Updates for Aug 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th

Aug 13th.
It was a cloudy start to what turned out to be a beautiful day. We got up with the intention of Tim and Barbara taking us up to Hatcher Pass and the Independence Gold Mine. So we started out and the further along we got the cloudier and foggier it got. So we decided to stop at the Mine and see what we could see. About the time we got there the clouds started lifting a little bit. It has been abandoned since 1951 and much of the mine working buildings are a bunch of broken boards. Some of the bunkhouses, administration buildings and the mine manger’s house have been or are being restored. There was a short trail with signs explaining how the mine worked, that was very interesting and informative. This mine was dug into the mountain (25 miles of tunnels) and crushed the rock to get the gold out.
After leaving the mine we decided to go ahead and go to the top of Hatcher Pass. It was cold and blustery up there, but the clouds were up enough we could see pretty well. Leaving there we headed back to Palmer, as Richard was expected for supper. We spent an enjoyable evening just visiting.

Aug 14th. Said goodbye to Tim, Barbara and Ben and spent the morning running errands in Wasilla, one town over. My computer battery finally bit the dust so had to buy a new one. Dale looked at motorcycle jackets and we gassed up and got groceries. We were finally on the road north by 12:30 PM making a couple of stops at the Matanuska Glacier. Near here the trip odometer turned over 7,000 miles. We were on the Richardson Hwy back to Glenallen, up to Tok where we spent the night at the Sourdough campground. This was the same stretch of highway we came to Palmer on and we were expecting about ½ of it to be full of rough road repairs. We were very pleasantly surprised. I do not know how they fixed the repairs so well, but for the most part the gravel was worked into the oil (this we kind of expected from the traffic and they may sweep the loose gravel off) and the repairs were fairly smooth. Not the washboard, pot holes, humps, dust and flying rocks with the 35 mph speed limits that were too fast in some cases, that we had experienced on our way in. After leaving the Matanuska Valley we did have a few frost heaves. Another pleasant surprise was the snow covered mountains in the distance. It had been cloudy enough on the prior trip that we had not even seen those neat mountains. Combined it made for a much nicer drive. On the stretch up to Tok we saw our Moose!! Dale was so excited. It was a cow with a calf chomping away in a slough. Of course no place to pull off safely, so I just ran back up the road for some pictures, while he stayed with the camper.

Aug 15th, Gassed up at Tok. At Tetlin Junction we took off north on Hwy 5 to Chicken AK and on to Dawson City in the Yukon. Pretty drive with the road being gravel off and on. The town of Chicken is off the grid (ie they have to produce their own electricity). Not much there except a general store of sorts, a restaurant that was closed for a few days and lots of old machinery. We looked around a bit then continued on our way to find a good place for lunch. We pulled off at a large rest stop that had a picnic table under a pavilion down by the river. While eating there, we saw a large convoy of what looked like army reserves or guard go by in kind of old vehicles. All in all we thought there were about 100 vehicles and were wondering why they had such old looking vehicles. The last few turned in at our rest area, as one of them had a problem. In talking to one of the ladies we found out it was a recreation of a WWII convoy that had traveled the road during WWII in and in honor of the 70th anniversary of the road. It was a combined effort of US, Canada, Great Britain and a couple of other countries and these people had brought their old WWII armed forces equipment to do this reenactment. The lady I was talking to said there were 120 vehicles in all and her husband was one of the mechanics so they were last in line. There was one jeep on a trailer, as it had rolled over. I’m glad we were not on the road with them coming at us, as there would have been too much dust and the road was a somewhat narrow mountain road in that area. We picked an excellent time for lunch.

The next section of road was called the Top of the World road and most of the time it looked like we were at the top of the world. It went on for over 50 miles and we were just driving from one ridge to another and around the top (at least near the top) of one mountain to the next. There was lots of beautiful scenery with much of the drive above the tree line. Most of the time you could see probably a 100 miles in the distance one way or another and sometimes you could look that far to the right or left from the same spot. The road was gravel and a little rough, but the traffic was light so we took our time and enjoyed the views. We also saw a black bear on this stretch.

We continued on our way crossing the Canadian border about 3 PM. Arrived in Dawson City via the free ferry across the Yukon River. We camped for the night at a RV Park right in town so we could walk around the area.

Aug 16th. We had decided the night before to take 3 different tours. The first one was a story tour that took us to reproductions of an old bank, saloon and post office, as well as telling about the girls of ill repute and the natives. The young lady giving the walking tour was named Marie and she was delightful and loved to act a bit. She was in period costume and had a bit of an accent, but both Dale and I could understand her pretty well. She took us to various places around town and had a story that went with each place. Really fun. She lives back across the Yukon and off the grid using a generator and solar powered batteries for electricity. We only had 8 people on that tour, so it was easy to ask questions and joke around.

The second tour of the morning was a tour of the Grand Palace Theater with Marie again being our guide. This was a reproduction of a theater that had been in existence during the gold rush days. It brought big name acts from all over the world and helped Dawson City to be known as the “Paris of the North”. This was a much larger group. She had all of us ladies come up on stage and the guys were in the audience. She slapped a few costumes on some of us and then told us what all went on in the Theater and how it worked. She put a bustier on me, but put it on backwards!! (Yes, over my clothes!) After that we got to go up where the box seats were and on to the back where some of the “girls” lived in rooms.

Our third tour was at the #4 old dredge. It was a huge machine (8 stories high and 2/3 of a football field long) that mined gold until 1966. They started dredge mining in 1905 after the panning for gold had pretty much played out. The dredges were barges that dug the rocks in front of them, washed the gold out of the rocks and piled the rocks behind them in tailings. The gold was not embedded in the rock, so the 30 ton tumbler had holes of 1 ¼” that the gold and smaller rocks were washed through. More water on these small rocks washed the gold into mats at the bottom of the sloughs and they had the gold. They have pictures of the tailings from the air and it looks like a bunch of warms in the creek beds. Anyway these creeks they are mining are not deep, so they have to build a pond to float the dredge in and then the dredge just moves the pond up stream by taking rock out in front and putting it behind. They move kind of slow. It took 18 years working 7 days a week 24 hours a day (except for very winter when it got colder than 40 below) for the one we seen to move about 8 miles up the creek. It took about 2 hours to go from side to side and then they moved it forward about 3 feet. It only took 4 men to run the dredge, but it took 100 to 150 men ahead of the dredge to prepare the ground for the dredge. They took off all the trees, thawed the permafrost with high pressure water and removed the muck (non gold bearing layers). This was hard work and there were lots of mosquitoes. Only about 1/3 of the crew worked a second season. The dredges dug about 50 feet below water level. There is still gold in this area and with the high price of gold there are about 150 mines that are currently active. While we did not see any current mines up close, they say they operate similar to the old dredges. Except large backhoes put the rock/dirt into the tumbler, which is on land, where water is used to wash the gold out in sloughs. Of course there are a lot of environmental rules they have to follow to reclaim the tailings now days.

Back on Highway 1, The Klondike Loop, down to Whitehorse, Yukon. We camped at MP 674 (Km) at the Klondike Motor Inn and RV Park. There were only a couple of tenters in that RV Park besides us. Tourist season in this northern area is winding down, as it is getting to be the end of the summer here. The leaves are beginning to turn and nights are colder (low 40’s upper 30’s). However, the last couple of days have been just beautiful sunny weather, in the 70s during the days.

Aug 17th. We drove down to Whitehorse. Generally good roads with little traffic and several lakes, rivers and mountains along the way, although the mountains were not the large majestic ones with snow on top like we have been seeing. It was another nice day and Dale went for a 2 hour walk along the river front after we camped in the Wal-Mart parking lot for the night. Whitehorse has really rejuvenated the river front with the bike/hiking trail, parks, museums, a sternwheeler, and new buildings for library, native center, and visitor center as well as gift shops, tour operators and canoe rentals. We had planned to drive further than Whitehorse on the 17th, but found so much of interest we will probably spend part of the 18th in Whitehorse as well.