Whitehorse, YT 6/24/14

Tuesday, Day 53 of our summer trip.

It had been raining this morning which made the dirt on our truck and trailer look even worse.  See the mud caked on the jack of the trailer.


We can’t get the Wi-Fi at our trailer site, so we went to the clubhouse for a while so we could pick up the e-mail.  They have quite a collection of figurines and toys.  Here is a sample.  One wall had some John Deere toys.  There are some reflections on the glass case that they were in.
 

They also have collections of Christmas items on one wall 


and other figurines on another wall.


Later on, we took a drive into town for some groceries that we needed to make dinner.  While we were there, we went  to the visitors centre.  Did I mention before that, in Canada, almost everything is bilingual English /French?  The visitors centre is no exception.  Here is the entrance with the sculpture of a mountain sheep.







We had intended to watch the movie, but it happened to be that there was going to be a canoe and kayak race along the Yukon river between Whitehorse and Dawson City, YT.  It is called the Yukon River Quest and it is one of the most spectacular paddling races in the world.  The length of the race is 470 mi. or 740 km., making it the longest as well.  At marathon rate it can be done in 48 hours, but many people just try to finish and it may take them several days to get to Dawson City.  It is a very grueling race.  Anyway, the race was to begin tomorrow and the visitor center was the check-in location.  All of those participants were using the visitors center as a headquarters.  They had taken over the theater where we would have watched the film, so the staff of the visitors center tried to use a televised version in the lobby, for those of us who wished to see the movie.   It was so noisy that we gave up and decided to come back tomorrow.  Likewise, there was a geocache on the grounds of the visitors center.  We found it and could see it, but there were too many muggles (non–geocachers who might see us doing something and would sabotage the cache) around.  We decided to come back later when there weren’t as many people around.  Instead, we went driving around to see some of the attractions of Whitehorse.

There are some historical buildings that are very interesting. One is the original first high-rise building, built in the 1940s during construction of the Alaska Highway.  There are four stories and it appears that some reconstruction being done.


The original Anglican Church is now a museum describing the introduction of Christianity to the Yukon.


After dinner, we went back downtown to see the Frantic Follies, a “Gay 90s” variety show.






It was very funny and fun with Can-Can girls,


humorous skits, first is a drunken clown, second is a couple of guys with cabin fever,


musical performances, the man is playing the musical saw, the lady is singing in the spotlight,






and there was even audience participation.


After the show, we went back to the visitors centre.  There was no one there, so we got the geocache and signed the log. 

Tomorrow, we will try to see some of the other attractions in Whitehorse.

Watson Lake, YT to Whitehorse, YT 6/23/14

Monday, Day 52 of our summer trip.

We spent yesterday cleaning inside the trailer, doing laundry and we washed the truck.  While I was doing laundry, some new people arrived at the campground and parked next to us.  They noticed our geocaching trackable travel bugs on the truck and trailer.  They also geocache and have a similar travel bug.  Well, Earl and the man talked quite a bit.  While they were talking, Earl mentioned that there were a couple geocaches in the Sign Post Forest.  We had planned to go there after we finished all of our chores.  He said that he already knew about them from a part of the geocaching program that lets you plot a course and  the geocaching website will list all of the geocaches within 5 miles of your route.  Earl said he had heard of that, but hadn’t been able to get it to work, so the man took us into his motorhome to show us what to do.  Later in the afternoon. the Fantasy Tours Caravan folks started to pull in.  They had been in Watson Lake at the same RV park where we were staying while we were there.  One of the caravan members was parked on the other side of us.  He let us know that one of the caravan members had travel bugs, too.  Earl got in touch with that person and they exchanged geocaching numbers.  So, by the time we found the two at the Sign Post Forest, we had gotten 5 new caches recorded.

Today, we are on our way to Whitehorse, YT.Once we get there, we will find out what the road out of Dawson City is like and decide which way we want to go to get into Alaska.  It started to rain during the night and has continued to rain off and on.  We were traveling along and started seeing all of these names and words, written out with white rocks, along the side  of the road.  It reminded me of when we go across the Salt Flats in Utah.  People write words with dark rocks there.  I read in one of the descriptions that this is called rock art in these parts.


Guess what.  We were stopped by another construction zone on the way to Whitehorse today.   There was a long 20 minute wait that turned into about 40 min.  Then we got to follow the pilot car for another 20 minutes or so VERY SLOWLY through the construction zone.  I took a picture of the line of RVs and others who were waiting for our turn to be lead through the construction zone..  The pilot car finally got to us  so we could creep along behind him.


We passed all of the trucks filled with gravel, then saw what was happening.  What they were doing here was putting down a really heavy layer of tar then topping it with gravel.  Dusty dirty gravel which turned into mud where it was raining.  So much for having washed the truck yesterday. By the time we got to the end of the construction and we were allowed to drive on our own without the pilot, that cleanliness was all gone.  At least it was only one layer now instead of the many layers before the washing.


We saw some pretty scenery as we traveled through the Yukon, but no big animals today.


This is the Nisutlin Bridge where it crosses the Nisutlin River and into Teslin, YT.  It is the longest expanse for a bridge over water on the Alaska highway.  It has a grate decking and is 1917 ft. long.


Here is where we camped at the Pioneer RV Park in Whitehorse, YT  You can see how much dirt got onto the truck.  Even more is on the trailer which hasn’t been washed at all, yet.  This is a very nice site, wide, deep and a nice buffer of trees between the sites.  They had a lot of amenities, including a gas/diesel station and propane for sale. 


It was almost 9:30 PM when we got to camp, so we just set up, ate dinner and relaxed before bed time.  See how light the sky is?  It stays light all night.  Even though  the sun has officially set, there is always an after sunset or dawn type of twilight all night.

We will explore Whitehorse  during the next two days.