Exploring the Yukon

Dawson City

Welcome to Mile Zero! Dawson Creek is the point of origin of the Historic Alaska Highway, which stretches 2,400 km north to Fairbanks in Alaska. This is a great little town with colorful houses, a nice main street, a casino and a bar famous for its Toe Cocktail. This cocktail has a long history and involves guests drinking a shot of Yukon Jack with a real severed human toe in it. Only those with the heartiest of souls can accomplish this task. Yes, believe it or not I was the first woman in the group to successfully become a new club member. When you get out of town and into the hills the views are spectacular. Crocus Bluff overlooks the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers on one side and the town on the other. Bears had been sighted on the trail before we hiked and it was no wonder; berries, shrubs and grasses were abundant. Remember, the way to tell the difference between a Brown Bear and a Black Bear is that the Brown Bear’s scat is full of bear bells and it smells like pepper. :)

Haines Junction and Beaver Creek

Our first major stop today was Haines Junction. This is a beautiful town that boasts “The Gateway to the Kluane (Clue on ee). The area is lush with wildlife and tall snow covered peaks giving us our first good bear and moose sightings. Trumpeter Swans were on the lakes and the bird species and numbers increased. The black spruce, called pipe cleaners by the locals, dominated the landscape and many had burls the size of basketballs formed when invaded by insects. In places the terrain looked like the surface of the moon. There were large gray areas of fine sand created by Glacier Silt flowing from high above, filling in the valley floor. Just when I thought I was in a remote area of the Yukon, we arrived in Beaver Creek. As the locals say “301 miles from nowhere” and it’s true. We spent the night in rustic rooms of pine furniture and twin beds, no TV or internet and hardly any residents. In the winter the population is 80 folks and it doubles in the summer for tourism. The hotel, the gas station/store and visitor center are all within walking distance. Tomorrow we leave Canada and the Yukon Territory and head back into the USA…Fairbanks or Bust.