Part 22: The Klondike and Dempster H'way- Whitehorse, Dawson City, Inuvik.

Thursday, 25 August 2011 11:45 am

Friday 19th August:


Fuelled up and with the food storage full we continue our drive to more northern latitudes.


Past Five Finger Rapids where the stern wheeled steamers had to negotiate with great skill.


Camp was down a track and on top of a cliff overlooking the mighty Yukon River. Here is a First Nations summer camp, seems deserted for some time so hopefully we have this great place to ourselves.


Camp 108: First Nations Camp on the Yukon River.

Cost NIL

N62* 21.509  W136* 27.197

Today:   237 Kms. 

Trip Total :  50,182  Kms.   


Saturday 20th August:

Dawson City where it was said that the streets were paved with gold.

In 1896 the Klondike Gold rush rush attracted thousands of hopefuls over the most inhospitable terrain.  Some made it incredibly rich, most struggled just to find work.  Once the hand miners had worked the old gravels below the permafrost, and the small dredges had worked the rivers, massive dredges like No4 preserved in Bonanza Creek, would work the entire area. These dredges worked the Klondike and adjoining rivers from 1906 to 1959 and No3 and No4 were the largest in the world.

One of the best days returned 800ozs.


Today, gold is still found. As we were in Dawson there was news that drilling had found the mother load that was perhaps the source of the alluvial deposits. Dozens of helicopters were busy ferrying equipment into the hills.


Just above No4 dredge, a small operator last week working around this old miners house uncovered 40ozs of gold in one spot. It is believed that the old miner may have buried his fortune as he went to war, never returning.


Dawson is a mining town frozen in time, if you can disregard all the tourists!


In some places business is as usual !


Camp 109: Fire Tower above Midnight Dome above Dawson City.

(Klondike on the far left, the Yukon coming into Dawson and the Yukon heading west towards Alaska)

Cost NIL

N64* 04.109  W139* 20.026

Today:   351 Kms. 

Trip Total :  50,533  Kms.   


Sunday 21st August:


For the first time for many days the sky was blue, but down below in Dawson it was still covered in cold cloud.


Today was a tourist day and we joined Parks Canada on some very good interactive tours around Dawson City


Reliving the late 1890 days in the Post Office, Bank, Bars, and Vaudeville Halls.


Some interesting Klondike facts:

  1. • The gold strike was first reported on the 15th July 1897 when 68 miners arrived in Seattle with 2 tons on GOLD!

  2. • More than 100,000 started the journey from all over the globe to the Klondike.

  3. • It was such a large strike that money came from everywhere to travel, buy supplies and go. Within a week, it was reported this single event was the end of the Great Depression.

  4. • 30,000 prospective miners arrived in Dawson in 1898.

  5. • Gold was then US$20.64/oz

  6. • In Dawson City, there were 800 women to 10,000 men

  7. • A tub wash was $5.00

  8. • Dawson was once the ‘Paris of the North’ you could buy anything if you had GOLD

  9. • Until 1898 gold dust was the only legal currency.

  10. • For some it was easy come easy go, you just had to go back up the creek for more.

  11. • In one vaudeville show a 9 year old girl singing homely songs earned $18,000 in one season by way of gold nuggets thrown on stage.

  12. • The boom lasted only two years, when gold was discovered in Nome, Alaska in 1899 then over 60% of the population left.


Left town around 6.30pm travelling about 30kms up the Dempster Highway before calling camp in a disused quarry. It is 8.30pm and the sun is still high and bright!     10.30pm...same

Camp 110:   Quarry Camp Dempster H’way

Cost NIL

N64* 10.066  W138* 32.545

Today:   79 Kms. 

Trip Total :  50,612  Kms.   


Monday 22nd August:

The day started with a 6km walk up and back the Grizzly Creek Trail. 3 hours, exhausting yet rewarding.
So much moss growing everywhere. Mist drizzling down, if we stopped I am sure moss and lichen would grow up our legs.
Travelling north slowly in the hope of seeing Grizzlies or Caribou but nothing.


At 800 to 1000 metres the tree line had all but disappeared. The landscape stark but interesting.



All day it drizzled and for many kilometres we chased the rainbow.













Camp was down a track and right on the Ogilvie River.

Camp 111:   Ogilivie River Camp

Cost NIL

N65* 25.020  W138* 12.463

Today:   183 Kms. 

Trip Total :  50,795  Kms.   








Tuesday 23rd August:

Wildlife is scarce, no bears or caribou yet we have seen a couple of beavers.


Stopped at a repeater tower and drove to the top of the hill for coffee. Then walked to the highest point and added to the small cairn our GoannaTracks tag.











Reached the Arctic Circle sign post and had to stop for the obligatory photograph.


Here we caught up again with the father and son team of the Royal Mounted Canadian Police. They were doing a patrol in a police camper from Inuvik to Whitehorse and back. Robert (Jnr) is stationed in Inuvik and his father Robert (Snr) is a liaison officer with the Human Smuggling & Illegal Immigration Office.  He is trying to do the same as his comrades in Australia and stop the flow of boat people to Canada. The boat people endure a 45 day journey from S.E Asia in converted steamers that were destined for the junk heap.


We finished up camping with these guys just before the North West Border. Had a great evening walking the hills looking for migrating Caribou and Bear.

We did, in the distance seen some but too far away.





However all over were the antlers from previous First Nations hunting expeditions.





Camp 112:   No Caribou Camp

Cost NIL

N66* 59.997  W136* 12.881

Today:   273 Kms. 

Trip Total :  51,068  Kms.   



Wednesday 24th August:


The wind of the previous night had abated, but the low cloud clung to the high country as we crossed the border into the North West Territories.

At times we were doing 45kph in 50 meter visibility...definitely no animal spotting in this soup.


As the dropped off the Richardson Range down to the Peel River the cloud cleared. Not blue sky but much better viewing.


Definitely getting colder as we head north. The trees, where they do grow, are short and stunted. Ofter at odd angles because their roots can not hold against the movement of the permafrost below.

Surprisingly forest fires caused by lightning strikes also devastate the pines.


On the higher plateaus, the vegetation is restricted to mosses and lichen.


This is a big land that photographs do not do justice. Much like the central Australian Deserts - stark yet beautiful.




At the confluence of the Arctic Red and Mackenzie rivers is the ferry crossing north, unfortunately a tourist bus had come stuck on leaving the ferry. A totally disorganised chaos continued for an hour and a half. I was asked to help tow, and graciously offered, but the overweight bus driver who never got out from behind his steering wheel and only called out to the ferry people. “You hook that anywhere and do damage to this $600,000 bus you will be paying for it”




With that, I left it to others.

Like this poor old passenger trying to rake away the stones below the bus


Eventually the ferry backed off the bank leaving the bus to collect its passengers and drive into the evening.








Camp 113:   Inuvik Camp

(Jak Territorial Park - nice clean and hot showers + internet)

Cost C$22.50

N68* 20.032  W133* 39.571

Today:   292 Kms. 

Trip Total :  51,360  Kms.   


 
<< Part 21: North on the Cassiar & Alaskan H’way - Hazelton to Whitehorse  | Index |  Part 23: Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk, Back down the Dempster. >>