Dawson City

The last two days have been very busy. First, I have to tell you about yesterday, Thursday. We played tourist in Whitehorse, starting with a visit to the MacBride Museum of Yukon History.

The wild animal displays rivaled those of the Wildlife Museum at Caribou Crossing, or maybe these were a bit better. In addition to the bear, elk, caribou, deer, bison and various felines, which I won’t repeat here, there were a lot of birds that were very well done, and looked like they could fly away at any moment.

We enjoyed seeing some things not found in most museums, such as this 1926 Chevrolet 4-cylinder delivery truck

A very old gasoline pump

Sam McGee’s original log cabin. Are you familiar with the poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert W. Service? If not, click the link for a real treat! It was performed as part of the production we attended last night in a most entertaining fashion!

A 1900 fire bell, also used on the schoolhouse in Whitehorse

Several of our group toured the Yukon Brewing Company in the afternoon. Darcy gave a great description of how their specialty and award-winning beers are made.

They re-use and recycle as much as possible, including bottles from other brands.

After generous samples for all who wanted to taste, naturally some of us found the need to take home some of their brews.

This sign in downtown Whitehorse piqued our curiosity. Where do trailers, campers and motor homes park?

We had dinner at the highly-recommended Klondike Rib & Salmon Fish & Chips and Wild Game Restaurant! The name is almost bigger than the building. All of us agreed the recommendations were right on – Yumm!

Then we attended the Frantic Follies across the street. And if you’ve read yesterday’s blog, you know the rest of that story.

Now, that’s a not-so-quick review of yesterday that I didn’t write about last night!

Today, Friday, we drove about 330 miles from Whitehorse to Dawson City. We all decided to put the long trip behind us today in order to spend a little more time here, and to take advantage of current good weather to drive over Top of the World Highway on Sunday or Monday.

We encountered a lot of frost heaves on the road today. Some have been repaired, but the repairs aren’t always smooth. Most of them were well-marked by red flags or orange cones on the shoulder, but some came as a bumpy surprise. Slowing down is the best way to handle them. Or, if you have a small RV, swerve a little as Jim’s doing ahead of us.

Not long after I took that pic, an oncoming truck picked up some gravel off the side of the road and threw a good-sized rock at our motor home windshield, causing a nice ‘blossom’ with a ‘smile’ below (the other things you see are bugs who won’t bother anyone else again). Don cleaned and taped the chips to try to prevent spreading of the cracks. I hope the windshield survives the next couple of months so we can wait until we return to the lower 48 to have it replaced.

We aren’t keeping an official count of wildlife spotted on the road, but today we saw a coyote, three foxes (separate, one looked really skinny and hungry), and a loon. No pics of them, but the scenery is beautiful, no matter where you look.

Don and I had dinner in downtown Dawson City at the Drunken Goat, a Greek restaurant. Their gyros and Greek salads were great!

Dawson has such a rich history, and just a quick glance around tells me there are lots of fun and interesting things to see here. We plan to stay a few days, and hope the improving weather forecasts are right!