A lot of water and mud gets thrown up onto the underside of the fifth wheel. The front compartment is leaking a bit as a result:
I’ve added monster-sized mud flaps, hopefully that will help:
After the mud flap installation, we drove into downtown and visited the MacBride Museum of Yukon History. The museum had an impressive collection of native animals:
Sam McGee’s cabin was also on site. Robert Service, a bank teller at the time, met Sam and asked to use his name in the now-famous poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee.
Old stagecoaches that used to travel between towns during the gold rush:
Is this a compliment?
This is the first electric generator that served the area. Pressurized water was shot into the cups on the left, which turned the generator:
Tourist fun:
White Pass, makers of the first shipping containers:
A local freight train:
Back at the RV, we spoke to the driver of this contraption, a 24 passenger tour bus with 24 sleeping births in the back. The hallway for the sleeping births slides out on the passenger side, and the passengers find their birth and climb a ladder if necessary to get in. Looks a little tight to me, but it’s pretty neat:
Before dinner, I finally got around to pulling out the over-range microwave oven and installing in its place a medicine cabinet door salvaged from the bathroom remodel:
Behold, over-range storage:
Despite encouraging the kids to not play with their food….
We hope to get an early start tomorrow, visit the SS Klondike, and then head North.
Today I shopped at the hardware and auto parts store, caught up on Quicken, and did some other work. The kids did homeschool and experimented with soap breaking surface tension in milk with food coloring floating on top:
Tomorrow we hope to take in some Whitehorse sights before heading North.
This morning, we had indeed caught mouse #2 in a trap. We disposed of his body and continued North on the Cassiar Highway.
After a bit, we reached Jade City. Most of Canada’s sizeable jade exports are mined within 50 miles of here. We stopped in to see the wide selection of Canada-mined, Chinese-crafted jade pieces for sale here. There was a sign saying that a reality TV series called “Jade City” is being filmed here. The things people will watch…
We stopped at Boya Lake Provincial Park to fill up our water tank. We wanted to do a bit of hiking and fishing, but it was raining so we kept driving. As we continued North, the Cassiar became more difficult to drive due to frost heaving. We have seen five bears so far today!
At last we passed the “Welcome to Yukon Territory” sign and shortly thereafter we reached the end of the Cassiar Highway. We turned left onto the AlCan, heading West.
After a bit we had to stop for road construction. A new layer of chipseal was being laid down:
We followed the pilot car and saw the oil being sprayed to accept to the chipseal gravel:
We stopped in Teslin and filled up on comparatively cheap $1.51 per liter diesel, had lunch, and were able to use our cell phone for the first time since we turned on to the Cassiar Highway. The drive to Whitehorse was plenty scenic:
At last we arrived in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. The Walmart parking lot had over 100 RVs parked in it, so we drove a couple blocks to “The Real Canadian Superstore”, which looks to be a green version of Walmart. We are the only RV in the lot, and the WiFi from the nearby A&W is quite good.
We’re above 60 degrees North latitude, and when we went to sleep at 1AM, it was still light enough to read outside. It never gets dark enough to see the stars here this time of year.
Again, just before bed, B spotted a THIRD mouse in the RV, so we will again set out traps. Grr!
See the trip map for driving details and our current location.
On Saturday, we met Nigel and Sandra of Doin’NotDreamin’, who camped next to us at Clements Lake. Last night, Sunday, we returned to Clements Lake, and found that they had returned here as well. They had attempted to get up to the Salmon Glacier with their Class C motorhome but had to turn back when the road became to narrow. This morning they headed out a bit before us, and we figured we would both stay at the same camping area at the North end of Dease Lake.
Another cloudy morning on Clements Lake:
I headed back into town to buy diesel and mouse traps. I also visited the visitor center and picked up brochures for the next leg of our trip. Maybe it’s because of the permafrost that gas station fuel tanks are all above ground in this part of Canada?
We drove back out towards the Cassiar Highway, once again passing amazing views. A hanging glacier is just visible in the saddle at the skyline:
I couldn’t help stopping again at Bear Glacier:
Heading North of the Cassiar Highway, we lived by the rule of “don’t pass gas” and stopped at every available gas station. They were 100 to 200 miles apart, and prices got up to $1.67 per liter, which is $6.35 a gallon. I tried not to think about it too much.
After the first 100 miles, the Cassiar becomes a narrow chipseal road with no center line. At one point, we passed by a herd of horses next to and on the road:
Around 8pm, we reached Sawmill Point Recreation Site on the North end of Dease Lake, another free Forestry Service campground. The temperatures are pleasant, but the mosquitoes are getting worse and worse as we head North. Nigel and Sandra must have stopped somewhere else:
There are some interesting folks in this lonely corner of the world. One RV overnighting here had a wood stove installed in it, complete with chimney coming out the side of the RV.
As we went to bed, we spotted a mouse in the RV. So much for the hope that the mouse we saw last night had run out before this morning. We set out the traps we bought in Stewart and hoped for the best (from our perspective).
Shabbos was interesting at this latitude. Shabbos started at 10:30pm on Friday, but because of the shallow angle of the Sun relative to the horizon at sunset, Shabbos didn’t end until 12:16am on Sunday.
Friday night we heard something moving around in the basement, and we were pretty sure we had a mouse in the RV. In an RV with slides, there are gaps where the hydraulic pistons that actuate the slides enter the undercarriage of the RV. There’s nothing that can be done about this, as the gap is needed to allow the piston to move freely. In cold, wet places, I guess mice smell the food and get up into the RV to find food and somewhere warm and dry to hang out.
Saturday afternoon, around 9pm, we heard the mouse under the kitchen island. Shortly thereafter, he went running across the floor. By blocking off various doors and openings, we were able to get him to jump out of an open door. After Shabbos was over, we set traps in case he came back. This morning, we had caught him in one of our traps. I guess he couldn’t resist coming back in again.
This morning, before we left Clements Lake, I built a cowling for the WiFi Antenna. I had purchased the tub a week ago, but it took this long to find the time to get it installed. This will protect the cell antenna and the WiFi antenna’s center column from being damaged by low hanging branches:
I also finished adding the gas plumbing that allows our catalytic heater to be used in the new RV:
I added a quick release inline with the gas supply under the stove top:
When the catalytic heater’s hose is attached, the hose runs out from under the stove top:
Heading West, we arrived after 10 miles at the town of Stewart, BC. There’s no cell phone coverage anywhere in this area, but we did find WiFi at the local general store:
Continuing West, we crossed out of BC and into Alaska’s Southern panhandle at the three-block town of Hyder, Alaska. We’ve made it to Alaska!
Following Fish Creek, we pulled off into an observation area for watching bears feeding on migrating salmon. Unfortunately, the salmon won’t start running for another few weeks, which might explain why we seem to have beat the crowds here. We didn’t see any bears, but we did see plenty of great views of the river and surrounding terrain:
We continued North onto Granduc Road, following the Salmon Glacier self guided auto tour. The road was gravel and precipitous, but we could see the Salmon River far below as well as a glacial kettle, the blue-water pool seen here:
After 15 miles of driving North, we crossed back into Canada. 5 miles of further driving up to about 3,700 feet above sea level, we reached the Salmon Glacier, Canada’s 5th largest glacier:
On the way back down, we stopped to look at the part of the glacier that is lower down and not covered by snow. The blue ice of the glacier is more evident here:
By now the truck has taken on its Alaska two-tone paint job:
Here’s the terminal end of the glacier:
Returning to Hyder, we crossed back into Canada. The border guard gave us quite an interrogation, which was amusing since the only way into and out of Hyder is via this crossing, so obviously we’ve already been vetted the first time we came into Canada.
Hitching back up in Stewart, BC, we had dinner:
We tried to fill up at the one gas station in town, but it was closed for the night. We have enough gas to get to the next gas station on the Cassiar, about 100 miles away, but not enough to get to the next one if that station is out of action, so we will return to Stewart tomorrow to fill up before heading back to the Cassiar highway. Since Stewart itself is posted as having no overnight parking, we left Stewart. Driving out of town, we didn’t see any pullouts where we could park overnight until we reached Clements Lake, where we were last night.
As I was writing this post, I saw a mouse go running by. I’m not sure if we just picked this one up since we’ve been parked here, or maybe he’s been with us since Shabbos. I put out the traps again, and hopefully we will catch him overnight.
See the trip map for today’s drive and out current location.
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