Driving from Dawson City to Tok, Alaska
Another day in Dawson would be wonderful – there’s just so much to see and do. But by 09:15 yesterday morning we were on the little ferry George Black, crossing the Yukon River and saying good-bye to The City of Gold.
About 4 km up the Top of the World Highway is a wide shoulder where I always stop to take advantage of the great views of Dawson, and of the mouth of the Klondike River, seen in this photo. The views are much smaller than they were when I started doing this 22 years ago due to trees growing and blocking much of the city view in particular
The interpretive viewpoint for the Fortymile caribou herd has recently been destroyed by some moron with a big gun. The distant view is of the Yukon River, looking upriver.
At the rest stop at Km 86 a family of Canada jays (Perisoreus canadensis, a.k.a. grey jays or whiskyjacks) kept us amused for a few minutes. It’s common whereever these birds encounter people a lot that they will eat out of your hand like this 🙂
We had seen a few small patches of the unique Arctic cotton grass up the Dome Road and I’d told the group about a large field of it that grows alongside the Top of the World. Our timing was perfect and the plants were in prime condition.
Eriophorum callitrix needs very wet soil to grow – it’s mostly seen in ditches.
I’d heard about planking and have seen a large planking Web site but had never seen anyone do it. Our escort, Jo, is an avid practitioner, and showed us how it’s done at the last rest area. Here she is adding to her collection at the summit of the Top of the World.
Not perfect form, but high points for enthusiasm!
Melody said that this was her first plank ever, but she made it look like she’s been doing it for a long time. Planking is silly enough that I need to try it in private somewhere 🙂
The summit is a great place to see some unusual flower species such as the alpine harebell (Campanula lasiocarpa). We were all so focussed on the ground at our feet that it’s hard to say how long this herd of caribou had been watching us!
Most definitely a “Kodak moment”! While the bulls kept a close eye on us, the cows seemed to be completely unconcerned by our presence.
It took us almost an hour and a half (!!) to get across the border into Alaska at Poker Creek. I’ve had the visitor visa processing take that long before, but only with much larger groups.
The the Davis Dome Wayside, Jo borrowed a ladder from the driver of a service truck parked there so she could add this difficult plank. She said that the top of the sign was not nearly as wide as she’d thought it would be 🙂
The “Welcome to Alaska” sign is the perfect place for a group photo. I took photos with each person’s own camera, and the service truck driver then obliged us by taking a photo with me in it – in the centre, trying to crouch a bit so as to not block the sign 🙂
Our very late lunch stop was made at Chicken. My regular readers will know from my trip to Chicken on my motorcycle in June that I love this country, and with great food and lots of character, the Chicken Gold Camp makes an excellent stopping point for groups.
Mike is always adding new stuff – this huge metalwork chicken (he’s over 8 feet tall) wasn’t here on my last visit.
We reached the Westmark Tok hotel at about 4:30. It’s a funny modular structure that zig-zags all over. The room blocks have pleasant courtyards like this one.
This is my room, 233.
The lobby is comfortable enough but I sure do wish that Westmark would put wi-fi to the rooms instead of just the lobbies of their hotels.
We had dinner as a group at the hotel (okay food, great company), then I went out and fueled and washed the bus to be ready for today’s drive to Fairbanks.
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