Entries about whitehorse

July 27

With my gouty foot on the mend we were able to walk around Whitehorse without me looking like a gimpy old man. Whitehorse is a lovely city of about 28,000, more than half of the entire population of the Yukon. It is a full service town with all the amenities you could imagine.

This building struck our fancy while walking around:

There are some great historical features to the town, mostly relating to the gold rush history of the area. There is a great paddle wheeler that you can tour...we did that last time we were here, so we took a pass on it this time. There is also Miles Canyon, where the gold stampeders of 1897-99 had to pass a great test by running the canyon and the rapids below. Over 100,000 people passed through this gorge on their way to the gold fields of Dawson City, some 600 kilometers to the north of here.

This Canyon is still dangerous today, as there are no guardrails. The fall is steep and the water is deep and fast moving. Careless people have lost their lives here in recent history, judging by the memorials on the bank by the bridge.

Jenny needed a haircut and we found an available appointment for Noon, which fit our plans exactly. Once she was done with the haircut, we headed for our favourite eating place in Whitehorse, the Klondike Rib and Salmon House. This iconic restaurant is open for just the summer months each year, but the food is fantastic, and local. Jenny had an elk, cariboo, moose meat burger, and I had halibut and chips. Lunch, including a beer each, and tip, was just over $55.

Later in the afternoon we took in a local farmer's market, and then took a bit of time off at the R/V park. There is another R-pod just down from us and we had quite the chat with our neighbour, who has had significant troubles with his R-pod, mostly with the electric converter and batteries. He hopes his problems have now been solved, but has had 4 batteries and 4 converters in less than 2 years. Yikes, we hope our trailer does not begin to experience similar issues. So far, ours has been pretty good.

In the evening we visited with Ken Gray, and his partner Amber. Ken is my nephew from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia and now lives and works up here in the north. Every summer from 1980 through 1998 we would visit with Ken's parents and Ken, as a youngster, was a font of knowledge about everything outdoors He was always showing me life in the lake by their house and his knowledge of these things was encyclopedic. He also taught me about cutting and making walking sticks, and I have one on this trip that I cut and stripped back almost 30 years ago. It was great to catch up with Ken and Amber.

On our trip back to our campground we passed the local Walmart. Amazingly, there were 42 recreational vehicles in their parking lot.

Today is a day of organizing: our laundry, working on the blog, and planning our next phase. We have now decided to head to Dawson City as our next destination. We'll spend 2 full days there before heading on to the Top of the World Highway and heading into the US through Chicken, Alaska. We'll visit Chena Hot Springs, then head south through Fairbanks, passing through Denali National Park, and then the Kenai Peninsula, south of Anchorage. We plan to spend a few nights on the Kenai and then start our run back towards Canada. We should spend 11 days in Alaska