Heading Further North to the Yukon (July 14th)

While in Skagway, we rented a car to take the road trip up into Canada's Yukon Territory, with Whitehorse being our end goal.  It was a leisurely and beautiful drive, in relatively decent weather, although visibility was not great for much of our day.  We had some rain showers throughout the afternoon, but nothing terrible.

Before leaving Skagway however, we did some exploring around to include the abandoned mining camp at Dyea in hopes of seeing bears.  But alas, not much to see.  The heat wave throughout Alaska during our first two weeks there, really played havoc on the wildlife (and humans) activity levels.

It was funny to hear the locals complain of how hot it was when temps were in the mid to high 70's.  David & I thought it was perfect, although at night, our motel rooms were often pretty warm. Nothing was air conditioned so it was open windows and maybe an oscillating fan.

After about an hour of looking around town, we headed north.  Skagway is one of the two SE Alaska towns with road access up into Canada.  Many people drive into one of these two port communities to pick up the AK Marine Ferry to then venture further along the Inside Passage to ports like Juneau and Ketchikan.

The landscape was very different than what we had seen in Alaska.  The forest gave way to high tundra like scrappy bushes and small kettle-like ponds and lakes.  We really expected to see bears on the drive, but alas NOTHING.  Some of the tourists we ran into later in the day said they had seen both black and brown bears.

Carcross is a point along the way were many of the cruise operators out of Skagway take folks.  Often their tours will include riding the White Pass Railroad train up and then busing back or vice versa.  They've even developed a little tourist stop area with local artist exhibits, shops and public restrooms.  Again, I was pretty happy we were driving it at our own pace with time to do what we wanted and where.  A yummy ice cream cone at the local general store in Carcross was delightful.

Heading north out of Carcross we passed by the Carcross Desert!  Who knew?  Considered the smallest desert in the world, it is just about one square mile in size.  It sure seemed out of place there.

When we made it up to Whitehorse, we first checked to see if they had any bowling centers in town.  (I know, big surprise!)  Being the size it was, it looked to be big enough to support one and sure enough there is one, but it wasn't open on Sundays.  Oh well.

Moving on, we made a stop at the SS Klondike National Historic Site, located right along the Yukon River.   Used to run freight the Yukon River, the sternwheelers were active from 1929 to 1950. This particular ship was the second bearing the name SS Klondike.

Because it was pretty late in the afternoon, just before closing time, we didn't take the self guided tour, but rather, used the time to get out and stretch out legs and take in the short video at the visitor center.  It was weird to watch it with french subtitles!

After our time in Whitehorse, we headed back down to Alaska.  There was a pretty decent storm come through, that really cooled things down.  It was nice to have the dusty roads dampened to keep the road dirt down.

Other than taking a rock to the windshield early in the day, we had a really nice time.  We've still have not heard back from Avis to find out if they will be repairing or replacing the windshield, or how much it will cost.  It's been a few weeks since we got home, so maybe we won't hear anything more about it.

The views throughout our day's drive were really very pretty.  When we first drove by this turnout heading north, it was crowded with two motor coaches and their passengers.  On the way back, we had the place to ourselves!