Drove 420 miles today, and got in to Dawson City around 5:00. Before leaving Fairbanks I called the Aurora Inn in Dawson to make sure I had a room.
To get to Dawson I went down a stretch of the Alaska Highway I hadn’t been on. Then up the Taylor Highway and Top of the World Highway. The Taylor and Top of the World Highways are mostly unpaved, and are pretty curvy and high up for most of their routes. Another beautiful drive.
On the way up the Taylor, you pass through Chicken, Alaska. There’s probably 25 people who live full time in Chicken. I’m sure they all work in the Chicken Mercantile, Chicken Grill, the Chicken Museum, or at the Chicken Post Office. You can buy a lot of different Chicken merchandise. Chicken began life as a little gold mining village. There’s still an old gold dredge there. There’s a lot of wildlife around Chicken, including many ptarmigan. When the gold miners went to name their new village, they found that no one could spell “ptarmigan”. So…
Coming down out of the mountains into Dawson City, you have to take a ferry across the Yukon River. When I got to the river, my GPS device said “You must take the ferry now.” I was amazed at the vocabulary. I’ll write more later about the use of the GPS in the north.
The location of Dawson was an Indian camp with a few miners, until 1896 when Skookum Jim Mason found the big one. By 1898, the population was 40,000, and by 1899 when the rush was over, it was back to 8,000.
The route to the gold fields started at Skagway, where the hopeful had to carry a years’ provisions over the Chilkoot Pass, build a boat or a raft, and follow the Yukon River 500 miles to Dawson. Once there, most of them found that the richest claims had been made by miners already in the area when Skookum Jim hit it.
For visitors, I think Dawson is the antithesis of Skagway. There is a lot of tourism – four of five tour buses were in town, having traveled several hundred miles from Whitehorse. But the town feels like a community, and you can still see and feel what the old Dawson is like. It would be easy to spend another day or so in Dawson.
Both Robert Service and Jack London spent time in Dawson. Both of their cabins are in town. I’ve got a book of Robert Service poetry with me, but I’m not going to post any here. Yet.
And for you hockey fans, here’s even more info about Dawson – there used to be a professional hockey team in Dawson – the Dawson City Nuggets. In 1905, the Nuggets played the Ottawa Silver Seven for the Stanley Cup. The team took a month to travel to Ottawa by dog sled, bicycle, foot, ship and train. They had to deal with seasickness, ports iced in, and ships delayed by fog. They got to Ottawa two days before the game. Their best player was delayed in Dawson and didn’t get to Ottawa until the series was over.
So do you think this ended like Hoosiers? Nope. In two games, they got outscored by 32 to 4, the most lopsided loss in Stanley Cup history.
This is the kind of information you run into in Canada.
To get to Dawson I went down a stretch of the Alaska Highway I hadn’t been on. Then up the Taylor Highway and Top of the World Highway. The Taylor and Top of the World Highways are mostly unpaved, and are pretty curvy and high up for most of their routes. Another beautiful drive.
On the way up the Taylor, you pass through Chicken, Alaska. There’s probably 25 people who live full time in Chicken. I’m sure they all work in the Chicken Mercantile, Chicken Grill, the Chicken Museum, or at the Chicken Post Office. You can buy a lot of different Chicken merchandise. Chicken began life as a little gold mining village. There’s still an old gold dredge there. There’s a lot of wildlife around Chicken, including many ptarmigan. When the gold miners went to name their new village, they found that no one could spell “ptarmigan”. So…
Coming down out of the mountains into Dawson City, you have to take a ferry across the Yukon River. When I got to the river, my GPS device said “You must take the ferry now.” I was amazed at the vocabulary. I’ll write more later about the use of the GPS in the north.
The location of Dawson was an Indian camp with a few miners, until 1896 when Skookum Jim Mason found the big one. By 1898, the population was 40,000, and by 1899 when the rush was over, it was back to 8,000.
The route to the gold fields started at Skagway, where the hopeful had to carry a years’ provisions over the Chilkoot Pass, build a boat or a raft, and follow the Yukon River 500 miles to Dawson. Once there, most of them found that the richest claims had been made by miners already in the area when Skookum Jim hit it.
For visitors, I think Dawson is the antithesis of Skagway. There is a lot of tourism – four of five tour buses were in town, having traveled several hundred miles from Whitehorse. But the town feels like a community, and you can still see and feel what the old Dawson is like. It would be easy to spend another day or so in Dawson.
Both Robert Service and Jack London spent time in Dawson. Both of their cabins are in town. I’ve got a book of Robert Service poetry with me, but I’m not going to post any here. Yet.
And for you hockey fans, here’s even more info about Dawson – there used to be a professional hockey team in Dawson – the Dawson City Nuggets. In 1905, the Nuggets played the Ottawa Silver Seven for the Stanley Cup. The team took a month to travel to Ottawa by dog sled, bicycle, foot, ship and train. They had to deal with seasickness, ports iced in, and ships delayed by fog. They got to Ottawa two days before the game. Their best player was delayed in Dawson and didn’t get to Ottawa until the series was over.
So do you think this ended like Hoosiers? Nope. In two games, they got outscored by 32 to 4, the most lopsided loss in Stanley Cup history.
This is the kind of information you run into in Canada.
6 comments:
Dawson City sounds great Alan. Far enough off the beaten path that it still retains some of its true nature.
So I guess you know Detroit won the Stanley Cup this year. Two of the players were on Jay Leno the other night. I am missing the maps tracing your route, but Deb and I have the map out here so we can follow.
We have been a bit busy, but Alli and Erin come home today.
John
Hi Al,
Segal here checking in. Following your adventure. Boy am I ready to go ANYWHERE BUT HERE for a while! Preferably not too hot or too cold, but primitive is OK!
Sounds like the trip is going well. Bet you're glad you didn't do a bike thing!
Keep on truckin',
Tama
Good new and bad news about Costco. The hotdogs were great but you lost the toss again. You need to do better at that. II don't think you're paying enough attention to the coin toss. Maybe you'll do better next week.
Benton's been reading your blog.
Benton said that driving 500 miles a day is nothing - he's leaving for Mobile on Sunday. He's about to go over 300,000 on the Volvo.
Mark
To the tune of By the Time I got to Phoenix.
By the time Al left Fairbanks gas had risien
The arabs pushed the barrel to 135 or more
Once again as he filled his tank he shed a tear
Cause he'd filled it up so many times before
As Al drove though Dawson City gas was five bucks
And at lunch the oil for his salad was up too
He wrote about the sights along the way
And took pictures at the pump for me and you
By the time Al makes Vancouver it'll be six bucks
And he'll think back to when he was a kid at thirty cents
He'll sob in Seattle as he fills up for the last time
Cause Hertz likes the Exloprer full after you rent
Hi Alan,
I have been catching up with your trip. It looks incredible. Are you getting use to all of the daylight? The pictures are great, I especially enjoyed the glacier ones. Sounds like you are having a great time. It was -40 when we were in Fairbanks years ago in the month of February. Glad you're having nicer weather. It's great that you went to the Arctic Circle, the certificate is cool. Keep taking the pictures.
Take care,
Debbie
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