Alaska to Colorado: Dawson City to Watson Lake

This part of the Yukon, Northwestern Alaska and Siberia is known as Beringia.  During the Ice Age, glaciers covered much of the northern hemisphere and this is the area formed by melted water at the glacial margin.  Eventually, the sea level dropped making possible the Bering Land Bridge which helped to disperse flora and fauna, as well as humans.  11,000 years ago it was submerged again.

This is the remains of an old roadhouse where stage coaches stopped with
their passengers for a night.  The drivers were called Skinners.  The early
stage drivers faced flooded paths, raging rivers, snow and ice.  Many of the
passengers learned to carry rum with them to keep the drivers happy while
they drove them to their various destinations in this very wild land.

We had a leisurely drive through Carmacks along the Yukon River.  We decided to stop at Lake Laberge, which is formed by a 30 mile section of the Yukon known as a Canadian Heritage River.  It was originally settled by the Athabaskans as it was rich in wildlife.  It eventually became a trading site for the natives who traded their winter furs for fish oils, seaweed and shells from the Tlingits (Pronounced Clingits) from the Pacific Coast.  The campground was very small, with only two sites that had incredible views. We managed to snag one of them.  If the weather had been nicer, we may have stayed a few more days.

We met an interesting man from Kugluktuk who does weather and air traffic control.  I wondered what these people do far north of us!  From Lake Laberge, we headed down the road a short distance to spend a night at the Takhini Hot Springs.  We took turns as Boo was not allowed in, of course.  It was delightfully relaxing.  Boy, we sure do miss our hot tub!

Love this picture of a cold day in the hot springs

We saw these female elk lazing about while a male somewhere was bugling
like crazy!

I woke up to frost everywhere I looked. It was 34 degrees at 9 am.  We drove through gorgeous black spruce forests with red and green fall grasses.  Unfortunately it was pouring rain and freezing and fortunately not much traffic.  We boondocked halfway between Teslin and Watson Lake on the Yukon.  We headed towards Whitehorse, where we had our last halibut and chips of the trip.

This restaurant was originally a mail and freight business.  Before 1921
only first class mail was delivered in winter.  The rest waited here until
the ice broke up and the steamers could sail (usually May).  It closes today
until Mother's Day.  These Yukoners are mighty tough-the winters get
down to 40 below zero!

Next we visited the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Center. Here, there are exhibits which explore the lives and experiences of native peoples of the Yukon.  The Kwanlin Dun have two clans, the Wolf and the Crow, as shown by the art work at the entrance and throughout the art work inside.

There was a large canoe in the entrance and these paddles
which were the result of a project called the healing
canoe.  The purpose was to reconnect young adults to their
culture.  A local man took 19 kids who were struggling with
various addictions to an island near Lake Laberge to create
the canoe and paddles which took 10 weeks.  Half the
participants are addiction-free today.

This was a commissioned piece of art which represents
the incomplete lives of women who have gone missing
or murdered.  It is meant to celebrate Indigenous
female resiliency.

We spent some time in Whitehorse, dumping, getting water, propane, groceries and wine.  We took off hoping to stop for gifts at George Johnson but it closed at five sharp, as did the cultural center in Teslin.  We arrived at 5:05!  Oh, well-saved some moolah!  The drive was again astonishingly beautiful, despite the rainy, cloudy weather.

We continued down toward British Columbia, crossing the Continental Divide along the Rancheria River.  We felt so sorry that we had to push on as there were so many gorgeous spots we would have liked to stay along this section of the Alcan.

As early as 1930 President Hoover was considering an overland route to Alaska from the lower 48.  When the Pearl Harbor bombing took place in 1941, the construction of the highway became a military necessity as a supply road to defend North America against the Japanese.  Amazingly, the road was completed eight months after construction began in March of 1942.  More than 11,000 American troops including 7 regiments of engineers and 16,000 civilian workmen were involved.  It was a herculean task of penetrating 1500 miles of mountains, muskeg and mosquitoes.  It was a difficult, painstaking life for all involved.  Fatigue, hypothermia and accidents plaqued the workers.  They set down eight miles of road a day, seven days a week.  Road conditions at first were horrific:  90 degree turns, washouts, drainage problems and 25% grades and  it was little more than a rough trail. Today, the road is pretty amazing, if flawed.  There are problems with permafrost which makes the road heave in places;  there are virtually no services until you hit the very few major towns and there are potholes everywhere.  We were surprised that there were hardly any road crews working on the roads, though there are plenty of gravelly areas where they have been.

 Some memorabilia of the Alcan Highway in Watson Lake:

The biggest disappointment of the trip (besides not seeing Denali) was that the Northern Lights Centre was closed on weekends.  However, we stopped at the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake where travelers have left more than 85,000 signs to the collection.  It is now a Yukon historic site.