Whitehorse to Dawson City 335 Miles
Not much to tell about my time in
Whitehorse, mostly running around getting tires and updating the website. I got
everything done at about 7:00 that evening and Bridgette, the manager at the River
View Hotel we stayed at the night before welcomed us into her home and let us
sleep on futons she had in her finished basement.
We had a little helper the next morning as Gina, Bridgette’s daughter followed us around as we got ready. We made our way out of Whitehorse sometime after breakfast and got on the road, still cold and raining.
Of course we had beautiful scenery
on the way to Dawson City. The trees are starting to get smaller as we head
north and the rivers larger.
I wasn’t familiar with this landmark on the Yukon river on the way to dawson city. I stopped for this picture and a gentleman at the viewing stand filled me in on the history. Apparently in the 1800’s the miners had to navigate this treacherous section all the way to the left in the picture due to a large rock right in the middle of the river. If they didn’t make it to the left the rock would demolish the boat. Later when steamship’s wanted to come down river to Dawson city they blasted away the rock and now the middle is open.
The road to dawson had long stretches of gravel and I still wasn’t quite comfortable on the gravel with my bike. Many people liken it to riding on ball bearings and that, I think, is a fair assessment. The tracks where the cars have gone are usually firmer but when going over deeper sections the front end wants to wander around and it gives me a very uneasy out of control feeling. It reminds me of riding the deep sand roads in Baja on the way to Bahia de San Francisquito last Christmas.
We eventually arrived in dawson City and wandered around like a couple of tourists with cameras blazing. The city has historic routes as a gold mining boom town and has managed through the years to hold onto that as it’s grown.
One of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) came by on Horse back and posed for a few pics for the tourist.