Whitehorse to Carmacks, 113 miles, June 20, 2010

One thing about being parked just across from the RV park dump you have morning entertainment.   This Class B drove up to the dump, then backed up some at an angle, then he got out,  fiddled with something inside the rear door and low and behold he was dumping right there at the edge of the concrete that sloped toward the dump.  No hose or dignity.  Fortunately it looked like grey water and not black.  Who knows where the black water got dumped.

You know the look when a male dog goes with his leg lifted, well I can see that same look in her face. 

We thought we would go to Mayo today on the Silver Trail a side trip on our way to Dawson City, but when I entered were we were going, the GPS indicated it would take 7 hours, no way.  We don’t travel that much in a day, so back to the maps and “The Traveler’s Guide to Alaskan Camping” by Mike and Terri Church, our newest favorite book for locating RV Parks.  [Side note:  this book gives the location to each RV park and campground by address and by GPS coordinates.  With our new GPS –Garmin Nuvi 1450, it is so easy to enter the coordinates of our next park and off we go.]  Since Carmacks was about 110 miles away, Carmacks it will be for our evening stop.

We left the Alcan just a little north of Whitehorse and headed towards Carmacks and Dawson City.

We had hoped to see some wildlife, but it wasn’t in our cards today.  This was all we saw.

A forest fire had burned in the area in 1998 (Fox Lake Fire), it was started in July and burned the next winter and into the next spring.

 

 

A little further up the road we stopped at the remains of the Montague House, a road house which offered lodging and food on the stagecoach route between Whitehorse and Dawson City.

There were even remnants of fabric tacked on the logs inside the roadhouse.  The used fabric over the logs then wallpapered over the fabric.  It was so neat to see a definite fingerprint from the past.

After arriving in Carmacks, found a nice pull-through site at the Carmacks Hotel and RV Park, $23.50 CND, Good Sam Discount.  After lunch, headed out to see the town via a walking tour, about three miles later we were back, but did find some interesting places along the way.  Here is the Hazel Brown Cabin.  Her father and uncle had come up over the Chilkoot Pass to prospect gold in this area, later settling here.  I am pointing to the split log edge on the roof to hold the sod on the roof in place.

Here is the Carmacks Roadhouse for the stagecoach route.  This one is in better condition that the one we saw earlier.

Across the road from the roadhouse is this wonderful structure,  it was the stables for the White Pass and Yukon Winter route from Whitehorse and Dawson City.  The horses stabled here were well taken care of with imported grains and hay as their job was not easy.

This photo was taken at 10:30 pm, still very light, people are out playing catch and visiting like it was much earlier in the evening.  Tomorrow night is the longest day of the year, the first day of summer.   The RV park we are in is just across the road from the Yukon, so another shot of Bob and the Yukon (just for you Gerri).