Whitehorse, Carmacks, Dawson

WHITEHORSE

We arrived in Whitehorse on Friday afternoon and spent some time wandering around the city. I love Whitehorse! It's beautiful and clean and has so much interesting stuff in it. I bought a kick-ass pair of winter boots and we visited lots of touristy shops (and bought nothing in them). There are some fascinating art galleries with beautiful things made of gold, different types of wood, porcupine quills, and other natural materials found in this territory. We might yet end up buying some hand made arty stuff for xmas presents for friends/family.

Whitehorse had a surprising amount of green space and we took the dogs for a walk in a park along the Yukon River, and as we were walking a little train tooted by. It was cute.

We will definitely spend some more time in Whitehorse on our way back down.


CARMACKS

After leaving Whitehorse we drove for the rest of the evening and stopped for the night in the village of Carmacks, which was named after George Carmacks, the guy who set off the gold rush by panning ONE TONNE of gold out of the Bonanza River in a single summer.

Carmacks is a teensy town. How small is it, you ask? Well, Hotel Carmacks, the place where we stopped for the night, is obviously a hotel and RV park. What other services does it provide for the town, though? It is: the town hotel, RV park, restaurant, bar, gas station, general store, AND it houses the Health Services office. It seems to be the hub of the village and many locals were hanging out there in the various areas when we arrived.

As we were walking through the parking lot to the general store, we saw a fox. He was walking around in the middle of the parking lot so we stopped to see what he would do. He started coming closer to the building and went around the corner towards the general store. At that point I though something was odd and stopped approaching him. Mark went over to see what he was up to and I had visions of rabid foxes chewing his face off. Around the corner of the building was a gang of local teenage girls. One of them threw a blue candy near the fox and said "eat this, fox!" He did, and sat down patiently to see what else they had. They continued talking amongst themselves, occasionally throwing something for the fox to eat. I wonder if these kids know what kind of unique upbringing they've had, living so close to nature. I know it's probably not the greatest thing that the fox is getting used to people, but it was a remarkable sight to witness.

We walked along the banks of the Yukon River for a while with the dogs, and went back to the RV park for the night. We were the only campers there and had the place to ourselves. Oh, and I think I saw some northern lights! Yay!


DAWSON CITY

The next day we made it to Dawson City, they final destination of our entire road trip! The road was the roughest we'd been on yet so we took our time, but the sun was shining and we made it at last. Along the way we sighted our first Grizzly Bear.

Dawson City is amazing. None of the roads are paved and there are wooden boardwalks instead of sidewalks. It's quaint and pretty and again there are lots of hand-made things for sale, including jewelry made of Yukon gold and jade. We were in a jewelry store while the artist was cutting a stone for a ring, and we talked to him for a bit. Then some other local guy came in and the jeweler accused him of stealing his nuggets! They got in a bit of a fight and Mark and I retreated to the street. I felt like I was in a cheesy western movie. "You took my nuggets!" "I never took any of your nuggets!" Sheesh!!

Mark wrote a bit of stuff to put in this post. Quoth he:

So far Dawson City has been a blast. Julie spent some quality time with the lady from The Dog House – a kick-ass pet supply / gift shoppe. They bonded over stories of rescue animals, and Julie and I accidentally made her cry with the story of Oliver (our rescue miniature pinscher). Oops! She was very kind, and we ended up buying a bunch of stuff there. Very cool place.

We managed to score a spot at the RV place right in town, despite the baseball tournament which is apparently also going on right now. That’s pretty sweet, since they have a nice wifi internet connection, among other amenities, and are right in town – walking distance to all the good stuff.

That's all that Mark wrote. I have to add that the international outhouse races are taking place this weekend, too. They're tomorrow and we're gonna go watch.

Tonight we went to Diamond-Tooth Gertie's - a casino that also has live "burlesque" shows three times a night. We caught the early show, gambled a bit, and came back to the RV park in time to see some northern lights. It's late now so I must retire - more later!