Four Nights at Drury Creek Campground on Little Salmon Lake
The final stop on our 14-day wander around the Yukon was Drury Creek Campground on Little Salmon Lake. We spent 4 nights there, from August 2nd until the 6th, and made a couple of drives to explore more of Faro, as well as shorter drives to explore other places.
Driving east on the Robert Campbell Highway from Carmacks, I was worried that things may have changed since my last visit to Drury Creek Campground, and we wouldn’t be able to get a good campsite. I was quite shocked to find the campground empty, except for one site, #10, the one I had camped at the week previous. While my initial plan had been to take site #10 again, site #8, the first one on the left in the first photo, looked great.
As soon as I parked the rig, I let Bella and Tucker out, and they were in the water immediately. The word “beach” gets Tucker excited, and his new-found excitement about water is fun to watch. By the time I had our campsite set up, Bella was the one still playing in the water.
I took the next photo with my phone so I could post it on Facebook when I went into Faro the next day.
Although it doesn’t look like it in the next photo, it was still very warm – probably about 26°C (79°F). Having a bit of cloud move in wasn’t unwelcome.
That afternoon, the dogs and I took a drive to see a couple of places further east along the highway. The first was a rest area at the junction of the highway and Mitchell Road, which leads to Faro.
Then we drove 5 km back to the Fisheye Lake recreation area.
Fisheye Lake with its dock, change rooms, outhouses, and small sandy beach, looked like a nice place to spend a hot day. There apparently used to be a campground here, though I couldn’t find where it was.
Looking back at the beach and changing-house from the end of the dock. The small waves were making the dock rock enough that neither Bella or Tucker were very happy about being asked to go out on it.
Up the road from the beach, a sign pointed down to a boat launch and picnic area. Like some other lakes I saw in the region, Fisheye Lake was much higher than normal, and access to the picnic area was underwater.
Back on the beach at Drury Creek Campground at 5:40 pm.
The view down Little Salmon Lake from the beach in front of my campsite.
By 8:00 pm, smoke from one or more of the wildfires burning moved in and added some colour to the sky.
Tucker and I spent much of Friday, August 3rd, exploring more of Faro, but I’ll tell you about that in my next post. As I got near the campground that evening, wildfire smoke appeared again, and by the time I got to the campground at 5:40 pm, it was scary thick. I sent Cathy a text via the satellite capabilities of my inReach – she checked the fire reports and replied that she couldn’t see anything in our area.
When Tucker and I went to Faro, Bella and Molly had gotten left behind in the motorhome because of the heat. Bella was happy to get back onto the beach when we returned.
After she got off work Friday evening, Cathy made the 297-km, 3½-hour drive north to join us. We were treated to a very colourful sunset – the next photo was shot at 9:10 pm.
On Saturday morning, the wildfire smoke had cleared, and there were some very interesting clouds to the east.
Cathy and I went into Faro for a look around on Saturday, but it was mostly a quiet day of just enjoying this wonderful place, and playing with the dogs. The lake was warm enough that I even went swimming. Having seen the photo I posted on Facebook, a friend from Whitehorse drove her motorhome up, and was able to get campsite #9 beside us.
After dinner, 4 loons joined us.
By 9:00 pm it had gotten windy and started raining, so we moved inside the RV.
Bella was okay with moving inside – it was past her preferred bedtime anyway 🙂
The weather had improved on Sunday morning – the next photo shows what our combined campsite looked like.
Cathy and I drove down to the Little Salmon Lake Campground for a look. As it had been when I was there a week previous, it was quite busy. The Drury Creek Campground was a better choice for us.
Cathy had to return to Whitehorse Sunday evening, and after she left, the rain returned. For a while, it came down in buckets!
On Monday morning, it was still raining. Shortly after breakfast, I started back towards Whitehorse, while our friend planned to move to Faro to camp for another day or two.
My plan had been to explore the Frenchman Lake Road and see the 3 campgrounds along it. I stopped at the Columbian Disaster rest area and unhooked the Tracker to do that, but as I was loading dogs and gear, the rain got heavier. I decided to wait for a while and see if it improved, but by noon I had given up and was heading for home. The final photo was shot on the Robert Campbell Highway as we neared Carmacks.
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