First Nation culture education in Haselton

Final stop in Canada and a great education of the First Nation living in Haselton.  The craft people are very proud of their Totums and use them to commemorate a family's events, history, and culture.

This Totum will be erected in a year at the family celebration

Don enjoying the carving

The Totum park

The fireweed is predicting an early winter.  The flowers are at the top of the stem and the lower portion is going to seed.

Right outside our RV park was the cultural center showing the long houses were the First Nation people lived.  We were not allowed to take pictures inside, but they put on quite a show teaching us their history and heritage.



The one building we were allowed to take pictures was the craft building were the artisans sold there creations and some came to work. 

Our timing as great as there was a celebration going on giving us a first hand demonstrations of the traditional dances, drum beats and clothing.

Steward - Hyder

Steward is located in Canada and Hyder is in Alaska, and about 10 miles apart.  This is one commute you need your passport.  The glacier views from the road were great, and the road to the top of the glacier was dusty, bumpy, and made the Top of the World feel like an expressway. 

Really it is blue

And our tow does have a back window

Steward - Hyder has the reputation of bear viewing, because of Fish Creek.  Several of our members saw a bear and a wolf, but not the numbers of bear we expected, and unfortunately no pictures.  From discussions with the Ranger there was only 4 bears in residence and we were close to the end of the salmon season so the number of fish were down. 

Iskut

Iskut is one of the rest tops on our way to Lynden Washington.  The area has very active jade mines.  The mine owners told us that this area supplies 90% of the worlds jade, and 45% of the mines output is exported to China.

Mine; gift shop an jade finishing plant

Raw jade being processed

Red jade for your bathroom

Santa stocking up for his sleigh

Mountain view from the campground

Return to Whitehorse

From Dawson City it was on to Whitehorse for a second visit.  On the way there were stopped at the bakery that has the "world largest cinnamon bun"  Sharon could not resist, she I heart the cinnamon bun. 

We took a unique tour of Schwatka Lake.  Even the taming effect of the hydroelectric damn still left a current that the boat; The Schwatka; barely was able to travel against.

The Schwatka

The current

Whitehorse still has some of the gold rush motif, but is becoming a modern city, and holds 75% of the population of the Yukon Territory.  It is the home of the "Frantic Follies".  This was the best show we saw on the trip.  It had a verity of show types and the people involved were very talented

Whitehorse downtown

The crew could sing and dance, and play a verity of instruments;

including the saw

 and a dramatic recitation and skit of "The Cremation of Sam McGee


 There are strange things done in the midnight sun
        By the men who moil for gold;
    The Arctic trails have their secret tales
        That would make your blood run cold;
    The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
        But the queerest they ever did see
    Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
        I cremated Sam McGee.
                        :
                        :
                        :
                        :
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
    And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and said: "Please close that door.
    It's fine in here, but I greatly fear, you'll let in the cold and storm —
    Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

Sam ready for cremation

Whitehorse is also the home to the worlds largest wind vane.

Infamous Dawson, Yukon Territory

Dawson City was the end of the Top of the World Highway.  Now we had to cross the Yukon River by ferry.  The wait for some of the caravan members was 5 hours.  Dawson City has a great history.  This was the destination the gold rush prospectors risked everything to get to.  From here they were able to travel the Yukon River to get to the gold fields.

The Stangers waiting for their turn

Finally on the ferry and coming across

Don and Oreo over looks the city and the river

After the original prospectors left (they were a restless bunch and went on to the California gold rush) commercial mining operations bought the claims and took over the mining.  They built the dredge barge in a large "pond" on site and as they excavated the ground in front, they extract the gold and the tailings were dumped out the back.  This moved both the barge and the "pond".  The Dawson City Dredge #4 operated until the 1960's.  Next year the Canadian government (current owner) will shut down the reconditioning, and the tours.

Reconditioning the Dawson City Dredge #4

Looking down the gold extraction first step; a rotary sizing screen

The next step; mechanical gold panning

The tradition in Dawson City is the casino and dance hall "Diamond Tooth Gertie's".  This time the casino played with real money. 

Gertie

The Can-Can Girls

Chicken and the Top of the World

This is one of the toughest roads we have driven.  This is the road from Tok Alaska to Dawson City via Chicken Alaska (population 13).  It is the best "shake down cruise for your RV I know.  From Tok to Chicken it is not to bad, but gets progressively worse from Chicken to Dawson City.

Here is the road to Chicken

Gravel sure, but relatively smooth and with shoulders

Coming into Chicken

Chicken is/was a gold mining/gold rush community.  Originally the residence wanted to call it Ptarmigan, in honor of the bird they ate that kept them alive during the winter, but no one could spell it.  So they called it Chicken as the ptarmigan looks like a chicken.

A new use for obsolete mining equipment

There are hookups in Chicken but if you buy fuel, you can boondock for free.  so here are the "cheapskates"

The missing cheapskate is me who took the pix

Fuel station/general store/gold panning supplier

Mining is still going on by dredging the stream

Downtown Chicken

This bar not only hangs its hats but has a panties cannon as well

Our hat, no panties

And what did you expect to find?

AN ATTACK CHICKEN!!!!!

And here is the road from Chicken to Dawson City,  dusty, gravelly, bumpy, windy and look at the shoulders (which are soft and will collapse under the weight of a motorhome, as one went off and rolled down the hill the day before).  Guess who to his half out of the middle?