On top of the world

Sunday, July 29, 2007

DAWSON CITY, YUKON — It’s back to kilometres, litres, loonies and twonies again! We crossed the Yukon River at about five o’clock this afternoon by ferry, and are now camped at the Bonanza Gold RV Park where we stayed, with Mum, for Canada Day nearly a month ago.
Our route today took us from Tok to the Taylor Highway turnoff, just east of the town, headed for the towns of Chicken and Eagle. Later, we turned off the Taylor onto the Top of the World Highway, and that brought us to the Canadian border and on to Dawson.
The Taylor is not for people who want to keep their RVs shiny clean and their dishes neatly stacked inside. It is not for people who are faint of heart when they round a bend of road with a soft shoulder and a precipitous drop over the side. It’s the kind of route people print T-shirts for that say "I survived...". It’s the kind of route that gets discussed and analyzed between campers in the evening at the RV park’s laundromat. "I wouldn’t recommend it," drawled our American neighbour at North Pole campground, when we were talking about our itinerary. "Not with your trailer, anyway."
Well, we drove it, and we loved it. For much of the way, we raised a plume of dust behind us, because the surface was dirt and gravel — and for the parts that didn’t raise dust, the pavement was often pot-holed, dipped or patched. We also rarely got above 40 miles per hour the whole way, and sometimes much less than that. But aside from that, we passed through some of the most beautiful and awesome scenery we’ve seen so far, viewed from heights so high it was almost like being in a plane!
Over and over, we would come around a bend and see, spread out before us, an endless vista of valleys, hills, and mountains, interlaced with streams or rivers, and dappled with sunshine that peeked through huge, billowing clouds. The land was a tapestry of colours, from dark green black spruce, spongy silver-green moss or willows, purple streaks of fireweed, bright green meadows, charcoal-coloured rocks, golden splashes of sand, a sprinkling of white Queen Anne’s lace, and the deep grey and blue of distant peaks stretching miles and miles off to the horizon.
For much of the way, we could have been the only travelers on the road. Most of the people we passed waved, as if to say, aren’t we the intrepid ones, braving this isolated place?
After we had covered nearly 70 miles, we came to Chicken, population about 100 in summer, six in winter. The town used to be a mining camp, and it got its name because the miners didn’t know how to spell ptarmigan, the bird they encountered frequently in the area. So Chicken it became! I sat down on a bench outside the sod-roofed post office to write a postcard. There was an old wheelbarrow planted with a tumble of bright flowers, and chicken figures on the railing and porch, plus a whimsical hen by the door with a sign that said "Scramble on in!". Since it was Sunday, the office was closed, but I was able to post the card in the slot anyway.
We filled up with fuel before heading on toward the border. When we got to a wayside picnic area, next to the South Fork of Fortymile River, we stopped for lunch. The river flowed by at a fair pace, and it was a clear brown colour — no glacial silt there. It was very peaceful.
Then on we climbed, up higher and higher, and came to the turnoff for the Top of the World Highway. Ahead in the distance, as the hills folded from one to another, we could see short curves of the highway that we would eventually be traveling. Great vistas dropped away from us on the right and on the left, and we must have said "wow!" a dozen times or more as another one came into view. It was absolutely breathtaking.
By two o’clock we were at the Canadian border, switching our clocks ahead to three, from Alaskan time to Pacific time. The highway was in quite good condition, we were pleased to note, once we entered the Yukon Territory, but we still had quite a bit of dirt road to cover along with the nicely paved sections. Several times we found ourselves eating the dust of another vehicle, and the thin film of brown on all the surfaces inside the trailer at journey’s end was a less than welcome side effect.
Finally, we came around the bend and saw, laid out below, the lovely little town of Dawson City, and the mighty Yukon River flowing past it. We had to wait our turn for the short ferry ride across, even though we arrived at the head of the line. The captain was the one to decide who got on for which crossing, and a tanker truck got priority over us, so we watched the vessel navigate the strong current across and back before we were waved on board.
It was great to be back in Canada, and back in this picturesque Gold Rush town again.