LITMIR.BIZ

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3 glorious days in Whitehorse, stocked up the old frig, and had a great time seeing the sights. We visited the fish ladder on the Yukon River and took a tour of the last surviving old time riverboat. The best old time “dance hall” type show we have ever seen was in Whitehorse. The performers were world class. I played a round of golf at the only golf course within many 100s of miles. It was a nice course, with grass greens instead of oil greens. But all I really remember about playing there is the mosquitoes. There were millions of them on the course. The guys I played with told me that they were having an early warm spring and while the mosquitoes are always really bad, they were exceptional just now. We had been warned that the mosquito is the national bird of the Yukon and Alaska but I was not prepared for how many there were. Sometimes they flew right into your mouth. On a lighter note, we got a real chuckle when we drove past the airport. A DC-3 crashed at the airport in the 1950s and it was damaged so badly that it couldn't be repaired. So the locals put it on a pole and have been using it as a weathervane ever since. It always rotates to point into the wind.

       http://travelyukon.com/about_yukon/yukon_communities/whitehorse

      From Whitehouse we left the Alaska Highway and drove 125 miles due south to the American coastal town of Skagway, AK pop 860. Skagway is a very neat little town that owes its existence to the Klondike gold rush in 1897-98.

      When gold was first discovered in the Yukon, it was found in the rivers and streams in the vicinity of a small mining camp called Dawson City. This caused a massive stampede of gold hunters from all over the world to rush there to strike it rich. A LOT of people made the trip. Some stopped at Skagway, others at mining towns along the way, but most made it all the way to Dawson City and the surrounding gold fields. It’s an incredible story of human perseverance. The only way for potential miners to get to Dawson City in those days was to take a boat from Seattle to Skagway, buy supplies, walk into Canada, then hike 33 miles up the Chilkoot Pass in knee deep snow to a lake at the headwaters of the Yukon River. Canada stationed Mounties at the border and would not allow anyone in who was not bringing enough supplies to last a year. So each miner had to bring about 2,000 pounds of supplies. They made the round trip up and down the Chilkoot Pass, in the snow, about 30 times to get all their stuff moved to the top. They would then build themselves a raft and float down the Yukon River with their supplies to Dawson City. The trip from Seattle to Dawson City took about 18 months, most of it through some of the most desolate territory on the planet. Simply amazing.

      Skagway takes great pride in retaining the look and feel of the original gold rush town. It's a very neat place to spend some time. We were there 3 days which is just about right. There were four big cruise ships tied up at the pier each day we were there. When they left each day we had the place to ourselves.

      Since Skagway was our first stop in Alaska, we had all our mail forwarded by the Escapees mail service to General Delivery at the post office. It was waiting for us when we arrived. The next time we got mail was at the Fairbanks, AK post office. The next time we will get mail after that will be at the RV Park we will be staying at in Calgary, Canada next month. Getting mail is not a problem, we just have to let our mail forwarding service know where and when to send it. Usually we pick General Delivery in some small town post office that we know we will be going through a week or so down the road. Here it's a little different because we are dealing with greater distances, rural locations, and the Canadian mail system.

      From Skagway we took a ferry to Haines, AK, pop 2,800, continuing on our way north to Anchorage. There is an extensive system of ferries all along the Alaska coast that link the towns along the way. For example, it is 13 miles by ferry from Skagway to Haines, but 359 miles by road. And there are some towns that don't even have roads to them, Juneau for example. The ferry ride was pretty cool. It cost $26.00 a person and $2.80 per foot of vehicle. It's a big ferry with cabins, lounges, and a restaurant. We learned that some people stay on it for days. They tour Alaska by ferry and bring their car along. It carried a couple of dozen RVs plus many cars with no problem. Getting the larger RV's on and off the ferry was an adventure for the drivers but everything turned out OK. I drove the car on first and Cindi brought the RV on board while I took pictures. :)

       http://www.akferry.com/

      On the way to the RV Park in Haines we stopped at a fish market that was selling King salmon that had been caught that same morning. We barbequed it that night for dinner. Ummm good! Sharon, our Trail Boss, had a birthday in Haines so we decided to surprise her with a birthday cake. We went to the local bakery and discovered that the lady who bakes their cakes was off that day. When we told the owner our situation she sent us over to the ladies house who readily agreed to come back to work and bake us a cake. And not just any cake, she decided to surprise us with one that looked just like Sharon’s RV.

      From Haines it was a straight shot 150 miles north to Haines Junction, back in the Yukon. We got back on the Alaska Highway there. We have been on paved roads for most of the trip so we have had little problem driving. However, most of the roads in and around Alaska have permafrost damage so you need to be paying attention as you cruise down the road. The section of highway from about 20 miles south of the Alaska border to about 150 miles into Alaska was the worst. It has big permafrost heaves in it. What that means is that the winter daytime heat from the highway has caused the underlying permafrost to thaw and re-freeze which causes the highway to buckle up. There are so many places like this that they can't keep up with fixing them. So, as a warning to drivers, the highway department just hammers three stakes in the ground to form a tripod and hangs a red flag on it next to the road at the worst spots. If you hit one of these heaves going faster than 30 mph your RV feels like it is on a roller coaster. That first day in Alaska was a long one.

      Family and friends...

      I just couldn't wait a month to send this. We saw the most unusual thing last night in downtown Anchorage. We were wandering around after dinner seeing the sights and came across the local fishing hole. The river that runs through town, called Ship Creek, has salmon in it today. They started running last week and will continue for the next four months or so. The locals were out in force to catch their limit of one fish per day. Nobody seemed to think it strange that they were fishing right in the middle of a major city. At 10:00 p.m. in broad daylight.

      We parked the car and went down to the bank and watched them for more than an hour. They call it combat fishing because the fishermen stand in the knee deep water facing each other about ten yards apart and cast their hooks half way across the distance between them. They are only allowed to keep the fish that bite on the hook. If they “snag” a fish they have to release them. It was fascinating to watch them go at it. When someone caught one, they would clean it right there on the bank, walk to their car, and drive home.

      http://www.alaskanoutfitting.com/fishing/shipcreek/shipcreek.shtml

      Friends & Family...

      We left off the last newsletter at mid-month, back on the Alaska Highway, crossing the border from the Yukon Territory to Alaska. The population of Alaska, at just over 600,000 people, has fewer people than any decent sized city in the lower 48. As a result, they don’t have much political clout in Congress. The people in Alaska say that every time a politician in Washington D.C. wants to score points, and show how “environmental” they are, they designate another chunk of Alaska as a national park. They're half afraid that they will end up being the smallest state located within the largest national park.

      When we crossed the border, rather than continuing on to the end of the Alaska Highway at Delta Junction, we turned southwest at Tok and headed for Anchorage. By the way, Tok is a typical little Alaska town, but with an interesting history. It was originally called Tokyo. They changed their name on December 8th, 1941. The other thing we learned when we spent the night there is that they have no town government or services

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