The Way to Whitehorse

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

WHITEHORSE, YUKON --- I nearly have to pinch myself to be sure I'm not dreaming --- we've actually made it all the way to the capital of the Yukon Territory. And no, it's not a frozen wasteland encased in perpetual ice and snow! We took a drive around town after supper today and saw suburban neighbourhoods with lawns and gardens and busy commercial areas just like any other town.

The setting, mind you, is beautiful; the town stands next to the mighty Yukon River and on the other side the land rises up in pine-dressed mountains, the more distant ones capped with snow, and the tallest ones still catching rays of the lowering sun at nine o'clock at night. We'll be doing some more exploring tomorrow but it was nice to figure out the lay of the land.

Our morning began with a clear blue sky and sunshine, and before we left Watson Lake we stopped to check out the sign village, a local tourist phenomenon. In an area the size of a city par, there is a forest of tall 4x4 posts on which visitors have posted hundreds of signs --- street signs, highway signs, and homemade signs from all over the world. We saw some from Germany, lots from the US, one from Napanee, Ontario, and even a hand-lettered one from Zimbabwe! It was fun to stroll between the rows, but we had to head out, so we restrained ourselves from doing every row.

Our route took us west, north and south at various points in the day, and even back into BC for a few miles before the final swing northward to Whitehorse. It may sound boring by now, but time and again we rounded a bend and gasped at the magnificent vistas before us. There were wide, fast-flowing rivers, spiky pine trees, rolling hills and blue and purple mountains on the horizon in one perfect calendar scene after another. Today, the only wildlife we saw was a pair of prairie dogs!

We stopped at a roadside turnout to take a picture and started chatting with another couple from Saskatoon, who had been to Delta Junction at the end of the Alaska Highway and were now on their way home. The husband told us some scary stories about rough roads and someone whose fifth wheel hitch had been ripped right off the bed of the truck --- just the kind of thing that Val had been imagining when we went through the Kicking Horse Pass! Sometimes it's better not to share stories like that.

Our guidebook recommended a stop at the recreation site by the Rancheria River (pronounced Rancher-EE-a), so we combined that with our lunch break. After eating, we followed the boardwalk through the woods to see the rushing falls. It was a pretty sight, and the woodland flowers and mosses on the way there and back were equally lovely. There are so many clumps of pink wild roses, clusters of bluebells and scatterings of buttercups everywhere!

The Nisutlin Bay Bridge was an impressive sight as we rounded the bend just outside the town of Teslin. It's the longest bridge on the Alaska Highway and we had to take it slowly because the steel grated surface was not that smooth, and caused us to bob along. There go my dishes again, I thought to myself. Teslin is the largest Aboriginal community in the Yukon, and the Tlingit tribe (pronounced klinkit), and many follow traditional ways. A bit further along we crossed the Teslin Bridge, the third longest on the highway and a bit less of a threat to our WalMart Corelle heirlooms.

The highway paralleled Lake Teslin, a huge body of water 86 miles long and two miles wide, and its Aboriginal name means "long, narrow water".

When we turned away from the lake, we were finally nearing Whitehorse, and to our right, or eastward as we headed north, we could see the Yukon River, the fourth or fifth longest river in North America, depending on which source you refer to (I love spouting all these facts; they make me sound so smart, but all it means is that I can read the guidebooks!!). Before we knew it, we had pulled into our reserved campsite and had a lovely chat with our new neighbours, Spencer and Carol Free from Windsor, Ontario. They are full-timers --- living in their motorhome year-round --- and they shared all kinds of good tidbits about the places we plan to go.