Land of the Midnight Sun

As we continue to roll through Alaska and the Yukon, we are gifted with very long days, a blessing for travellers. For the past 10 days, leading up to today's Summer Solstice, we still had enough light outside to play baseball until midnight....if we had a bat and a baseball. And it never really got dark so by 3 am in the morning, the games could be back on again. At our furthest points north, in Fairbanks and Dawson City, the days we even longer. The downside to all of this however is that it is the worst time of the year to see the Northern Lights so we have had to settle for a few museum films and art work displaying the magnificent sky views that occur during the winter season.

When we last left you, we were in Fairbanks, Alaska, a city we enjoyed even more than Anchorage. A definite highlight was the U of A Fairbanks Museum of the North, filled with historical, ecological and native heritage information, presented in an easy to follow system. I suppose that is what learning institutes are intended to do! From there we made short stops at the North Pole (Alaska version), Delta Junction (end point of the Alaska Highway) before eventually landing in Dawson City, Yukon. The city built it's fame on the late 1890's gold rush and a self-guided walking tour of the downtown area showcased many of the restored buildings. We also took in an amusing show depicting several of the gold rush characters that I somewhat reluctantly made a cameo appearance in, much to the delight of Pocahontas. Then we made our way to Whitehorse, which like most capitol cities seemed to have more money spent making the city beautiful than in other populated areas of the province.The downtown 5 km Millennium Loop Trail along the mighty Yukon River was a pleasure to walk and seemed popular with the locals as well. Miles Canyon, just outside the city was another treat, with the River rushing through the narrow canyon below us and nice trails that continued 10 km's back into the city.

We are now back in Alaska, in the small and interesting, but touristy town of Skagway, where we have been for the past 3 days. Every day two to four large cruise ships show up in the harbour next to our campground, and unleash their passengers on the town between 8 am and 7 pm. The shopkeepers receive a monthly schedule indicating which ships are arriving each day along with the total number of passengers so that they staff up accordingly. That number ranges from 5,000 (w/e's) to 11,000 (weekdays), so this town of 1100, mostly comprised of people in the service industry, comes alive during the cruise ship season. In 2019 there were 1.9 million visitors to Skagway and almost 1.8 million of them were on cruise ships. They likely get this information from the Border Patrol staff since the only road to Skagway comes from a short stretch of British Columbia, which somehow gained ownership of  the land from the Yukon, just like the U.S. did to Canada along the west coast. Check out a map and you too will wonder how this came about. In any event, Skagway has been a delight to visit. The harbour access brought the Klondike gold rush seekers here by ship and they then trekked through the mountainous and challenging Chilkoot and White Pass trails to reach lakes and rivers that could carry them on to Dawson City and other gold fields. There is plenty of history to tell and we really enjoyed our walking tours, a Soapy Smith (quite a character) show, the Gold Rush Cemetery, along with several short hikes (Reid Falls, Smugglers Cove - geocache find!). A special highlight was a trip on the narrow gauge, cliff side hanging, Yukon Railway to White Pass Summit and back with a narrator pointing out historical landmarks. Being close to the ocean for the last time on this trip, we took advantage of fresh seafood, enjoying meals of Alaskan King Crab, Halibut and Sockeye Salmon.

Tomorrow we will head back to the Yukon, this time to Watson Lake. We are looking forward to our return trip north along the incredibly scenic #2 Highway towards Whitehorse where we will rejoin the Alaska Highway.

The entertaining Museum of the North, stationed on the grounds of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. We got excited about visiting the museum as soon as we saw it from the outside.

This picture (no flash) was taken from our camper van at 1:30 am, the midpoint on that day between sunset and sunrise. We have dark curtains inside so the night light was blocked.......and to be clear, we were not up partying at that time, one of us had to get up to use our tiny bathroom!

The small village of Chicken, Alaska, which we stopped into just before crossing the border into the Yukon. Their population ranges from 7 (winter) to 50 (summer) but this crowd attended an annual music festival and we sadly arrived the morning after it finished. We observed a lot of people who looked like they had a very, very good time the evening before. The directional sign listed places around the world with poultry related names. The original village was named Ptarmigan, reflecting the vast numbers in the area but the villagers had trouble pronouncing and spelling the word so they made the change to Chicken.

The famous Downtown Hotel in Dawson City (dirt streets only, embracing their past) where we stopped into in order to watch the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament. It was also the home of the Sourtoe Cocktail with almost 90,000 people receiving a certificate for drinking the cocktail. Besides lots of alcohol, it includes a a severed big toe (not pretty) which is supposed to touch your lips but not be swallowed. It used to be a $500 fine for swallowing the toe but after a patron decided it would be a story telling move to do so, the fine was raised to $2500. Almost 50 years later, they are now on their 15th toe! The cocktail is only served in the evenings, well after we were leaving, so I don't have a certificate.......but i have a friend who does!

A view of Dawson City and the Yukon River from the Midnight Dome. We decided to have a van lunch up there, gazing at the view around us all the time.

The Best Klondiker show in Dawson City, Yukon, where I was randomly selected to be a participant. I later found myself explaining why a non-hunter or police officer was holding a shotgun in his hands.

The out-of-service SS Klondiker in Whitehorse, beside the Yukon River. We saw several of these sternwheelers while travelling along the Yukon River. They were used to carry both passengers and supplies up to Dawson City

The  picturesque Emerald Lake (Yukon) beside the #2 Highway on the way to Skagway from Whitehorse. The colours are a result of the white sediment (marl) at the bottom of the lake.

A bit further south along #2 we stopped into the small town of Carcross which is proud of it's First Nations history. Various shops displayed lovely native art and products. We made several purchases to bring back home.

The main street of Skagway, Alaska. This picture was taken later in the day when most of the passengers had returned to their ships prior to departure.

Our train trip to White Pass Junction. The narrow gauge rail line was built in the early 1900's.......and hopefully reinforced since then...........to get people and supplies to the Canadian Klondike, avoiding the many deaths (people and horses) that suffered from the mountainous trail journey.

The Days of 98 show in Skagway. The colourful and notorious con man, "Soapy" Smith is in the background behind the can-can ladies (of the night).