Driving from Whitehorse to Dawson City
After the spectacular weather we had yesterday, the cool-and-cloudy I got up to yesterday morning wasn’t a nice sight, but it was easy to see that it was much better weather for the long driving day ahead.
We left the Westmark Whitehorse hotel at 09:00, made a short stop at the Montague Roadhouse to see what life along the road to Dawson was like a century ago, then continued on to Carmacks, where we stopped for lunch at the Coal Mine Campground.
This is an excellent stop for groups – lots of room, a view of the Yukon River, and who can complain about a very good Swiss mushroom burger for $7.95? 🙂
Our stop at the Five Finger Rapids viewpoint was very short due to very heavy rain, but everyone braved the elements for a quick look! Five Finger Rapids was the main navigation hazard on the Yukon River for the early steamboats in particular, and the viewpoint offers a beautiful high vantage point.
The rain showers got more and more frequent as we proceeded north, but we reached the viewpoint over the Pelly River and the tiny village of Pelly Crossing just before 2:00, between showers.
The view down to the Pelly River and the bridge we’d just crossed.
I’ve always enjoyed Moose Creek Lodge – wonderful people serving excellent food at a place that has real character.
There are two spots on the highways of the North that bring on a big smile way down deep – one is the bridge over the Klondike River as you enter Dawson City from the south, the other is the Arctic Circle crossing on the Dempster Highway. I love Dawson (!) and even after 200+ times making that approach to Dawson, the smile still appears 🙂
We’re in Westmark / Holland America hotels for this entire trip except for the final 2 nights in Anchorage. Our home for the 2 nights in Dawson is the Westmark Dawson, by far the largest hotel in town – this is room 444 in the Jack London building.
Everyone was on their own for dinner last night and I made a few suggestions on the orientation tour before going to the hotel. The escort, Jo Walker, and I went to highly regarded Drunken Goat for a Greek dinner, and I now agree that it’s one of if not the best restaurant in town.
Four of us met by chance in the small lobby (I was there because it’s the only place in the hotel that has wi-fi!) and chatted until after 10:30. For everyone in the group, this is the first experience with a day that has no night – even 3 weeks after the longest day, it still doesn’t get truly dark.
We’ll spend today exploring Dawson and the goldfields – that will probably be a very long post 🙂
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