Saturday, June 14, 2008

 

We woke up to sunshine in Dawson City (pop. 1,500). Dawson City is different from Dawson Creek which is the beginning of the Alaska Highway.  This was our warmest day yet starting out at 67 degrees.  Dawson City is a gold mining town.  The city is sitting on gravel and dust that was dredged up from the Yukon River bed when dredging for gold.  Dredging is the commercial way of panning for gold. 

 

We looked aound at the town of Dawson City for a little while today.  We saw the SS Keno which was the last steamer to run on the Yukon from Whitehorse to Dawson City where it is located now.   We also read about a boat called the Princess Sophia that sank in 1918 with 345 people on after running into a reef in the ocean.

 

Leaving Dawson City we took a free ferry ride across the Yukon River.  It was a little eerie after just reading about the Princess Sophia boat sinking.  Our ferry ride was great.  We drove our vehicles and campers onto the ferry.  We stayed inside our vehicles and attendants put blocks around our tires.  They ferry was long enough that our two vehicles and campers filled one lane and there were two lanes.  No one was in the other lane so we had our own private ferry ride across the river.  The river was flowing very fast so the ferry couldn’t go straight across the river.  We floated across and then the boat motored us into the current to the bank where we drove off the ferry.  It felt very strange to be sitting in our vehicle but moving sideways.  What a great experience for all of us.

 

We left Dawson City and took the Top of the World Highway to the Canada/US border.  The highway was in the worst condition of any highway we have been on so far.  It is correctly named,  and has some of the most beautiful views we have ever seen.  There were a number of times when Deaune would lean towards me while we were driving – there were no guard rails and the cliffs were scary.  (Tim is writing a few paragraphs while Deaune is doing laundry – she gave me a break since it is Father’s Day…)

 

We finally crossed the border into Alaska at 1:10 Saturday afternoon; so good to be back in the U.S.A.!  No more metrics, kilometers, or incredibly high gas prices.  The view at the crossing was unbelievable; you could probably see over 50 miles; mountain range after mountain range.  We got out and had our traditional road lunch of sandwiches and chips and walked on the tundra (we were above tree line).  It was like walking on a moon bounce or a sponge, according to Aleesha (she got tundra in her toes, but she doesn’t want me to mention that…when you see her ask her if she recovered from “tundra toe”.)

 

After lunch we drove to Chicken Alaska.  Not sure why it is famous, but it was a true tourist trap, for the few tourists that make it that far.  Late afternoon, we reconnected back onto the Alaska Highway (the last 3 days had been an alternate route for viewing pleasure) and were finally able to drive 60 mph.  Yes!

 

We arrived at Fairbanks at 10:15 and are staying at a camp called Living Water Ranch.  It is a church camp, and they have made us very welcome.  The folks who run the camp are friends of friends, and have Kansas connections.  It’s good to know people!  We dropped the campers and went into town to eat, and found a McDonalds that was still serving thru the drivethru.  The super value menu is our friend!  We were eating at midnite in the parking lot, and the sun was just setting…but it really doesn’t set, it just slides over and comes up around 4.  Amazing! 

 

I could handle summers here, but winter’s would be a bear with sunlight only a few hours a day.  When we go to sleep, it is still quite light out, and it never gets dark.