Watson Lake to Whitehorse, Yukon, with a brief foray back into B.C.
Distance: 272 miles / 437 km
Time: ~5 hours
To be clear, the green stuff is trees, not grass. The. Trees. Never. End.
Not many folk up here.
Mountains… trees… impossibly big rivers that are weird colors… storms… fires… no people. This is a weird place. This is also where I saw my one and only grizzly bear. It just casually sauntered across the highway without so much as a by-your-leave. The awesomely classified, “Ursus arctos horribilis.” C’mon Adam, are you sure it wasn’t “just” a big black bear? I’m hanging my hat on the huge hump above the front shoulders (and the fact it about spanned a whole lane of traffic). Big.
On…
And on…
And on…
Far enough past the grizzly sighting to feel adventurous again I parked at an empty trail head and headed into the woods with my bear spray to find some waterfalls…
Found: Waterfall.
Found: A fungus among us.
Smoke, clouds, rain, and primordial forest near Whitehorse, Yukon.
I got to Whitehorse on what turned out to be Karaoke Night. Later informed in Dawson City that every night in Whitehorse is Karaoke Night. They were quite good. I won’t post pics of that… seems rude. Pictured taken here on the way to Karaoke Night.
Pictured here is another reminder of old infrastructure: The Whitehorse station on the Dawson-Ashcroft Telegraph line, “the 2700 km … line [was] among the longest and most remote overland telegraph routes ever completed… Built by the federal government in the aftermath of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898, it gave individuals, businesses and governments new access to a world-wide network of … communications. It also asserted Canadian sovereignty over lands near the American border.”
The MacBride Museum of Yukon History is built over the top of the office.
A Viking’s Walkabout: | Prologue | Day 01 Calif. to Az. | Day 02 Az. to N.M. | Day 03 N.M. to Colo. | Day 04 Colo. | Day 05 Colo., Kan., Neb. | Day 06 Part 1 Neb. | Day 6 Part 2 Neb. to S.D. | Day 07 S.D., Wy., Mont. | Day 08 Mont. to Alta. | Day 09 Alta. (Banff) | Day 10 Alta. (Grande Cache) | Day 11 Alta. to B.C. | Day 12 B.C. to Yukon | Day 13 Yukon | Day 14 Yukon to Alaska | Day 15 Alaska (Coldfoot) | Day 16 Part 1 Alaska (Atigun Pass) | Day 16 Part 2 Alaska (Deadhorse) | Day 17 Alaska (Prudhoe Bay) | Day 18 Alaska (Fairbanks) | Day 19 Alaska (Anchorage) | Day 20 Alaska (Anchorage) | Day 21 Alaska (Tok) | Day 22 Alaska to Yukon | Day 23 Yukon | Day 24 Yukon to B.C. | Day 25 B.C. (Prince Rupert) | Day 26 B.C. (Prince George) | Day 27 B.C. (Vancouver) | Day 28 B.C. to Wash. | Day 29 Wash. to Or. | Day 30 Or. | Day 31 Or. to Calif. | Day 32 Calif. |