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

NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAY 68 - Top of the World Highway into Dawson City

Yep, here we go. This is the famous Top of the World Highway route. It starts over a in Tok, AK with the Taylor Highway and ends over at Whitehorse, Canada, in the Yukon.

500+ miles of rugged terrain!! 

We are only going to tackle about a hundred miles of it today. Leaving Walker Forks and going over to Dawson City, Yukon. That means crossing the border into Canada and taking a ferry across the Yukon River into Dawson City. It was really going to be an exciting day! 

Again, here's a glimpse of the road texture where that we will be on. 

Some of it is broken up pavement. 

Some of it is smoothly graded gravel.

Some of it is dusty dirty washboard with big pot holes and crumbling shoulders.

None of it has any guardrails!

All of it is an adventure that has been on our bucket list the entire time we came to Alaska.

Just look at this gorgeous terrain unfolding before our very eyes. We are driving along slowly and relishing every minute of it.

Soon we came to the turnoff for folks that are going to go up to Eagle on the rest of the Taylor Highway.  

This is the start of what is named the "Top of the World Highway", but the road really encompasses the loop all the way around from Tetlin Junction to Whitehorse. 504 miles total...

As we drove along, all of the trees disappeared. We were now traveling above the tree line. The hills were smooth and rolling along and we were traveling on the very top of the ridgeline. This is why you feel you are on the "top of the world". 

Up ahead we could see some white sections along the edges of the road. At first I thought maybe they were rocks?

Oh no, of course not! Silly me. They were

  *S*N*O*W*!!! 

YEP, MIDDLE OF JULY AND WE COULD REACH OUT AND TOUCH THE SNOW!

As we dipped down down down into some of the valleys, dropping in elevation, the trees came back into view, along with some shrubbery. We really didn't see any wildlife though.  The gravel roads in some of these areas smoothed out and it was pretty comfortable driving. We were up to about 35 to 40 mph in some sections. In most of the other sections we were down to about 10-15 mph.

We could look around and see sky in all directions...  we could see the panorama of 360°. The clouds were making a spectacular show with puffy ones in the middle and streaks from behind. The sun gleaming through all of them made it really dramatic. 

Again, we climbed in altitude and got above the tree line. This was really amazing terrain and we could see for miles and miles and miles.

The trees were gone again, and now it was just all of the beautiful low sculpture tundra grass and wildflowers blanketing the hills. It almost seemed like another world to us. We aren't used to this type of landscape back in Wisconsin where we are from. We drank it up with our eyes and felt it in our hearts.

This is where I felt like I should fling my arms wide and run in circles looking at the sky... belting out the theme to "The Sound of Music"?

(Incidentally, that was the first movie I ever saw inside of a movie theater when I was a child of 5)

Yep, we really are on top of the world! 

We were getting close to the boundary of the border between the United States and Canada. There was a little pull off to stop and get a few more photos.

The cloud formations were just amazing, and made it interesting backdrop for our motorhome.

I was snapping photos in every direction and trying to capture what we were seeing. But I guess, really, you have to be there to know what this felt like.

There was very little wind and it was a warm day. We were completely enjoying the sunshine and the blue sky and the puffy clouds and the amazing terrain.

It was time for us to say goodbye to Alaska. We didn't know it at the time, but we would be popping back into Hyder, Alaska on our way home. But for now, it was our big goodbye to the state at the boundary between Alaska and the Yukon.

We just couldn't get enough of the beautiful sunshine and the soft warm breeze as we were standing up at the top of the world. It really was a very different experience. Being able to stand there and rotate in 360°. Seeing this beautiful wild and mesmerizing terrain in all directions.

It's hard to believe there can be this many shades of colors of greens, blending into blues. Each layer of mountains in the distance was a different tone.

Off to the west, we spotted some caribou! They were silhouetted against the beautiful blue sky. There even were little babies in the herd!

I tried to zoom in the best I could, they were moving around and I think I was moving at the same time. Lol

They slowly turned and ambled off into the distance, over the hill and out of our range of sight. It was wonderful to see them roaming the range in the wild, rather than just alongside of the road.

With one last longing gaze, we crawled back into the motorhome and continued on our journey. 

We drove another 65 miles until we reached the iconic billboard of a building facade simile of Dawson City, to greet us to the area.

We have arrived.

This greeting structure was way up on the top of the hill yet. We needed to descend down to the Yukon River.

And the next step, of course, is to cross the river! No bridges here... Hmmmm???

We are very tired after our long day of driving one of the most rugged and scary roads for over 90 miles at the rate of about 10 to 15 miles an hour.   And now we have to wait for our turn to take the ferry across to Dawson City to our waiting campground.

Stay tuned to the next blog post as we put our motorhome on the ferry to get across the very fast moving Yukon River.

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

94 miles traveled today 

5,752 miles traveled so far