Dawson City to Takhini Hot Springs

Wow, it's been a lot of miles since I last posted!  I spent a couple of days in Dawson City, the premier city of the Alaska gold rush (before Nome had a strike), then a night near Whitehorse at a hot springs (a very nice afternoon!) and now I'm in Skagway.

Let's see, Dawson City – the best word for that is colorful.  It's that not only in character (which it is in spades) but also visually. I have never seen so many pink and purple and turquoise and coral and yellow and blue and green houses, all with a second color (not usually white) for the trim.  It seems it's a law in Dawson City that they have to be that way, and it sure makes for a happy, cheerful city. Only the main street is paved, all the rest are dirt, and it rained while I was there, and the streets turned to mud.  Yuck – what a mess it made of my car. It was so bad I washed it myself when I got back to the campground, and I've NEVER washed my car myself (that's what car washes are for, right?!)

Colorful in a different way...

The people are also very colorful, in that they are personable, fun to talk to, and often live lifestyles that would seem "odd" to us.  One of the tour guides talked about how she spent her first two years in Dawson living in a tent on a hillside on the west bank of the Yukon. There are no services there – no water, electricity, gas, phone, sewer…..and she still lives there, although now in a cabin (with a 3 year old).  She has an outhouse, carries water in 5 gallon jerry cans, and there is now cell phone service on that side of the river. I can hardly imagine what that would be like (of course, that's the life I've led for the last 6 weeks, sort of….)

To get to Dawson City from the campground where I stayed I had to take a ferry.  There is no bridge across the river, but the ferry is free – provided by the city.  You can get about 8 cars at a time on the ferry, and if one of them is a big RV, that count goes down drastically. I was told that over the July 1 holiday (Canadian Independence Day) the wait was 2 ½ hours to get across the river!

I did a walking tour of the city where the guide told stories of unusual characters, like the madam who had a going concern up until the 1960's (and she showed us the "cribs" where the ladies of the evening worked), and about a drink called the Sourtoe Cocktail, that is a shot of liquor with a toe in it.  There is a legend that goes along with it, but there is also a club of the people who have actually had one of these. In order to be a member, when you drink the shot, the toe has to touch your lips. No, I didn't join that one…. Like I said, Dawson City is very colorful!

Dawson Main Street

One of many little gardens

Robert Service, the poet, did some of his writing here, and I got to see his cabin. It's very small, and very spare, but it was kind of fun to see where he worked. There is a Jack London cabin here too, but although I saw the outside, I didn't go in.

Another author whose books I have read is Sue Henry. She also writes about Alaska, but her main character is a woman who raises and races sled dogs. One of her books is about a sled dog race, similar to the Iditarod, called the Yukon Quest. The road south from Dawson follows the route of this race, and I wanted to see it also, so I spent a day driving it. It was fun to see the places mentioned in the book, and to watch the rivers and lakes. Boy, there are a lot of them.  This one was particularly pretty, and the young man who took my picture was fun to talk to. 

5 Finger Rapids on the Yukon River

My goal that night was somewhere close to Whitehorse, so that today would be an easy trip into Skagway. As I read about the route in the Milepost, I saw a mention of Takhini Hot Springs, and thought that's it – that's where I'm going to spend the night. I got in mid-afternoon, and spent a delightful couple of hours soaking in the springs, getting all the dust and mud of the Top of the World and Dawson City off me. That and cool weather made for a really good sleep last night!

Takhini Hot Springs (the pools are behind the fence)

Today has all been 1898 gold rush history, the Chilcoot trail, and the effects on Skagway.  Tomorrow (Sunday) I'm taking the train from Skagway to the top of White Pass, another of the routes to the gold fields of the Yukon. So I'll combine those two days tomorrow (or Monday)…story to be continued!

Cooking breakfast the last morning in Dawson City.