Across the Top of the World to Dawson

On Tuesday, August 6, 2019, we took a side trip up to Dawson City, Yukon, from Tok, Alaska.  Our route would take us some 79 miles or so up the Taylor Highway, with its deep green valleys, high mountains and winding roads and rivers --

-- to Chicken, Alaska, a very small community whose sole purpose appears to be to cater to tourists.  "Downtown" is three small buildings, refurbished to tourist standards and apparently all owned by the same people:

The gold panning tourist site boasts a large chicken sculpture which always makes it into the tourist blogs (but we swear it won't make it into ours):

From Chicken, we drove another 96 miles or so across the Top of the World Highway toward the US/Canadian border, with panoramic views of the terrain below us:

The day was cloudy with showers, and one of the rain sprinkles left us with an unusual rainbow across the valley below us:

Before long, we reached a roadside rest stop that greets the tourist with a "Welcome to Dawson City" structure:

We spotted a sign for the Top of the World Golf Course (a.k.a. Dawson City Golf Course), and decided to detour down to the clubhouse to see if we could snag some golf souvenirs for our favorite golfer in the family.  Along the way, we stumbled across a stupendous view of Dawson City from across the Yukon River:

It wasn't long before we were back up on the highway and driving down to the ferry landing across from Dawson.  As we sat waiting for the ferry, it worked its way, sideways, across the Yukon River.  Its round trip probably takes all of 20 or 30 minutes, and it runs continuously through the day.

While we were waiting for the ferry, we spotted this paddlewheeler, the Klondike Spirit, working its way up the river toward Dawson, carrying tourists on a cruise:

Our ferry deposited us right on the waterfront in Dawson, and we made our way down Front Street to the Visitor Center, where we learned all about everything there is to know about Dawson.  Having checked into our hotel, we started a walkabout through downtown Dawson, a small town with a population of 1,500 or so souls.  As we returned to the waterfront and climbed onto the dike protecting Dawson from spring floods on the Yukon River, we caught sight of the historic Keno, another sternwheeler that has been permanently beached to serve as an exhibit for the Klondike National Park here:

We turned our steps upriver along the dike and enjoyed the early evening on the river before finding a place for dinner:

We decided not to be too ambitious our first night and retired early, getting up on Wednesday morning to commence our exploration of Dawson and its environs.  We joined a national park walking tour of the city, where we learned about the history of Dawson and about the continuity of the community -- both in the many buildings that have survived from circa 1900 to today, and in the community spirit that prevails in the town.

After our walking tour and some lunch, we hopped over to Robert Service's cabin which is maintained by Parks Canada.  See our next blog for a description of that feature.  After the cabin, we headed out to try our hand at gold panning.  Again, see the following blog entry for the story of our seeking of gold.

This made us very hungry.  We snagged dinner and then headed over to Diamond Tooth Gertie's for an 1890's style revue, complete with can-can girls, music and good clean (?) fun with the audience:

The most pleasant surprise we had was when we stepped out of the Diamond Tooth Gertie's revue to find a pair of buskers sitting in a pocket park across the street, enthusiastically (and skillfully) playing rowdy folk music and traditional Russian music on an accordian and banjo:

This video will give you an idea of the fun we had listening to the buskers.

We learned the next morning that buskers are new to Dawson, and the locals are not entirely sure how to react to them.  The locals worry about the buskers that are not all that entertaining.  We related to our hotelier that other towns we've visited have resorted to a permit system to permit buskers who are really talented but screen out the ones who are a nuisance.  We felt that buskers add measurably to a town's ambiance if they fit in and are talented.

The busker encounter was about all we could take, so we fell into bed, woke the next morning, found breakfast, headed back on the ferry across the Yukon River, and stopped at the Yukon River Campground to seek out the Sternwheeler Graveyard, a spot where old riverboats were taken to die along the Yukon River when their usefulness to the Dawson community had expired.

We walked along the riverbank and encountered this lone man strumming his banjo.  His lonesome notes called forth a time over 100 years ago, when such sounds probably floated across the water.  He paid us no mind as we walked past.

It wasn't long before we found the ruins of two sternwheelers, becalmed on the hill above the riverbank:

We worked our way into the woods, and Kathy found the remains of one of the paddlewheels -- minus the paddles.  They gave a ghostly tone to our walk:

Having satisfied our curiosity about the old paddlewheel boats, we hopped back in the Jeep and made our way back to Tok, Alaska, where our motorhome and cats waited (not so) patiently for our return.  We had a day to catch up with chores and errands before continuing on our travels to Haines Junction.  Check that next blog entry out for a great hike we had in Kluane National Park.