Yukon Territory – RV Travels in Europe and North America

August 11, 2017 Watson Lake YT

Today we planned a long driving day. There is not much between Ft. Nelson and Watson Lake except for Laird Hot Springs so we decided to take it in one long bound. It is a pretty drive normally through the Northern Rockies, but our old nemesis the smoke returned for the day. Visibility was extremely limited most of the day so we do not have much in the way of pictures.

We also burned a budget busting amount of gas for the day. Hopefully it will be less tomorrow. It was a good day for critter sightings though. We had a grizzly bear run across the road right in front of the truck. It is remarkable how fast he was moving. Later we saw a black bear standing on his hind legs next to the road. In both cases it happened too fast to get pictures. Later we passed a couple of herds of bison next to the road, and one herd crossing the road. Also note the smoke in the background. The smoke really is phenomenal.

We arrived in Watson Lake about 5pm and visited the sign post forest next to the visitor center. Everyone who passes thru is encouraged to post a sign from their hometown. I think the current count was over 40,000.

Tonight we are in a Yukon territorial park for $12. This will help offset the $140 in fuel today.

August 12, 2017 Whitehorse YT

We have moved to the capitol of the Yukon Territory Whitehorse. It is a town of about 30,000 with all of the amenities of any large town in North America including a Walmart. We took care of some maintenance stuff today the primary one was knocking all of the dead bugs and dust off of Scout. A $10 investment in the local truck wash got us about 80% of the way there, Ton declared that good enough as we have some of the toughest travel coming up.

We also visited one of the local breweries, Yukon brewing company which we had visited seven years ago. The beer was good and we particularly liked their lager.

Whitehorse is the hub of travel on the Alaska Highway and you see a great many different campers from giant luxury buses to homemade converted school buses. There are quite a few European RV’s running around town also. The visitors center is the hub of activity, as in addition to dispensing useful information it also offers good free internet. I think we are going to take advantage of it tomorrow to try to post an update to the blog.

We have been doing some planning and after a down day tomorrow will be heading to Dawson City and then if the conditions are good on to Inuvik in the North West Territory. We are also planning our first stay in a Wall Mart parking lot tomorrow to try to get us back on budget, and to check something else off our camping bucket list.

August 13, 2017 Whitehorse YT

Today was a day to relax and explore Whitehorse. After a sleep in we started out with laundry. After that we headed over to the visitors center to use their free internet. Ton checked on the status of things back in Oregon and let everyone know we were ok. Ron published the blog and did some research on the Demptser Highway.

After the research was done we walked along the waterfront and visited the SS Klondike. The Klondike is the last paddle wheel steamer that ran on the Yukon River. It was retired in 1955 but has been beautifully restored by Parks Canada. On top of that due to it being the 150th anniversary of Canada all National Parks are free this year.

There was one more brewery in town so we had to check it out. We tried a taster of all of their beers and they were quite good.

The last stop for the night was Walmart where we are sitting for the night. The price is right and there are about 20 other campers including ones from Germany, Austria, and Romania, so free is a good price all around world.

August 14, 2017 Dawson City YT

After relaxing yesterday we had a fairly long drive from Whitehorse to Dawson City. The road was better than we expected and we arrived in Dawson City about 3:30 pm. For the first time on the trip we experienced a little bit of rain, and the temperatures are cooler than normal for this part of the world. The lows later in the week are forecast in the mid-30’s.

The first stop was the Northwest Territory Visitors Center to check on the status of the Dempster Highway. We were told that the road was in fair to good shape and the weather was forecast to not have any real impact on the road. So we are going to give it a shot tomorrow.

We signed up for a walking tour of Dawson City put on by Parks Canada. It was fun and well done with one of the rangers playing the role of an American heiress who visited Dawson during the gold boom. After the tour we visited the Jack London Lounge to see a Sour toe drink made.. We decided on beer instead. We will probably spend another night around here in a few days after we return from the Dempster.

The Yukon River is a big part of the Dawson City experience.

August 15, 2017 Eagle Plains YT

Today we set out for the Arctic Circle on the Dempster Highway. It is a spectacular drive even though the weather was not cooperating with us. It was raining with quite a bit of cloud cover so a lot of the views were covered in clouds. It was quite beautiful but not super photogenic so pictures were limited.

The first 200km’s of the drive were pretty easy, but at the Ogilvie Summit we ran into about 80km’s of muddy rough road that was a test. We made it through all of that and on a nice smooth pull into the Eagle Plains Campground we lost our rear tire and even more unluckily it was the sidewall so the tire was not repairable. We must of caught a rock going up the hill. At Eagle Plains there is a tire shop and we were able to find a used tire that is the right size to use to head back to civilization.

It looks like Inuvik will have to wait until next time. And though we had bad luck the first 350km’s of the Dempster are stunning and I will highly recommend them to anyone.

A picture of Scout about 11pm. It never did get totally dark. Note the mud along the bottom half of the truck.

August 16, 2017 Dawson City YT

Today was an adventure. We decided that the Arctic Circle was only 30km North of us so we started the day heading there. We also figured it would be a good test for the used tire we had mounted. We made it with no real problem and have now driven across the arctic circle.

On the way south after about 15 km’s there was a loud bang and the used tire had blown. Fortunately we were at a nice flat spot and on a long, dry, firm stretch of road. But for the first time Ron was going to have to change a tire on Scout. A sparsely traveled road 10 miles south of the arctic circle and 220 miles from the nearest paved road was not the ideal place to test our tire changing equipment. Ron was regretting not doing a dry run before with the tire changing equipment. Everything was going ok until it was time to position the bottle jack to lift the truck. Because the tire had failed completely the rear axle was too low to put the heavy duty bottle jack Ron had bought under the axle. But luckily two fellows who worked for the Yukon government came along and stopped to help. They had a jack that would fit under the axle, but was only rated for two tons, which was not enough to lift the truck. But it would lift the axle enough to get the heavy duty bottle jack under the axle, so success. The tire was changed with the help of a third guy who worked at the Eagle Plains gas station who wandered by with a water truck. I never did get the names of the two guys who had the jack that made the repair possible but I really appreciate them taking the 45 minutes it took for me to use their jack.

The next stop was Eagle Plains to assess the situation, as we were back to the same problem as the night before, 365 kilometers from the nearest pavement and no spare. We were forced to make the budget busting decision to buy a new spare tire that worked in a pinch, but we will be discarding when we get to civilization and can buy a matching tire for the one we lost.

After getting everything sorted in Eagle Plains we took off for Dawson City about noon and after a very cautious drive arrived about 730pm. A very long day.

A bush plane along the road. I am truly not sure where he landed. Possibly on the road.

August 17, 2017 Dawson City YT

We debated our next drive; do we do the Top of the World Highway which is a mixture of asphalt and gravel with our mismatched tires, or do the 750 mile detour back to Whitefish and drive the Alaska Highway. Ultimately we decided on the 176 mile Top of the World figuring the road could not be any worst than yesterday and the mismatched tires held up yesterday.

The drive was really beautiful. A great road running across ridges with super views on each side. We crossed back into the US in the most northern most land border crossing. They actually seemed happy to see us at customs, I think it was a slow day.

After an uneventful drive, the first in a couple of days , we arrived in Tok. We spent part of the afternoon knocking the large chunks of Dempster mud off of Scout, kicking back and researching how to find Nitto Terra Grappler tires in Alaska.

September 4, 2017 Haines Junction YT

Today was planned primarily as a driving day. We are headed to Haines Alaska, and there really is not much between us and there. Along the way we ran into a German couple we had camped next to last night. We were stuck waiting for a pilot car when we realized they were in front of us. We followed them thru the border crossing back into Canada and ended up at the visitors center in Beaver Creek. Ton and the wife Anna ran in to use the internet, while the husband Hubert and I tried to carry on a conversation about trucks and Volkswagens. When we went in Ton, Anna and the two ladies at the visitors center were gushing over pictures of Anna’s two week old grandchild.

Today we covered only about 200 miles, but it took about 6 hard hours of driving. There is one section of the road around Beaver Creek where the tundra has always wrecked havoc with the road. The tundra melts because of the heat generated by the road, and engineers have tried multiple ways to stop it, so far unsuccessfully. There has even been talk of going back to gravel for that section as it generates less heat and thus less frost heaves.

I want to end the day by praising the Yukon tourism board. The visitor centers every where are just fantastic. The people manning them are uniformly well informed and friendly. The internet is always strong, and they recognize that travelers up here need a place to connect, so they have seating areas for internet users. Because of this we stop in nearly every town’s visitors center. The other thing that Yukon does well are their Territorial Parks. They are not fancy but they are well laid out and clean, and best of all cost only $12 per night.

September 8, 2017 Watson Lake YT

Really very little to talk about today. Drove about 300 miles thru pretty country. This was the one major section that we doubled back on so we have already covered the road earlier. Tomorrow we will begin heading south in earnest on the Cassier Highway.