Had a partly cloudy drive from Watson Lake to Dawson City.  Dawson was very important in the Yukon, so there are several areas that bear some form of his name.  We only got sprinkled on the road, which was a pleasant change of pace.  The drive goes through a lot of the Canadian Northern Rockies, which are more like the Appalachians in appearance, sort of.  They are tree covered with more rounding and less rocks and cliffs as further south.  The altitude isn’t as dramatic in the Yukon River valley and we eventually ended up on the Yukon Plateau, after seeing lots of rain showers around us and partial rainbows.  We finally crossed the continental divide, which is much further west than in the continental US.  Now all the rivers eventually get to the Pacific Ocean.  Watson Lake is about 3000 miles inland up the Yukon River and Chinook salmon make the 2 month migration to spawn in this area.  It’s hard to fathom the instinct of fish to make a 3000 mile journey upstream to spawn.  Needless to say, the fish are spent by the time they lay their eggs.

There’s not much to Dawson City.  We rode our bikes from the campground to “town”, about 2 miles from the campground.  There’s only one paved street, which is the Alaskan highway.  The side streets are all compact gravel, from years of being beaten down and the pot holes are filled with fresh gravel.  The strip down town is trying to maintain a Gold Rush feel circa 1890s, but it just seems “hokey” and very tourist targeted.  You have to pay for every sight in DC.  We stopped by Jack London’s museum, and for $5 you could see some pictures and such from Jack London.  There’s a replica of his cabin that used some of the original wood from his cabin, as well as a replica of his stilted storage shack. Generally moose don’t fight to the death, but in this case the horns got locked and both ended up dying, without mating I guess.  Is this Darwinism?  Roger did enjoy the DC Fire Museum.  The fire service was established in 1897, because the town kept burning down from hotel fires.  This fire department was originally a volunteer service.  They had two old steam fire trucks, which Roger found interesting.

We went to the oldest casino in Canada, Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall to see the Can-Can girls perform and listen to Diamond Tooth Gertie sing.  Gertie was called Diamond Tooth, because she had a diamond between her two front teeth.

 Tomorrow, we’ll be taking the ferry across the Yukon.  The Alaskan Highway ends on this side right into a mountain.  The ferry runs every 7 minutes or so, just as often as it takes to load up, cross and unload and repeat.  Right now the Yukon is moving at a good clip, and the current looks really strong.

 The campground advertises free internet, but the speed is slow and we had problems getting connected.  The thing that isn’t free is a shower.  $1 for 3 minutes, which I hoped meant that the water was hot at the get go, HA!  The water was barely tepid, so much for a relaxing wash off.  We got a little grungy riding back from DC, since the rain had just made the road sloppy and passing cars were slinging road slop.

Since summer is almost here, yesterday we looked up sunrise and sunset in Dawson City.  Sunrise is around 4:30 am and sunset is 11:30 pm.  It really doesn’t get completely dark right now, and is more like twilight when the sun is down.  The RV doesn’t get really dark, but Roger has no problem sleeping.  I’m wearing a dark mask and trying to make adjustments.  Today was the nicest day we’ve had to date, which means a pleasant 74 degrees, a breeze and more sunshine than rain and clouds.  

We left after sunrise, in fact were on the road by 6.  Neither of us sleep very long in the land of the midnight sun.  We had to wait about 45 minutes for the ferry across the Yukon, since that’s the road north to Alaska.  Roger had us driving on the scenic “Top of the World” highway. 

The highway is built mostly on a mountain ridge and has some lovely views, that our pocket camera doesn’t do justice.  Since we left Dawson City early, we ended up having to wait for the US border to open in Poker Creek AK, the most northern land border entry into the US, population was listed at 2. 

The next stop we made was in Chicken AK, which is a mining town that sees its population triple in the summer time, due to miners coming in search of gold. 

There are several active gold camps in the area.  We saw one group of guys working a claim along a creek on the side of the road.  Sort of like fishing with all the gear and playing in the extremely cold water.  From Chicken we went to Tok, nothing to talk about, then on to Fairbanks.  Once we passed Tok, the roads finally got paved again and although 2 laned,  have passing lanes and allow speeds greater than 30 mph.  Yippee!  We got our first glimpse of the Alaskan Rockies off in the distance and they are impressive.  Keep your fingers crossed that we get to see Mt McKinley, as our luck hasn’t been all the great weather wise.