Watson Lake – TooBusyForWork

On the way to the end of the caravan trip (with some forgotten Teslin shots too)

On Saturday we left the boondock runway to head to Stewart and Hyder. We exited the Cassiar (Highway 37) and took dead end Highway 37A to Stewart. Lovely views even though it rained the entire time. One of the big sights is the Salmon Glacier, and it was fabulous.

People go to Stewart, YT in order to go to Hyder, AK to see bears feasting on salmon. We stayed at the Kitawanga River RV Park, a pretty nice place. I was still feeling poorly, so we laid around more than we normally would. We did cross in AK to see the salmon spawn, hoping to catch a view of bears at the Fish Creek Wildlife Viewing Station. It is a NPS official spot that requires a ticket to get to. Easy and inexpensive to get one online, and we got three days of viewings through our caravan. We went on Sunday, crossing an amazingly simple border crossing into the US. It was totally unstaffed without any notice required. A nice ranger checked out tickets at the viewing site, and we went in. It was a lovely place.

And since it was raining (still!) we just enjoyed the day for a couple of hours without seeing any more bears than the one we saw crossing the road on the way in. If anyone else wants to do this, I highly recommend getting a chair and a water proof poncho or something to cover the chair while you wait. I was still not feeling well (darned sinusitis again), and Kevin’s knee couldn’t take much more just standing g around, so that was our one attempt. Others in the group went back a few times and stayed longer. Their effort was rewarded with some good bear photos. Oh well, we have seen lots of bears in other places. I tried for an artsy-fartsy shot of some dangling Old Man’s Bear glistening with raindrops, but the focus on my iPhone just wasn’t up to the task. I am going to order a new camera as soon as I get home!

The only border control between Stewart and Hyder is a Canadian border patrol spot that actually serves both countries. We had filled out our ArriveCan app ahead of time, showed our passports to the nice agent, and she checked everything. The information is then transmitted to the US, or so a sign at the office said. One of the rangers in Hyder said the two communities actually act as one and did so through the entire pandemic.

On Monday we went to Smothers, BC for a simple overnight spot. We stayed at Fort Telkwa Riverfront RV Park, a very nice place. All the sites are directly above the river for some great views. And guess what? NO RAIN! In fact, there was so weird blue color to the sky! I was starting to feel a bit better since I started the steroids for my sinusitis, though I still cough an awful lot.

I actually forgot the pictures from Teslin I took on Wednesday on the way to Watson Lake. We first stopped by the Teslin Tlingit Cultural Center, but they were unexpectedly closed. They had some great totem poles and a fabulous boat though. I was disappointed they were closed.

We did stop by the George Johnson Museum, a fabulous curated museum that was not the standard small town historical spot. Mr. Jonnson was born in a completely isolated village, and had no schooling until he went to Juneau at 16 to stay with an uncle. He taught himself English and mathematics, and was a born visionary. He came back to the area, opened a store, brought the first car to an isolated area without roads except in the winter when he used the frozen lake, and was an absolute local legend. They had some fabulous Tlingit history and costumes that the docent, a longtime white resident, was excited to share with us.

Today we are in Prince George at the Sintich Campground. Sites are decent sized, but they have small trees too close. We had to do some maneuvering to get so our door would open without running into the tree. We have a dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow as a caravan, and then we are done. We have decided to go through the big Canadian National Parks again on the way home, but just a drive-by. The town of Jasper still doesn’t have electricity after a fire wok out the lines, so it will be interesting. I probably won’t post again until we are in the US. Buying enough cellular data to post in Canada has been expensive!

Skagway, Watson Lake, and Burrage abandoned airfield

We arrived in Skagway on Sunday, 28 August. It was only partly cloudy at first, but of course it started to rain. I seemed to have picked up a miserable sinus infection again, so we basically didn’t do much on Monday. And yes, I did take a COVID test, but it was negative. Guess my March infection antibodies are still in good form since so many caravaners have gotten it this trip! We did wonder around town some, and I got the mandatory picture of one of the cruise ships.

The town itself is (obviously) full of cruise ship passengers. Three of the big ones can come into port at once. It was four at once until earlier this summer when a landslide took out one of the berths. That means “only” 12,000 passengers of so!

Busy downtown with scenic railway right through the middle

Two of the cruise ships along with a part of the small boat harbor

Another view of the Skagway small boat harbor showing a third cruise ship

The town is part of the Klondike Gold Rush Historical Park, and we visited some of the sites of course. The Moores were a leading family. You can see how they moved from a log building to a lovely framed house.

Kevin took in a vaudeville show in the evening called “Soapy Smith,” about a local legendary bad guy. I wasn’t feeling well, so I stayed in the rig. He said I didn’t miss anything!

The next day we were up early for a long day trip to Juneau by water taxi. It was a charter through Fjordlands, and the captain looked for wildlife and good scenery in addition to just getting us to Juneau. Be prepared for lots of pictures!

Three orcas (two with spouts and one without)

We also saw at least three groups of humpback whales migrating south, a real rarity. However my little camera couldn’t catch anything you could tell was a whale, so you will have to take my word for it! Kevin got a video of the humpback, so at least I can show a snip of the tail. We saw the standard puffins and sea otters too.

The tour included a bus ride into Juneau from the water taxi port. It gave us a couple of hours, long enough to have lunch and a quick tour of the nearby shopping area. Juneau was a so-so city in a gorgeous area. There were five massive cruise lines in port and way too many people. Along the tourist streets it seemed that every other shop was for jewelry.

Due to the rain, waterfalls were everywhere

Life sized statue of a 3/4 grown female humpback.

I did end up with some cute earrings, but it wasn’t a place I ever want to come back to. Oh, and I like this picture of the co-captain steering for a few minutes.

The ride back was even more rain, and everyone was tired. The entire trip was over 12 hours. Highly recommend, but hopefully on a day with better weather.

On Wednesday we visited the historic Dyea townsite. This was the alternate way to the Klondike gold fields. After a tragic avalanche, this route lost it glory and was quickly superseded by the railroad. There is an old cemetery with graves of avalanche victims plus other residents. As gold fever died down, the town went back to its roots as a small native community.

Grave marker for one of the 70+ avalanche victims

The area was obviously heavy temperate rainforest, and it was filled with all types of mushrooms frantically fruiting before the winter comes.

No grass, just moss and lichens on the ground

We also took a trip on the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. A fun two hour scenic trip with mostly empty cars for some reason.

Higher elevation views with a mandatory glacier

Luckily we traveled a more modern trestle

Blow it up and you can see the Skagway harbor and cruise ships

Long day, but I really liked Skagway! We left on Thursday morning for Watson Lake, same campground as before. Friday we boondocked at the abandoned Burrage air strip along the Cassiar Highway. It was our anniversary, and while the rest of the caravan got hot dogs, we made steaks, potatoes and onions, watermelon, and cheesecake for desert! I will talk about our next destinations in the next post.

From Dawson Creek to Ft. Nelson to Liard River to Watson Lake

I finally have decent cell service so I can post. It has been quite a while. I finished the last post with us in Dawson Creek at the Northern Lights RV Park. One thing I didn’t do was post the mandatory photo of us at the Mile 0 sign. This isn’t the tourist version which is much more grand and located a few feet away. The folks who took our picture thereput it on a photo sharing site and I haven’t had enough service to download it! This will have to do.

After we left Dawson Creek, our wagon master started warning us of seriously deteriorating road conditions. Let’s just say that he has a much different view of bad roads than we do! A few frost heaves, some pot holes, but I have been on much worse roads. We ended up in Ft. Nelson at the Triple G Hideaway. We just spent the night there after a fairly long trip, and it was nicely unremarkable. The road to Ft. Nelson was the most productive for animals of our trip so far though!

I like this because of the water drops, not because it was the best picture I took of her

Thought it was a grizzly, but a naturalist friend this is another black bear

We found two small nursery herds of woods bison. It is a subspecies of American bison – larger and native to the high forests instead of the plains.

The babies were already losing their red coloring

Part of a herd we passed while they were grazing

One of the not so pretty parts of the drive was the man camps we still came to. These were used for the petroleum and mining industries. Interesting.

There have been lots of these throughout Alberta and BC

The next morning we headed to Liard River and the hot spring there. The scenery was the most spectacular we had seen, full of rocky crags and big rivers.

We went through the Stone Mountain area, hoping to see some Stone sheep, a subspecies of dall sheep, but we didn’t see any. We did see even more gorgeous scenery though.

I wonder why they call it Stone Mountain?

I saw the most spectacular debris field of stones too, either an avalanche path or an alluvial fan.

Well over a mile long with rocks the size of baseballs

Liard Hot Springs was sadly a wash out. The mosquitos were thick enough to carry off small children, and we stayed happily back in the motorhome, looking at the hundreds of mosquitos trying to get in. They drove the cats crazy trying to chase them. The campground was a private one right across the road from the hot springs, and they had a boil order for their water! Glad we always keep at least a 1/2 tank, just in case.

After Liard we headed to Watson Lake and the Northern Lake RV Park. It was right across the road from the famous signpost forest. There are thousands and thousands of signs.

We also attended a decent planetarium like show at the Northern Lights Center. There was an old film (2020) about how the Big Bang created the universe plus descriptions of various components of the universe. Dated, but decent. Then there was a much better show about the Northern Lights. I have seen the northern lights as both general green color in the sky (in Iowa, far south of most of the shows) and as green moving blobs outside Ely in northern Minnesota. I hope to see the ribbon style before we head home, but between my early to bed style and the daylight that lasts forever, it isn’t a sure thing at all.

Today we drove to Whitehorse, YT. The roads are gradually getting slightly worse, but still not too bad. I generally drove about 80-90 mph, or 50-55 mph (the speed limit was 100 mph or 62 mph). It was slow enough I could react to the occasional bad spot in the road and do sightseeing without spending forever. I admit, I do have a bit of a lead foot! We saw some lovely places.

And yet more fireweed because I love fireweed!

We just relaxed when we got to Pioneer RV Park. Very crowded sites and poor electrical infrastructure. We can’t open one of our four slides due to a small tree, and the power fluctuates enough to make operating AC and any other power hungry appliance problematic. Luckily we are quite capable of dry camping without much trouble. The people with the big all-electric coaches can’t even operate their stove without electricity. Thank goodness for propane!

I thought I would post a picture of how Minnie travels, just for grins. Luna generally sleeps on Kevin’s lap.

We had dinner at Klondike Ribs and Salmon. Fabulous! I had salmon, and Kevin had the ribs. I will post what we do during our stay here later.

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