Day 13 – Tuesday, July 7 (Whitehorse to Dawson City)

When I got up it was a cool 16 C (61F) but it warmed up to 23 C (73F) by 10 am.

I filled the car with gas and checked my tire pressure before leaving Whitehorse to go north to Dawson City. The Alaska Highway is highway #1 and it goes through Whitehorse and shortly afterwards veers West to Alaska where it connects to the Klondike Highway, which is highway #2. The Klondike Highway goes almost straight north to Dawson City. The drive is 530 km ( 330 mi). The road is paved, however, it is under repair at several locations and there are long stretches of unpaved gravel road that are very dusty ( unless it rains ) and bumpy. Some areas on the road have low spots that you can’t see because they are gradual and long and they caused the car to ‘ bottom out ‘ as I drove over them which made it feel like a roller coaster ride.

There are a lot of motorhomes and motorcyclists riding up to the Yukon, some continuing on to Alaska, but what has really impressed me is the number of bicyclists that are riding the Alaska and Klondike highway with all of their camping and biking gear attached in bags on the sides of each wheel and above the rear wheel ( and some even have a backpack as well). To ride up and down the highway around the mountains is very impressive.

Pat had given me bandana bread and cookies to take along. They came in very handy when I had to wait at a construction site for the pilot car to take the northbound traffic through the zone.

There were several areas along the drive that had signs indicating when they had experienced a forest fire…1998, 1995, 1953, etc. The trees were growing back but there were large patches of Fireweed growing in the open areas as you can see on this picture where there had been a forest fire in 1998.

The Fireweed, as well as other wildflowers flourish in the areas between the highway and the treelike.

The views of the area are spectacular.

The pictures below are of the Yukon River at different locations.

When I arrived at Dawson City, I found a campsite at the entrance to the city. I got a site, pitched my tent and then went into Dawson City to check it out and have a meal. I had a delicious Salmon dinner with a salad and black beans. As I was eating, it started to rain and continued to rain for about an hour. When I finished my meal, I drove around town a bit and then headed back to the campsite. Fortunately only a little rain had gotten into the tent and I was able to dry it up so that it wouldn’t be a problem.

Dawson is a unique town that has tried to keep its gold rush heritage as the centre of the Klondike Gold rush. During its peak there were 40,000 people in Dawson. The current population of Dawson City is 1300 and the entire population of the Yukon Territory is 33,000 most of which live in Whitehorse which currently has a population of 23,000.

Trivia quesiton – What is the difference between a province and a territory?

The farther north I get the longer the days are. There isn’t a time during the evening that it actually gets dark. It gets a little darker but not totally dark.