VIDEOS
THE PLAY BY PLAY
Well, we are back on the pavement, the car has been pressure washed, and we start our Eastward Journey, well South and East really. Back from Dawson to Whitehorse and then to spend some time exploring the Southern Yukon, or what I am calling Project Yukon revisited. Some of you know that I spent a couple of summers volunteering with the Anglican Church in the Yukon in the 1980’s. Picture Katimavik but with younger participants and focused on helping the parishes maintain their buildings and programs. I am really curious to see what the places look like now, 40+ years on (and am only slightly horrified as I type “40+ years on”. I am not sure how that has happened… other than I failed to die young. Yay me!)
I stopped for one more breakfast sandwich from Chechako’s. It really is one of the best breakfast sandwiches I have ever had and decided to sit in the sun and enjoy my breakfast in the park. All was going well until a local crow decided that he deserved my sandwich more than me. Marley could take mooching lessons from this thing. He started on the side of the table looking at me expectantly. Then, when I did not flee and give him my breakfast he hopped right on over and had a good peck at the side of the paper, all the while yelling at me that it was his breakfast not mine! It looked like it was going to come to blows. I was pretty sure I could take him but not without risking some nasty pecks and possible losing my breakfast in the process. So, we continued with aggressive posturing and I continued to explain to him that he needed to get his own breakfast. Eventually he had one final yell, declared me the winner and hopped off looking for someone less protective of their sandwich.
After winning “The Breakfast Battle of Dawson” off I went to explore the more Southern part of the Yukon. I added the Dawson tours on the way out of town to the Dawson post so our story picks up just past the turn off for Dredge No 4 just out of Dawson.
The drive itself back to Whitehorse was pretty and pretty non-eventful. I stopped to make sure a van that was pulled over with it’s hood up was OK. He and the van were fine. The van just needed water. But it was an opportunity to stop and have a look at the scope of the fire that was burning in the area and had just burned through. I would not have stopped just to look (as people had been asked not to) but while I was stopped anyway I figured it was just multi-tasking. Since then the Antler and Jasper fires have given a new meaning to big fire, but at the time and on the local level the whole hillsides full of blackened trees was pretty striking.
On the way back my first stop was in Pelly Crossing and then in Carmacks, two of the communities that we had worked in in the 80’s. Pelly Crossing was the first and one that I was very curious about. It had been a very small village, mostly log houses, and struggling economically. There was a gas bar with a tiny restaurant and a little school. The community was very welcoming to us and we had a lot of fun with the local kids and local people kindly gave us game to supplement the case of “spork” which comprised a significant part of our protein that summer. On a side note, if you cook the hell out of spork, add enough spices and dump it in pasta sauce you almost can’t tell it’s there. Bill and I got to eat all the rabbit we were given due to a tea towel slipping and the youth members of the team seeing the point at which the lucky rabbits foot went from furry to flavourful and being horrified. We had a lot of fun with a fellow named Donny too who had a blue charger or some such car, which was pressed into service for tubing on the river, driving back with the tube on the hood with one of us spread eagle on top holding on to the top of the hood, to hold it down… pretty sure we would never get away with that these days. When I pulled into town on this trip I did not even recognize the place. It has grown exponentially from what I remember, many nice new houses with nice vehicles. They also now have a Band administration office, health centre, pool, new school, and they still have a gas station and have added a car wash and camp ground. I found the church we worked in, but it is abandoned. It was unlocked so I went to have a look. The structure is as I remembered it but it was a mess, with hymn books on the floor, alter linens in heaps and hang randomly about, fake flowers looking almost as dusty as the ones in my place. I later found out that the Diocese here is undertaking an inventory of their buildings as many are already in use by the local Indigenous communities and will likely continue in various community uses. Unfortunately the one in Pelly will likely just fall back into the earth on the edge of the river, maybe a suitable end to a complicated era of church history. On a more amusing note, I think I also found the outhouse across the road from it. For many years the participants signed their names all over the outhouse and I will have to check my pictures when I get home but I think this little building was where it would have been. However, it was completely grown in with wild roses, I was in shorts, and when I went to see if could get at it the person whose “back forty” it now appears to be in hollered “hey” at me. I decided that there was no way I was going to bushwhack my way through the roses so I carried on. I stopped in at the new band administration building to say hello and let them know what I was doing there (there were no signs saying not to drive through but my car with its red and white “ears” is pretty darn visible) but the woman at the desk was clearly not interested in a conversation and basically said “ok” and went back to catching up on the “community news” from the person she was chatting with.
Carmacks was much smaller than I remember. When we were there there was a church and a rectory and a health centre. All of which I remember clearly as we were working on the rectory and the priest was roofing and fell off the roof breaking her collar bone.. .so it was off to the health centre. There is no church there now. I drove through town and saw residential areas, a school, and a few historical buildings, road houses from the 19th Century, an old cemetery but no real centre of town. Having now been back to Carcross I think I may have been conflating the two in my memory, but Carmacks definitely had more to it then.
A couple more brief stops, one at Braeburn Lodge for a cinnamon bun that I had been alerted to check out. Check the pictures. It is the size of your hand. The one I had was a touch dry as I was late in the day and grabbed one out of the grab and go case but I suspect that first thing in the morning or fresh out of the oven they are really impressive. They are so impressive that apparently people fly there to get them. The photo is not terribly clear but the landing strip across the highway has a sign saying “cinnamon bun strip”. I would assume it is much like the $100 burger that Graham used to fly to Chilliwack for. It would be a whole lot more than $100 for the bun if they were coming from any further than Whitehorse I suspect.
Once in Whitehorse I headed out and set up camp at the Caribou RV park and Campground. This is a really lovely mix of RV park and rustic. There are great big bus like things there, as well as ground tents, motorcycles and car campers. It has a central area with the showers, bathrooms, and a communal deck. It has gold panning for the kids and what I can only describe as a restaurant bar for the adults. One of the owners is a trained chef and they have a custom made airstream food truck at the central area. They offer all three meals and beer/wine and on the weekends they have entertainment in the evenings. The night I arrived I was craving some nice fresh vegetables so I tried their bocconcini salad, exceptional. Fresh and just what the doctor ordered. Over the course of the week I was there I tried many of their menu items and they were all impressive. The entertainment was also thoroughly enjoyable. It happened that the weekend I was there they had entertainment all three nights. On the first night it was a woman who is from the area but works the cruise ships and was headed off to Barbados for the winter to work at a resort there. We got to talking about cruise ships and she gave me a few pointers if I want to add stage managing on a cruise ship to my retirement career plans. The next night was another local singer/songwriter who played a lot of her own material and was very good. The third night was a trio now based out of Edmonton, headed up by a musician originally from Chile who played a mixture of Chilean, Afro-Caribbean, and Celtic music. Really cool fusion. They had been in town for a music festival and heard about the camp ground, got talking to the proprietor and asked to come out and play on the Sunday. I now have all their CD’s. The CD was $20 and I handed him $30 as I had not had time to put any money in the tip jar. He then said I should have two CD’s, so I handed him another $20, which her responded to by giving me their third CD. I have been enjoying all of them, having discovered that my car does in fact have a CD player which somehow I had not clocked in the past.
The first couple of days in Whitehorse were about taking care of business. Printing things to send off to work to keep by benefits going while I am away, sorting out pension stuff, and shopping for bits and pieces. I was eyeballing a new cooler as my cheap little one is not holding ice well enough to have more than a day before I have to find more ice. I was not sure I had room for one. (but as those of you know who are reading ahead, that all got solved in Edmonton).
My friend Heidi came out from Whitehorse and joined me on the weekend, along with Marko, my new best fur friend. He decided I was part of the pack so on Saturday morning he became concerned when he was up before me and stood behind my car barking at me to make sure I was ok, and going to get up and play. After a nice breakfast at the food truck, we all headed down to Carcross for a days adventure. Carcross (short for Caribou Crossing) is about an hour South of Whitehorse. It is situated in the middle of lovely mountains and is the Yukon end of the Whitepass-Yukon Railway. The train happened to be in when we arrived, having brought a load of cruise passengers and people from Skagway. Until the day before that it was the only way into Carcross from Skagway as a rock slide had closed the road. It had just reopened to flag car controlled alternating traffic that day (a slightly shorter flag car run than the 10 km I had to do both ways between Dawson and Whitehorse). It is a picturesque little town which looked much as I remembered with the old store by the train tracks (The Matthew Watson General Store is the oldest store in the Yukon, opened in 1898 and has only changed hands twice in 122 years). The big difference is that they have built a really nice little tourist/market area by the train station. It has a selection of little stores, the tourism info, and a restaurant where we had lunch. Even Marko had lunch. We were on the patio, where dogs are allowed, and he had his own server. One of the staff really likes dogs so she came out with a water bowl and some healthy dog snacks for him while we had our lunch. After lunch we checked out town. There were a lot of people fishing on the bridge and the lake, one with a big fish which may have been a trout. Heidi is a fishing person, I really would rather someone else catch it and I will clean and cook it in exchange for some of it. The lake is also shallow a long way out is apparently it is a great kite surfing lake. No one was out the day we were there as it was cold but the wind was good. We watched the train pull out and then went for some ice cream and to check out town. The church is still there and looks as it did. It was not open so I could not go in and see the wooden floor that I still remember putting in a lot of labour lemon oiling. The cabin we stayed in next door is still standing but it looks like no one is using it anymore. I even found what may have been the site of the door free outhouse (yes there were a lot of outhouses on that trip) which had a lovely view of book mountain, I had stopped in at the info centre and asked about the direction of book mountain as it can’t be seen from the middle of town. They gave me the direction and sure enough I think I found the spot. I also got chatting with the woman there and her son who is one of the land guardians/wildlife manager in the area. As it turns out she knew Donny (the guy with the car in Pelly Crossing). I asked if she knew what had happened to him. Unfortunately she said he as originally from Mayo and had passed away a long time ago. She said it was a bit of a “Buddy Holly story”, I have a feeling she meant something more akin to “James Dean”. So, I guess I should not complain about typing “40+ years ago” because not everyone gets the chance to do that.
On the way back from Carcross we stopped at the Carcross Desert. I remember it being quite magical when we were here before. We walked up through the trees and then suddenly the view opens up onto reddish sand dunes, perfect for jumping down. This time we just pulle dup at the bottom and had a walk. I don’t recall there being vehicles on them in the 1980’s, maybe they were just not there the day we went. This trip there were a couple of jeeps and a quad at the top and you could see that they locals drive straight up the hills to picnic at the top.
After Carcross Heidi and Marko had to go home as she had to go back to work for the week and I headed off to keep adventuring. I headed for Atlin BC. The road is now all sealed and pretty good all the way to Atlin. One wonders about the building of the road and travel there before the road. There are lakes along the way called “SNAFU Lake” and then a little farther on there is TARFU (things are REALLY f’d up) Lake. While the road is sealed that does not mean that you can whiz down it at 110km. Like the rest of The Yukon it is a crap shoot when you see a “bump ahead” marker. Could be nothing, could eat your car. Atlin is a beautiful little town in BC, which is only accessible through The Yukon. It is about an hour and a half South from Whitehorse. With Project Yukon we were tasked with building a fence for the local church, including digging all the lime for the post holes. Volunteering is a good way to see what sort of work one might like… I made a clear decision that digging up lime and digging post holes in the hot sun were NOT on my list of careers to pursue! However, we were apparently good at it as the fence still stands, along with the little church. It was a particularly beautiful day and the sun shone on the mountains all around town. I found the city park in which we had pitched our wall tents for our accommodations, it still has camping available, and went for a walk along the lake which we swam in, still glacier fed and freezing, so I did not go for a swim. I had a wonderful lunch in the local restaurant which was effectively my personal dining room as it was late lunch. The server was a really nice young woman who shared my enjoyment of historical fiction and the home made chicken soup reminded me of mom’s “chicken stewp” full of real chicken and vegetables. When I stopped by the church, the minister was there so had a chance to go in and see it. The current minister’s mom was the deacon in the parish when we were there in the 1980’s. The current minister was a paramedic in Atlin for 25 years, retired and is now full time ministering there. She remembered the summer projects team and said there is a picture somewhere there of all of us with the fence. After that I decided it was time for a coffee and to start the road back. Who would know that in little Atlin I would find an absolutely exquisite coffee shop serving up a latte matched only by the view from their deck. Kershaw’s coffee is a little shop, decorated in antiques and has an interesting combination of feeling like an old time coffee shop but with a European flair. Their back deck looks over the lake and the mountains across it. If you look carefully you will also see a post on the road behind the coffee shop with a bird house on it, designed to look just like the front of the coffee shop. Finches need their caffeine too. Re-caffeinated I headed back to base camp up the highway, stopping for a few more pictures. I decided I would circle back through Carcross and through the local first nation which has an interpretive centre. Unforatunately I did not see a sign for it so apparently missed the turn and ended up just driving through the pretty trees until I landed back at Carcross, having missed it entirely. Oh well, I suppose I need to leave some thing for next time.
My last day of Southern Yukon adventuring was a bonus. I decided to stay one more night and take a day to head out to Haines Junction, another place we had been with Project Yukon. I debated heading to Beaver Creek, the last place we had gone. However, it is long way up the highway and a check with the local tourist info garnered the current road detail “they call it Destruction Bay for a reason”. So, I took a pass on that. There is not much at Beaver Creek. Ida’s motel is stilt there but I am pretty sure that the shack with the bed in the back that served as the local church/rectory is no longer there. I suspect that the 8 sided house built out of old telephone poles that we visited for dinner one night is there but not likely the same owner who might have thought it a little odd that some random woman from 40 years ago knocked on her door. On the way into town, I stopped at the Da Ku Cultural Centre, which shares space with the National Park office and tourism centre. It is a lovely centre with a lot of well presented history of the local Champagne and Aishihik people. One particularly nice feature is a map on the floor of the main room of the nations traditional territories which allowed a good visual of the traditional territories and the trading routes pre-colonization.
Haines Junction is the entrance to Kluane National Park. A site of hundreds of km of hiking and stunning scenery. I was not planning on heading out on any hikes as most of them are pretty backwoods and I am solo. However, I happened upon a white board in the tourist info that offered a hike with a local herbalist to learn about the local medicinal plants. It was her final one of the summer and if I boogied out to the trail head I could still catch them. A group of 5 of us spent a happy couple of hours wandering through the woods learning about all the edible and medicinal plants along the way. I still do not feel sufficiently confident to just munch my way through the woods but it was really interesting to hear about how many of the local plants are both healthy and some are tasty. She also talked about when each was best harvested and how they were prepared. The only issue was that I did not spray enough non-natural deet up my pantlegs and was eaten alive. Fortunately I have my little pink tub of the stuff for bug bites that I restocked up on in Chinatown at Barkerville earlier in the summer. After the hike I went out into the park to Kathleen Lake. This is a lovely lake with a mountain behind it called the King’s Throne. The King’s Throne is a popular 10 km hiking trail. I remember hiking it when we were there with Project Yukon. I also distinctly remember bribing myself up the loose shale slope with a jar of iced tea and a bag of gummy bears. Looking at it now… it would take a whole lot more than tea and gummy bears. I also remember that our fearless leader, the minister we were working with, had not left us enough time to get down, so we ended up bush whacking through buck brush back to the truck. I suspect that this was what led to my ongoing commitment to being sure I have copious extra time to get back from hikes before dark. The best I managed this trip was to walk along the lake, in a wind strong enough to nearly knock my substantial self over, to take a selfie with the mountain in the background. I went to see if I could find the church we worked at but did not see it. When I stopped at the tourist centre I found out that it had been replaced with a nice little log church, built by the parks staff person’s father. It now serves as both church and local arts hub. On the way out of town I drove back, found it and took a picture, and had a nice chat with a fellow installing beautiful new steps to the front of it. He declined to be in the photo but let his craftsmanship speak for itself.
Then it was back to Whitehorse to spend my final night in a hotel just out of town called Kaleido Lodge. I think it is owned by a Japanese company and clearly caters to Japanese tourists coming to see the Northern Lights. There are instructions in the room manual about the best way to see the lights, offers of hot chocolate to take out to the Tipi the have on the property and a request to keep ones blinds closed to minimize light bleed from the building. All the signs are in Japanese and English and when you arrive you are asked to remove your shoes, common in many places with dust and mud, but they have crocks style slip ons for you to wear in the house so that you don’t have bare feet or your nasty hiking socks inside either. It was a very comfortable large room and a fresh hot breakfast prepared individually. In the morning I met a woman over the coffee pot who, when she heard what I did for a living, said I had to meet her daughter who was travelling with her who had just finished a clinical psych masters in mental health and substance use and had an interest in forensics. We had a very interesting conversation about the US vs the Canadian approach to these things and I gave her my email to get in touch when she gets home. She was next headed to Prague before moving back to Alaska (or back to WA from AK?). I hope she does as it was a very interesting conversation and she is intending on continuing her research and it might be an interesting retirement project to look at some Can-Am research given how fast the field is developing at the moment.
So, there we have it, my Southern Yukon tour, Project Yukon revisited. Next we are headed East, down the rest of the Alaska Highway and on to Alberta… but more on that to come…