way off in the distance (with my binoculars). At first it just looked like a rock until I looked more closely with the binocs. It was just munching away. It looked up when I started the truck to drive away but didn't appear concerned.

My campsite for the night, Middle-of-Nowhere, Yukon Territory

I stopped around 9 pm in a little pull-out next to the road with a great view of the mountains, a creek, and only a few mosquitoes.

Monday June 22, 1998 - Dempster Highway

The Arctic Circle - rain

It rained all night and didn't stop in the morning. I got breakfast ready, packed up and ate in the truck cab on my way into Dawson. I stopped at both the Dawson and NWT visitor centres for water and information. At the NWT centre they gave me information about driving the Dempster and where to buy gas. My plan had been to stay in the Dawson area, drive the Top of the World Highway to the Alaska border and then start the Dempster the next day. But with the rain I thought there would be no point in driving the Top of the World as I would be unable to see the view, so I may as well go straight to the Dempster. And there was a rain warning for the Dempster too---50 mm---rain all day.

View of Dawson City from the Midnight Dome

But first I drove around Dawson up to the Midnight Dome and down to Bonanza Creek. On the summer solstice you can see the midnight sun from the Dome, you cannot see it down at the town level.

Giant dredge used to mine the gold, seen from on top of a huge pile of dredge tailings

Dawson is about the size of Whitehorse but most of the buildings are original. The roads are dirt because of the permafrost. I passed Jack London's cabin but didn't see Robert Service's place. On the road to Dawson are miles of tailings—long gravel worms spit up by the huge dredges they used to dredge the local creeks for gold.

Bonanza Creek

Prospector's cabin and antique dredge

I saw one old dredge at Bonanza Creek and of course the spot on the creek where gold was first discovered. Boy did those guys lay waste to the territory! I had this weird feeling abou the Gold Rush hype and now I know why. The history of the BC coast, the First Nations and later European settlements was interesting, but this is a history of wanton destruction.

After getting gas at a cardlock facility I set out on the Dempster. Even in the rain it is spectacular. Almost immediately trees disappear and you are surrounded by bare mountains and valleys. This is the Ogilvie Mountain Range

My truck at the base of the mountains

Ogilvie Mountains

I stopped at the Tombstone campground (named for Tombstone Mountain, which I could not see due to rain and fog) for lunch in a picnic shelter, where a group of German tourists were being guided by a German woman from Nelson. She said they come here for 3 weeks of hiking and canoeing in the wilderness. Tons of Germans come here; they live in a crowded country, have 6 weeks of paid vacation and a yearning for wilderness. Every week a flight of 300 Germans arrives in Whitehorse. Not a few end up settling here, the German guide was one who came as a tourist and stayed to become a guide. All the German tourists crowded to one end of the picnic shelter and I was at the other end alone, until the guide came over and struck up a conversation.

I drove on.

I saw this sign that said "scenic view", so I pulled in at the next turnoff, but all there was was a camper. It was pouring rain, and there were two grizzled heads at the door of the camper. I got out of the truck to ask them if they knew where the heck this "scenic view" was. They didn't have a clue, but one of them said "maybe it's us" and then invited me in for coffee. Seemed like a good idea, since there was too much rain for viewing scenes anyway. Mick and Al, and their dog Rosy. Mick is a teacher from Oregon (grades 6-8) due to retire in 6-7 years and Al is a geology prof from Tacoma Washington. They were on their way home from 5 days fishing in Inuvik.
Had a nice time chatting about all sorts of things. They recommended a campsite in Inuvik, and told me about a gravel pit just north of the Arctic Circle which was relatively bug-free for overnight camping and recommended a particular type of bug bite salve available only in Inuvik. I finally left there around 6 pm. They said I should be sure to stay in Inuvik till it got sunny again so that I could see the south part of the highway in its true glory. I finally dragged myself away from there and headed north on the Dempster.

At the Maintenance Camp I let a semi pass me, I didn't like having his big truck looming in my rearview mirror. A while later I passed Engineer Creek camp and the road by this time was extremely muddy from all the rain. Almost immediately I saw the semi with its flashers on parked on the side of the road. I pulled up behind it and walked forward. There was a huge mud slide with whole trees embedded in it across the road. The mud and rocks were still coming down the slope on the left side of the road, I think the mud slide was 2-3 feet deep and very wide on the road. There was a camper stopped in the road on the other side of the mudslide. The driver of the camper had a chainsaw and was trying to cut some of the trees, then the semi truck driver was chaining the trees to the camper and the camper guy was backing his camper away from the mud, pulling the trees out.

The semi, the camper, and the mudslide

Then the camper guy came across the mud and said to me, "Looking for adventure?"

After pulling the trees out the mud subsided a bit but was still pretty deep. The semi driver said he'd drive through first to make tracks and then the camper should go and finally me. The semi drove through and stopped on the other side, then the camper came through and continued south and finally I drove through. The mud was about a foot thick now but the mud in the semi's tracks was not as deep. I hit some stuff in the mud, probably tree debris, but no harm done. The semi truck driver told me to go ahead of him. I think he waited about a quarter of an hour before he set out, I never actually his truck but it was nice to know that it was there in case anything went wrong.

It was hard to see anything. The road was bad and I had to really concentrate but there was no visibility to speak of. At one point there was blowing snow. I stopped at a view point to use the outhouse, but there was no view. I passed through miles of burned trees in what appeared to be muskeg. Around 10 pm I began to see breaks in the clouds to the north. The coffee with Mick and Al was keeping me going, not to mention not wanting to stop due to the rain and mosquitoes.

Around 11 pm I pulled into Eagle Plains, the halfway point on the Dempster. There's a motel, a bar and a gas station. I got gas and then drove around behind the motel to park and feed Yohan. There was no rain but swarms of huge mosquitoes. When Yohan got out of the truck to eat the mosquitoes swarmed his eyes, there were dozens of them right in his eyes. I rubbed some bug dope on him and while I waited for him to eat I tried to put some netting up inside the back of the truck.

Shortly after leaving Eagle Plains I saw a pull-out and a sign for the Arctic Circle crossing. However I did not want to stop due to the mosquitoes. Mick and Al had recommended that just past the Arctic Circle there was a gravel pit that was good to camp in because it was very windy which kept the bugs down, so I was keeping an eye out for that. They said it was on the side of a hill, you have to drive off the highway and around the hill before you see it. I got there just before midnight. I could pull in and park out of sight of the road, up on a ledge with a view of the surrounding land. I could see the Richardson mountains in the distance, and it was very windy and relatively bug-free.

I wrote for a bit and didn't go to bed until almost 4 am. It is now daylight all day and all night so I have lost all sense of the time of day. I think I lost track of what day it is some time ago as well, so I feel quite disconnected from the usual measurement of time passing.

Sunday June 21, 1998 - Yukon

Nona and Charlotte wave goodbye

Klondike River - overcast and showers

We all got up late and had breakfast and tea together. I felt so laid back and reluctant to leave, but around noon we took some photos of each other and exchanged addresses and I left. They warned me of 15 km of loose gravel ahead. I was covered in black fly bites from the night before on the Yukon River: my wrists, lower legs and stomach (?). I drove most of the afternoon to the Klondike River just outside of Dawson. I found a nice campsite but the black flies were intense. They swarmed my firewood and my food but amazingly they left Yohan and me alone. It began to rain so I setup the tarp over the back of the truck and went to bed.

Saturday June 20, 1998 - Yukon

Snafu Lake, from my bed in the back of the truck

Tatchin Creek - sunny to overcast

I woke at Snafu Lake to a fabulous view of the lake. But on the other side of my truck was a little Boler trailer, blocking the way out of my campsite. It must have arrived after I went to sleep. I had a leisurely breakfast of oatmeal and around 10.30 am said goodbye to Ray and Laurena who were headed out. We exchanged home addresses and they invited me to come visit them in Victoria when I got back from my cross-Canada trip. That felt far more complete than at Boya Lake and I haven't felt any regret or sadness since. They were keeping Sparky very close by because there was a large eagle that appeared to have its eye on the little dog. After Atlin they were going to Whitehorse to a clinic to get Ray's lungs checked out, he's been wheezing a lot which he blames on the cottonwood pollen. Then they were going to go to Alaska. Laurena thought we might run into each other again in Inuvik since we both hoped to go there.

The two women in the little Boler trailer did not get up until after Ray and Laurena had left. I chatted with them for a while and ended up exchanging addresses with them as well. They are teachers in Whitehorse and this is the last week of school. On Friday night they decided that they would go kayaking in Atlin over the weekend. But they didn't leave Whitehorse until after 1 am and arrived at Snafu Lake around 3 am. They also liked the campsite on the sandy hilltop and proceeded to back into it with the trailer, nearly hitting my truck which they didn't see there until the last moment. I slept through it and they decided to just stay there rather than find another spot. They showed me around their trailer, it had a double bed which converted to a dinette, a couch and a kitchenette. Very cute. They bought it in Ontario for $3000.

The old Montague Roadhouse on the Klondike Highway

After the women had their breakfast and were ready to leave I was able to get out too and head back up to Whitehorse. I got gas and headed up the Klondike Highway for Dawson.

Yukon River, from the Klondike Highway

Around 5.30 pm I stopped at Tatchun Creek, just past Carmacks. Almost immediately the two women in the next campsite, Charlotte and Nona, came over to ask for bug spray. Then they came back with beer. I met their two dogs, Snorri and Elsinor and got the tour of their trailer which was similar to the Boler at Snafu Lake. It was a Glendale which they bought for $500. They are on the Klondike Highway road crew, chipsealing the highway. Chipseal is a stabilized gravel road with a lot of calcite in it (which rots steel the same way road salt does). Charlotte is from Tagish and Nona from Carcross but in the summer they work on the road crew and live where they work. Right now they are working on the section of highway between Carmacks and Dawson.

Nona and Charlotte went across the highway to walk the dogs along the Yukon River. After I had my supper I headed down to the river too and found them with a couple of young German campers sharing their beer in honour of the summer solstice. The bugs were bad. At one point we heard a rockfall on a loose gravel and sand slope further down the river. Charlotte and Nona debated whether it was spontaneous or caused by someone or something walking on the cliff. A canoe went by, part of a race from Skagway to Dawson, and we greeted them. They must have wondered about five people on the shore in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.

Later we went back to camp, Nona crashed and Charlotte and I stayed up till 3 am talking around the fire. Charlotte lives alone in a log cabin she built in Tagish Lake. She's very independent and prides herself on being an eccentric Yukoner. She had a black eye acquired the day before at a baseball game. I gather this has been an intense week for her between that, crashing into the chipper truck, and an altercation with the boss's girlfriend. At 3 am Nona got up and they had their supper of sausage, hotdogs and salad. then we all went to bed, around 5 am. It's so easy to stay up late because of the light; it seemed a little dim but I had no idea of the time.