NORTH TO ALAKSA 2025 - DAY 73 - PICKING UP YOOPERS ON SIDE OF ROAD - LEWES DAM

Before packing up to leave our free campsite at Pelly Crossing, we made one of our favorite breakfasts.  

I have two little round fry pans that are just the perfect size to scramble up one egg each. I leave them in kind of a circular fashion and don't chop them up too much. While I am doing that, Steve is toasting the English muffins. We cook up some bacon or circular breakfast sausage patties.

Better than any store-bought Jimmy Dean sandwich, or over the road fast food Egg McMuffin for sure!

Directly across from the campground was a service center called Selkirk Centre. Steve had hoped to wash off the many miles of road construction grime and clay and silt from the motorhome. They had a large RV Wash Bay, but sadly it was closed for maintenance. We would just have to stay muddy for a while longer. 

We headed further south on the Klondike Highway. We ran into more road construction. We knew we wouldn't be finished with that. We were told all along the highway there would be long stretches of construction and we would be waiting for pilot car escorts.  Sometimes it was 15-20 minute wait. Then a slow crawl through miles of construction. But it needs to get done and they only have a short time to do it.

The terrain was really pretty. We had a gorgeous day with blue skies and puffy white clouds. This will be an enjoyable travel day.  The tall mountains had given away to softly rolling hills. Lush green vegetation everywhere. They have had plenty of rain so drought has not been a problem in any of the areas that we are in. Which is great, due to such wildfire activity to the north. We do notice the humidity levels are very low. Our skin feels drier and our shower towels dry out really fast when we hang them up for a short period of time.

We reached an area with a scenic overlook called The Five Finger Rapids. We stopped and got out and took a nice break for the morning.

This area is now being preserved as a historic site and a recreational area all together in one.

It is noted for the four tall large columns of stone left in the Yukon River by the glaciers. That made five different channels of water to try to navigate through. Long ago, the water level drop going through was about 2 ft. It was really hard to maneuver the boats through them safely. The big paddle wheel boats could barely make it.  The tiniest channel to the far right was called the "pinkie finger" and was deemed to be the safest but it was also the narrowest.

They finally took the time in the early 1900s to dynamite and blast and chisel away the worst of the four offending columns. So there are no longer five fingers, now there are only four! Lol

Even though it's a fast rapid current, now the boats can get through in a safer route.

We did the tourist thing and took a few photos, and then we made some lunch. It was a nice relaxing break in the day. Nick enjoys getting out to sniff and run around full length on his flexi leash. That's kind of hard to do in campgrounds. So when we have an opportunity with a large parking area or an open field, we tell him to run run run and he races around us in big circles on a 20 ft line. He also likes to bark his head off like a foolish little puppy while he is doing it. Here he is all worn out now after he was done doing his exercise.

We drove on from Five Fingers and continued south on the Klondike Highway. 

Up ahead we noticed a motorhome pulled off on the side of the road with smoke billowing out of it! We pulled over a safe distance ahead of it and Steve ran back with the fire extinguisher to see if he could help! 

The smoke cleared, and it was from either the transmission or the turbo causing the problem. The owner of the motorhome was trying to start it again which caused all the smoke to billow out. But it was done for. Shot. Nada. 

It turns out these people were from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, not too far from my hometown! Residents of the Upper Peninsula are nicknamed "Yoopers" as in U.P.ers. But it is translated into the word "Yooper" which is a proud moniker that most of the residents declare themselves with. 

Their front license plate, which helped us know where they were from!

Well, we just HAD to help them out. It turns out that their tow truck would only have room for one person. There were four people total, two couples. It was a brother with his wife, and the sister with her husband. They were traveling up to Kenai for a week at a fishing camp for salmon. What a monkey wrench this has thrown into their plans!

Once everything was situated and settled with the tow truck company on it's way, the other three members needed a ride over 90 miles down to Whitehorse. That is where their motorhome was going to be towed. Of course, in the middle of the Yukon remote wilderness there are no Ubers. There are no taxi cab services. There is not a rental car agency for hundreds of miles! 

But there were friendly Midwestern people who are willing to help out. Yes, we let all three of them hitchhike a ride with us and head on down to Whitehorse!!! 

We surely couldn't leave them just sitting on the side of the road now, could we?  We know it overloaded our motorhome with passengers and weight, but we were very willing to help out and be careful as we drove towards Whitehorse. 

With lots of giggles and laughs to break the tension of their impending repair bill, it was time to let loose with a little relief knowing they weren't going to be abandoned on the side of the road. 

It turns out that of all the other vehicles that passed them by, only ONE other vehicle had stopped. It was also someone from Wisconsin, like us. It was two little old ladies that really couldn't help much, and didn't even have a cell phone, but they were hoping to give assistance in any way they could. How nice is that? 

The guys sat up front and did their jaw jacking and engine troubleshooting discussions, while we women sat in the back and laughed and giggled and found lots of things in common.

They were so relieved at being picked up by somebody that could relate to them as RV travelers. We weren't ax murders or muggers. We were just helping out in whatever way we could. 

Steve had originally planned to stop at Braeburn Lodge to get a huge cinnamon roll. So they agreed to stop as well and picked one up too. These things are huge, about 9 or 10 inches across! 

After an hour and a half or maybe close to 2 hours due to some more construction, we made it to Whitehorse. Of course, their tow truck and motorhome was not even remotely close to Whitehorse yet. So they did what most Yoopers would do, they asked us to drop them off at a brewery!

They would wait here until their motorhome was towed to a place nearby. They insisted that we stay for a beverage (or two) to thank us for our assistance.  How nice was that, sat around and visited for a while and exchange camping stories and favorite places in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

The brewery had a lot of cute flavors and canned brews available for purchase, as well as fresh brewed beer on tap.

We did the pose thing for a group photo before we went along on our way. After many "thank you"s of appreciation, we headed out the door. We wish them well and hope to hear sometime soon from them about the final diagnosis and result of their motorhome repair. We hope that they were able to eventually get to Kenai for their week-long fishing reservation at a friend's cabin.

Since Steve was unable to wash the motorhome at Pelly Crossing that morning, we found this huge RV wash directly across from the brewery!  

It was called Mighty Wash... Steve was mighty happy to pull on in and get all the layers of road grime off of the motorhome. Especially all of the gritty stuff that was in the joints of our awning arms and rollers and the pivot points of our electric steps. We have been trying to clean them out and lube them up as best we could with slide dry silicone lube. But everything really needed a good washing, including the underbelly.

Steve was grinning from ear to ear as he was able to scrub away the layers with the big foamy brush. It was $37.50 Canadian which later converted to $27.42 US.  Not too bad for a good thorough wash from top to bottom and end to end.

We continued on our way south of Whitehorse. It felt good to do our deed to help out these fellow residents of Michigan. We wish them well and hope everything works out. We drove on into the evening, and we were scouting the maps to figure out where to stop for the night.

It had been a long crazy day. We drove further south out of Whitehorse until we reached Lewe's Dam, with a large expanded bridge over the Yukon River. On one side there was a rest area large enough to overnight in. But signs suggested that it was not a camping spot, but merely a rest area for weary travelers for a few hours. But on the other side of the bridge was a very nice pull-off parking area, complete with a fire ring down below at a second pull off area. It was starting to rain, so that was a perfect spot to pull off for the night.

This was a little wider spot in the Yukon River because of the dam. Was a very pleasant spot to stop for the night and look out over the water. It was pretty darn peaceful. There was some traffic on the bridge, but even after 10:00 p.m. that slowed down. There's not a lot of night driving in the Yukon. Hitting a moose at night is not a fun thing to do. 

The next morning, it was so relaxing to look out over the water as we were waking up and getting ready to move on for the day.  It was kind of nice after our busy day to not have to go searching for a campground. Instead, we just found our way into this little side of the bridge. Sometimes we need to do that rather than a big fancy campground. Works for us. 

It was a slight drizzle as we got our things put back together, our back slide drawn in, and made up some coffee for our travel mugs. 

Who knows what adventures today is going to bring?

Here is the YouTube video that goes along with today's blog: 

202 miles traveled today 

 6,119 miles traveled so far

NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAYS 70 TO 73 - A MOOSE!! PELLY CROSSING FREE CAMPGROUND

We left the Midnight Dome in Dawson City and headed on further south. We are now on what's called the North Klondike Highway. This was going to be a nice traveling day, the weather was cooperating with sunshine, blue skies, and temperatures in the 60s.

First we had tons of road construction. About 20 miles of it, maybe 30. It was pretty rugged --- we had to wait for a pilot car and wait for the big machinery to get out of the way. It was pretty interesting watching the new road that they were creating, but it still took a lot of time. 

We had chosen Moose Lake as our intended campground. But lo and behold, off in the distance we could see smoke! Yep, there was a wildfire and it was in the direction we were going! 

When we got to the turnoff to Moose Lake there were warning signs and everyone was being evacuated. Lucky us, we hadn't even gotten there yet and we were being evacuated? It was time to go further down the highway and to the east to get away from the path of the wildfires. The wind was blowing in the opposite direction so we weren't getting a lot of the smoke. But we knew we had to follow the experts advice and get the heck out of the area fast.

Our next surprise was a moose! It appeared to be a young male. He was on the left side of the road munching on something and decided it was time to cross the road. He didn't care if there was a motorhome coming or not. He was going to cross the road, whether we liked it or not!

I didn't have the big camera ready, so these were just snapped quickly with my cell phone. But we were very happy to see the moose in the wild, roaming free. I just hope he learns about how to cross the road and avoid oncoming traffic?

They say that hitting a moose is like hitting a cow on stilts. And it comes right in your windshield and often causes a fatality.

We could still see more smoke off in the distance. We're glad that we were moving in the opposite direction. Wildfire situation is really getting bad, especially to the northern parts of the Yukon and up into Alaska. Maybe July is a good time to get out of there?

We drove on down to a big bridge that crosses the Stewart River. It was named Pelly's Crossing.  By this time, the skies were looking much better and we were far beyond the wildfire danger.

We had watched someone else's YouTube about pulling into a free campground, just after the bridge on the right. It was an abandoned government campground that now has been taking over by the Selkirk Nation. They were offering the campsites for free and just asked that you clean up after yourself! We were also told that the first four campsites have free electric hookups! There's also a water spigot with potable water available right at the entry shack. We pulled in and found site number one was vacant. How lucky was that?

Sure enough, the power was on. We hooked on up and made ourselves at home. Steve got out the grill so we could start some dinner. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon and evening. There was some road noise further off, but we didn't mind. The price was right.

Steve grilled up some hamburgers. These are the most expensive hamburgers we have ever bought! They were approximately a half pound each. We paid about 10 bucks a pound for them! They could have been cut in half crosswise if they have been thawed and we could have gotten two meals out of them. But they were frozen when Steve tossed them on the grill. They were very thick and took quite a while to cook.

But soon they were done, and they were pretty darn good.  The other thing we splurged on at the grocery store in Dawson City, was a huge wedge of watermelon! I know it was about 8 bucks, but it was worth it because just think of how far they had the truck it to get it there?  Ooooh It was so delicious and sweet and absolutely perfect degrees of ripeness.

Then it was time for a couple little projects. We had bought this really nice little mini vacuum cleaner at Aldi before we left. Since we had electricity, it was time to try it out and vacuum the carpeted area back around our bed. Nick has been shedding and we have quite a bit of hair hanging around... Actually, dog fur is made of little glistens and sparkles to remind us of their love and devotion for us!

This unit, under the Ambino brand, was mentioned as being good for pet hair. The main nozzle just has suction, no beater brush. But there is a beater attachment that goes on the end of the hose to do small areas. And that's just what we had, the small areas around the bed.

Steve also pulled out the runner rugs and gave them a good shaking. That gave me a chance to trim some of the excess plastic that was always sticking out underneath this run of cabinetry. It had been there since the motorhome was new and was never trimmed away to the edge of where the toekick meets the floor. So while he had the rug out, I laid down on the floor with the utility knife and very carefully cut away the excess plastic. I've been meaning to do that for over a year!

Once our projects were all done, we put everything away and decided to explore the campground a bit before dark. Right next to site 1 is this adorable little log cabin. I don't know if it had been a caretakers building back when this was a provincial park campground? Or if it had been built to be a little visitor center? Not sure. But the door was locked now. The place could use a lawn cutting, or at least a weed whacking. But all in all, it was a really pretty campground.

Some sites were along the river. Somewhere nestled deep in the woods in the shady trees. There was also a community garden in the back half of the campground that was run by volunteers of the Selkirk Nation.

We settled it into our lawn chairs and relaxed for the rest of the evening. There was a slight breeze, and the temperatures were absolutely perfect.

This was a pretty comfortable campsite. We decided to stay two nights because it was so relaxing and we needed a little bit of downtime.

I realized from sitting in my lawn chair, that at arm's length I had a whole variety of wildflowers! All of these were taken with a camera while sitting in my chair. Imagine that?

We enjoyed our down time, with perfect internet signal from our Starlink. We had access to more water if we needed it. It was very comfortable to sit back and smell the flowers. Actually, the wildflowers.

Here is the video that goes along with today's blog: 

165 miles traveled today 

5,917 miles traveled so far

NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAYS 68 & 69 - FERRY INTO DAWSON CITY

I left off on the last blog of us sitting and waiting for the ferry to cross the Yukon River at Dawson City. We were waiting in the 25 ft or less line... So were some larger RVs in another line to the right, as well as a big semi truck towing a bunch of construction equipment.  

Everybody had to wait their turn and they were carefully stacked onto the ferry in order of their length to make the most use of the available deck space. It held probably five cars cars in two lanes wide, about 10 cars worth of length per ferry. So if a semi truck went on, it took the whole thing or if a pickup truck with a big fifth wheel that took about 3 to 4 cars worth.  It was interesting watching the process of loading and unloading. There's more on the video link down below.

The ferry gets pushed rapidly downstream and then he has to power on hard to come back upstream to dock at the opposite bank.  We watched him maneuver back to shore and unload his cargo from the opposite shore.

We watched the whole process two entire trips before it was our turn.

The rising and falling of the Yukon River adjusts the levels of the shore where the ferry needs to dock. Both sides of the shore have bulldozers stationed nearby to level out the bank. In our case, the ramp was nearly level with the surface of the bank.

Now it was our turn to get started and drive on carefully under their direction. 

Soon we were loaded on, in order, we were the last ones on to fit on the right hand side. We were to remain inside of our vehicle at all times. 

One of the ferry workers was able to stand in the passenger area and look out over the water.

The ride was short across the river. 

Steve noticed that the hull of the ferry was built in Vancouver and must have been transported all the way up there. Amazing!

We could see the shoreline come in to view where the ferry would dock to let us off. Other people were lined up on that side to get loaded on as soon as we vacated the ferry deck.

We had a very easy ramp-off without any abrupt surface change. We had watched other people's videos of sharp drops or hitting their undercarriage or leveler jacks. We were worried about ours. But it was a smooth transition off and we took it very slow.

We made it into Dawson City. There was a famous author from here who writes poetry, by the name of Robert W Service. One of his most famous poems is stenciled on the side of this building on our way to the campground. 

We splurged and pulled into the Gold Rush Campground right in downtown Dawson City: 

https://goldrushcampground.com/

Granted, this is not our normal type of campground. But the temperatures were rapidly increasing and we were looking at a couple days into the '90s. We needed a campground with electrical hookups to run the air conditioning. Also the air quality wasn't doing very well with the wildfires to the north. It was best that we could hole up inside with the air conditioning for a few days. I wasn't feeling very well, and spent most of the next day in bed. 

The sites were close together. They included electric and water, as well as a sewer hookup which was spaced too far back to the rear of the lot to be of much help for our rig.  

It was $75 a night Canadian, which comes out to $54.84 US after the exchange rate. Still a lot more than we are used to paying!  But we needed it. 

A big storm head rolled overhead and we thought we were going to get hammered. The weather warnings were to stay put. High winds, hail and lightening etc.  But instead it just rolled right over the mountain and was gone!

Nicholas was not too happy with the campground. There was just this little tiny patch of grass between the campsites. That's all he had to go on and he was not pleased. The distance between the two picnic tables is the width of one site. A bit too close for comfort?

But we nestled up inside and took our time to relax a bit after the last few days of heavy travel. There was Park Wi-Fi, but our Starlink was much faster. We curled up and watched TV and just took it easy.

Sunday morning, we were doing a little better and decided to get up and walk around the town in the early morning hours before all of the tourists flocked into the streets. 

It was quite peaceful, we liked looking at the old architecture of the original buildings put up during the Gold Rush. Some of the foundations are very crooked due to being built on permafrost. It was very interesting to explore the town without a lot of people around.

These little huts are put out back behind some of the businesses. We were told this is where their summer workers live while being employed for their seasonal jobs. Looks a tad bit rugged. I think I enjoy the comfort of the motorhome a lot better.

Some of the residences on the edges of the town have been made into airbnbs. The rest of the town are all commercial buildings. There isn't a specific area that's designated as historic. I believe the whole town is historic?

We enjoyed strolling along, looking at the different businesses. It didn't matter if they were open or not.  We aren't really interested in going inside. More or less, we just wanted to walk around town and get a feel for what it may have been like in the old days of the Goldrush.

Found a nice little bench downtown near the paddle wheel boat on display.  We sat and enjoyed watching the ferry go back and forth on the Yukon River, dropping off and picking up early Sunday morning travelers.

 

This is probably the only business we would have been interested in viewing, if it had been open.  We see it photographed a lot on people's visits to Dawson City. Probably because it's basically the first building you see when you get off the ferry.

Nobody was downtown walking about in the early morning sunlight. Nobody except these two very noisy crows, or ravens, that were following us around, and stopping to hang out on the rooftops.

There's a really cool old boat sitting there on drydock on the main drag of Dawson. It's name was the Yukon Rose. We marveled at the workmanship of these old wooden boats. It was interesting to see this one out of the water so we could really examine it. We don't need nautical museums to tour through, we just need old boats up on a trailer to look at. Lol!

We wandered on looking at some of the old buildings. A few of them are locked up where it said private residence or private workshop like this one below.

Not sure what it's being used for, or who's working in it. But it sure was an interesting building.

A little further along the riverbank was the paddle wheel The S.S. Keno.  It was retired in the 1950s, and is now part of a historic display.

There are tours, but not on early Sunday mornings. But we found it interesting just to look at it from the outside. Here's the website with more information: 

https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/yt/klondike/activ/sskeno

I think the nicest part of the morning was that it was peaceful and quiet. We could just wander around and look at the interesting architecture on all of these buildings. Was kind of fun to imagine what it was like living there back during the roaring years of the Gold Rush. 

This building caught our eye, it is made to look like it's all cast of stone. But instead it's really tin that has been painted and nailed on to a wooden structure!  It's kind of funny, where it's supposed to look impressive and imposing and sturdy. But actually it's nothing more than a tin facade.

It had been a bank, and was actually where that famous poet used to work as a teller.

We walked around, up and down, the streets looking in buildings and wondering which are original, and which are replacements.

We did go into this general store. We are very happy to find fresh produce, fresh bakery, and a few frozen meat items. Remember, we just crossed the border so we had no produce, no eggs, and no unpackaged meats in the freezer. Things have to be in their original packaging with country of origin clearly labeled.

We had forgotten to take a shopping bag with us. We were able to purchase one there that was a not too fancy store shopping tote for $20.00! Ack! Or we could get a cheaper fabric throwaway one for 80 cents. We opted for the 80 cent one. It worked good enough to get our groceries back to the campground.

We heard some construction going on in the early morning hours. Even on a Sunday. They have such few short months to get things done that construction workers were on the job on some of these buildings as early as 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday.

Look at this little tiny building that contains their local radio station. Kind of like the hub of the area. Reminds me of the old TV series Northern Exposure with KBear radio and "Chris in the Morning". That show was originally based upon the town of Talkeetna, near Anchorage, Alaska.

We know there's the big touristy thing here where you're supposed to go in and drink a shot out of a glass with a mummified toe in it. That's just not our thing.  Also I know that there are touristy events and can-can dancing shows and things like that. But none of that's going on Sunday morning. 

Instead, we wandered on back to the campground and started loading up and getting ready to go.  Our next point of interest was the Midnight Dome that overlooks Dawson City.  It is quite a trek up there on a windy twisty little gravel road, but we found the turn route leading up there. Our GPS stops part way up. There is a sign saying "Travel at Your Own Risk"!

We learned about this place from watching another YouTube from this couple called Art We There Yet? 

https://youtube.com/@artwethereyet?si=Ex3tC5cnY_QrVFM5

They have a couple videos from camping in the Dawson area, and also the part they helped personally play in the restoration of the viewing bench at the top....

We made it up there, and of course we did the tourist thing with the selfie stick. 

The views were absolutely incredible, even with the smoke from the nearby wildfires.  The haze and the distance gave a surreal look to the landscape. It looked like one of those weathered old antique paintings that you would see stuffed off in the corner of a thrift shop. Only to be discovered and brought to life and cleaned again.

It was very interesting overlooking the town that we had just walked around earlier that morning. The view was spectacular and we enjoyed being up in the soft warm breezes on the dome hill.

A few travelers came and went. But we stayed for a while and made our lunch. It is sure handy to have our own kitchen and refrigerator with us when we travel. We laughingly said "no fast food for us up here"! 

Once the other visitors cleared away from the viewing bench, now it was our turn. We had the place to ourselves! The story about this bench is featured on the video from the "Art We There Yet? Couple. It was fun to see on their video how they were with a whole bunch of people to help assemble this bench in place of the one that had been rotting away in its same location. 

We enjoyed seeing this part of the video in person. The finished bench!

LIFE IS THE WORLD

We can sit here and enjoy the view, and be part of what it's all about. 

St Nicholas

is now accepting visitors 

as he surveys his kingdom 

from his regal throne

 

Here's the video that goes along with today's blog:

10 miles traveled today

5752 miles traveled so far