The Road to Dawson City, Yukon Territory

Leslie, Wednesday June 2, 2010

Bonanza Gold Rv Park, Dawson City, Yukon Territory

We left Whitehorse this morning with plans made (to quote another RV blogger) in jello.  We headed north along the Klondike Hwy toward Dawson City, site of the gold rush.  Robert and I had not driven this road previously so we had no points of reference.  We understood that the road was paved but would have few services and those services that do exist would be far apart. 

We hadn’t decided where we would stop for the night.  Our first possible stop, Pelly River Crossing at 186 miles, would be free camping along the river.  Our guidebook told us that we could “dry” camp (no electricity, water or dump facilities).  Over the years we have found that places like this come and go.  We weren’t able to confirm that this place was still active, so we wanted to have a Plan “B”.  Plan B at 210 miles was reported to be a commercial campground with 20 amp electric service.  After much discussion, we had tentatively decided that we would aim for Plan B. 

Along the way we saw one very shy black bear who ran back into the woods as soon as he/she saw us.  A bit  later we saw a Momma black bear with two cubs.  One of the cubs was a beautiful golden color.  They first began to run toward us and then abruptly turned and ran into the woods.  We didn’t get pictures of either sighting.

As expected, the road was initially fine but there were few villages (only one I recall) and we were definitely out in the wilderness alone. 

We passed Plan A and jointly decided that we would prefer not to stay there. 

Around 3:45 pm we reached Plan B.  I pulled into the RV park and we immediately discovered that it was closed.  There was a “For Sale” sign on the ground. Unfortunately this is a common sight in the north.  Businesses seem to come and go very quickly. Just because there is an advertisement in the current issue of “Mile Post”, doesn’t mean the business still exists. After a brief review of our guidebook and the maps, we decided to continue on to Dawson City today. 

 

As we’ve noted over the past few days, the sun doesn’t set until well after 11:00 pm, so we wouldn’t be driving in the dark.

Here’s a picture of our rigs at exactly midnight:

 

As we got closer to Dawson City, the road conditions deteriorated.  We faced numerous frost heaves.  Hitting a frost heave at full speed results in a very bumpy ride!  45-50 mph was the appropriate full cruising speed as long as the driver slowed to 20-25 mph for red flags marking pot holes and frost heaves (of which there are many).

We arrived at Dawson City (Plan C) at 6:40 pm after having driven 344 miles.  Our elapsed time on the road was slightly over 8 hours.  That’s much further and longer than we ever prefer to travel, but we’re happy to be in place to visit Dawson City.

After quickly setting up the rigs, we went to Klondike Katy’s in downtown Dawson City for a wonderful dinner of Arctic Char.  (Anyone getting the idea that I like Arctic Char???)  mmmmmmm good.

Dawson City has a lot of historical significance but today it largely caters to the tourists.  Tomorrow we plan to visit the historic parts of town.  Notice the unpaved streets: