What a whirlwind. It all started with dropping off Naomi and Leah in Skagway for their ocean kayak adventure and ends in Whitehorse, sitting in Canadian Tire waiting for an oil change and hoping they don't find anything pricey that "needs" fixing.
So Skagway is another Gold Rush town, this time it was more of a hoax than anything. Thousands of "miners" took to the oceans up to Skagway in hopes of striking it rich in Dawson. This involved carrying a ton of goods on the Chilkoot trail to a lake where they built small boats and braved rapids along the Yukon River and ending up in Dawson to find that there was actually no gold except for at the private mines. This went on for 2 years 1897 and 1898 and reading some of the diaries was pretty sad. These people quit their jobs around the States to come up here and spent thousands of dollars and some died on a 4 month journey to Dawson where most realized nothing was going on and headed back within a month. Some of the diaries kind of sound like mine.... Although their journey was much tougher. The RCMP required all miners to carry enough food and goods for a year. This equated to a Ton of supplies to be hiked over the Chilkoot pass.
I hiked the Chilkoot pass last week. Took 3 days, 2 nights, 53 kms starting at sea level and ended up over the tree line. It wasn't too difficult, but then again it is really popular today. I needed to buy a permit from the parks department and a train ticket back to skagway because they wouldn't let me hike to the highway from the end of the trail. $150 all together... Met lots of people on the trail as well, mostly older folk. A couple were struggling at 75 years young trying to make it. I hope they did. I met them just after the summit and they were struggling but the hardest part was over.
The image is of the Golden stairs, the toughest part of the hike. This was in April where there is still lots of snow. I did it in July where it was foggy and no snow. Lots of rock climbing which was fun though! I took a picture from a similar point and was hoping to compare to the olden days.
Anyways, with the gold rush over, it was back to Skagway for July 3rd and 4th. Skagway is a real small town that runs on Cruise ships stopping through. Everywhere you look you recognize someone you talked to previously, so had lots of conversations. Luckily, this group of Quebecers came up to me and asked for a bottle opener on the 3rd as we waited for the fireworks. We got to talking and I met this girl from Montreal, Jo, who wanted to head to Inuvit and then to Atlin before the end of the week. I had a vision a few hours earlier of heading to Inuvit and going for a swim in the ocean so I was super excited to be able to split the cost with someone. So after July 4th festivities where I hung out with this group from Quebec, we took off to Inuvit on July 5th. It was 2 hours to Whitehorse, 4 hours to Dawson, then another hour to our first stop, Tombstone park where we climbed a mountain, and enjoyed the treeless wonder of the land full of mountains and wildlife. Then another 600 km to Inuvit the next day. Inuvit is in the northwest of the NWT. The most northern town in Canada. There are more northern communities but none more than a few hundred people. Inuvit had 3000 inhabitants.
So we arrived at 3 am, the sun was shining, a chinese food restaurant was open so we ate. Set up camp amoung a cloud of mozzies and slept. The next day, hung out in the town and we met 2 guys that biked the highway up to Inuvit. I guess I should mention that the road to Inuvit is 700 km of rough gravel road. It took them 10 days to get up there. One guy, Ed from Colorado was going to bike back to Colorado. The other guy, Bastion? from Germany, was biking down to South America and starting in Inuvit but his bike was not going good and no one could repair it in Inuvit, so we gave him a ride back to Whitehorse. So after a huge drive up there, 1.5 days in town the 3 of us took off back down the Dempster highway. After about 100 km, there is a river crossing that requires a ferry. I got out of the car to stretch my legs and heard a hissing, the first flat tire. Well the tire was changed and the only place repair that flat tire was 100 km more down the road so we had it repaired there. Unfortunatly they did a horrible job and it was flat again within another 100 km. The spare had to be driven another 300 km to the next service station at Eagle Plains where the garage just closed at 10 pm, we arrived at 10:15. We went into the lounge for a beer and the mechanic was there and we got to talking and he repaired our tire after hours but we had to buy him a drink. Its all good though. So a repaired tire and the sun setting at midnight we took off for the rest of the way to Dawson where we arrived at 6 am, took a nap and then drove on down to Whitehorse.
So Skagway is another Gold Rush town, this time it was more of a hoax than anything. Thousands of "miners" took to the oceans up to Skagway in hopes of striking it rich in Dawson. This involved carrying a ton of goods on the Chilkoot trail to a lake where they built small boats and braved rapids along the Yukon River and ending up in Dawson to find that there was actually no gold except for at the private mines. This went on for 2 years 1897 and 1898 and reading some of the diaries was pretty sad. These people quit their jobs around the States to come up here and spent thousands of dollars and some died on a 4 month journey to Dawson where most realized nothing was going on and headed back within a month. Some of the diaries kind of sound like mine.... Although their journey was much tougher. The RCMP required all miners to carry enough food and goods for a year. This equated to a Ton of supplies to be hiked over the Chilkoot pass.
I hiked the Chilkoot pass last week. Took 3 days, 2 nights, 53 kms starting at sea level and ended up over the tree line. It wasn't too difficult, but then again it is really popular today. I needed to buy a permit from the parks department and a train ticket back to skagway because they wouldn't let me hike to the highway from the end of the trail. $150 all together... Met lots of people on the trail as well, mostly older folk. A couple were struggling at 75 years young trying to make it. I hope they did. I met them just after the summit and they were struggling but the hardest part was over.
The image is of the Golden stairs, the toughest part of the hike. This was in April where there is still lots of snow. I did it in July where it was foggy and no snow. Lots of rock climbing which was fun though! I took a picture from a similar point and was hoping to compare to the olden days.Anyways, with the gold rush over, it was back to Skagway for July 3rd and 4th. Skagway is a real small town that runs on Cruise ships stopping through. Everywhere you look you recognize someone you talked to previously, so had lots of conversations. Luckily, this group of Quebecers came up to me and asked for a bottle opener on the 3rd as we waited for the fireworks. We got to talking and I met this girl from Montreal, Jo, who wanted to head to Inuvit and then to Atlin before the end of the week. I had a vision a few hours earlier of heading to Inuvit and going for a swim in the ocean so I was super excited to be able to split the cost with someone. So after July 4th festivities where I hung out with this group from Quebec, we took off to Inuvit on July 5th. It was 2 hours to Whitehorse, 4 hours to Dawson, then another hour to our first stop, Tombstone park where we climbed a mountain, and enjoyed the treeless wonder of the land full of mountains and wildlife. Then another 600 km to Inuvit the next day. Inuvit is in the northwest of the NWT. The most northern town in Canada. There are more northern communities but none more than a few hundred people. Inuvit had 3000 inhabitants.
So we arrived at 3 am, the sun was shining, a chinese food restaurant was open so we ate. Set up camp amoung a cloud of mozzies and slept. The next day, hung out in the town and we met 2 guys that biked the highway up to Inuvit. I guess I should mention that the road to Inuvit is 700 km of rough gravel road. It took them 10 days to get up there. One guy, Ed from Colorado was going to bike back to Colorado. The other guy, Bastion? from Germany, was biking down to South America and starting in Inuvit but his bike was not going good and no one could repair it in Inuvit, so we gave him a ride back to Whitehorse. So after a huge drive up there, 1.5 days in town the 3 of us took off back down the Dempster highway. After about 100 km, there is a river crossing that requires a ferry. I got out of the car to stretch my legs and heard a hissing, the first flat tire. Well the tire was changed and the only place repair that flat tire was 100 km more down the road so we had it repaired there. Unfortunatly they did a horrible job and it was flat again within another 100 km. The spare had to be driven another 300 km to the next service station at Eagle Plains where the garage just closed at 10 pm, we arrived at 10:15. We went into the lounge for a beer and the mechanic was there and we got to talking and he repaired our tire after hours but we had to buy him a drink. Its all good though. So a repaired tire and the sun setting at midnight we took off for the rest of the way to Dawson where we arrived at 6 am, took a nap and then drove on down to Whitehorse.
Sounds like a pretty boring story but it was exciting.... I think pictures will help but I don't have my camera with me....
Anyways, the next stop is Atlin in Northwestern BC where a music festival starts today until sunday, and then on to Dawson where another music festival happens next weekend. Hopefully I can volunteer or something and get a free ticket...
Sorry this was such a long post.... I had time to write so I wrote.... I think pictures would help... But as for myself, I am feeling good, feeling excited for the next corner on the road. There is nowhere else I'd rather be except for maybe in the woods, by a lake, frying up a trout.... But one can dream can't they? I am itching a little bit to get into the woods and hike some more but it has been tough to find good trails up here. I think people just make their own trails but I don't feel comfortable yet doing that by myself. So it is on to the open road for now on to enjoy some music. Look forward to hearing from ya!
