Day 19 - 22 The Klondike takes its Toll

Thurs Aug 30 Tombstone Territorial Park to Dawson City

Just as we arrived back in Tombstone Park - potholes of gold.

It was a long day yesterday, about 8 hours of driving to do 300 km, but we made it back with no further drama.  There were a few unfortunate casualties visible who'd obviously had mishaps and ended up in various orientations off the road.  Slippery doesn't half describe this gumbo when it rains!

The fall colours in the tundra just aren't bright without sunshine.

My only complaint was my seat belt which kept strangling me with every bump, so my hands were sore from hauling on it.  Finally I dug out the duct tape and fixed it with a clothes pin to prevent retraction.  Norbert quipped that I now had the new hands free model.  Not just a masterful backroads driver this boy!

We're back in Dawson, feeling very disappointed about missing Inuvik and Tuk, but glad to be driving on good roads again.

Everyone in the campground has a story.  Many wisely went only so far as Tombstone.  It's exceptionally beautiful, especially with the fall colours on the tundra, and easily the prettiest place on the Dempster.  Others turned back like us, common sense overriding a sense of adventure.

We're grateful we don't have the tale, and the bills, that one couple recount over coffee.  They made it to Tuk before the weather changed, but their truck paid a heavy toll.  At Eagle Plains it gave up the ghost and needed to be towed.  They left their trailer by the roadside and had a harrowing nightime ride in the tow truck to Dawson.  The tow cost?  $3200.  And the repair?  Still unknown.

They had a hilarious story about one of the vehicles we'd seen in the ditch, a big new SUV that had gone down an embankment about 20 feet.  In the midst of their midnight ride, they'd come upon a tangle of cars and lights blocking the road.  Twenty Chinese tourists were milling about on the road, suitcases all over, cars every which way.  They pointed at the SUV, gesticulating that the driver had missed the turn and gone over.  They'd removed all their friends and belongings from the wreck, and wanted the tow truck to pull their car up.  It clearly was an impossible task, especially in the middle of the night, so he told them to follow him in their four remaining vehicles into Dawson.  They argued and shouted and jockeyed around until they were all installed in cars, and took off after him.  Inevitably they couldn't keep up, and he assumed he'd find them at the designated hotel in the morning.  Instead, they were all gone - just checked out and left!  That's one way to drive the Dempster!

Fri, Sat Aug 31, Sept 1  Dawson to Whitehorse

At least there's always retail therapy!  Look at my moosehide slippers with beaver trim!

It's a long stretch back to Whitehorse, but without our passports we can't take the circular route through Alaska that we took last time to go south.  Nevermind, with each kilometer the temperature seems to rise and the fall retreats back into summer.  We've now got a couple weeks to spend in southern Yukon where the weather looks like it should in early September.  We listen to Stephen Fry reading Sherlock Holmes as the road spins past.

There is more wildlife here than we saw all along the Dempster.  Elk, sheep, trumpeter swans, hawks, a fox and even a lynx!  We saw only a lone porcupine waggling up our trail at Tombstone.

We'll spend the long weekend in Whitehorse so we avoid the crowded campsites out of town.  We need provisions, etc, and we want to revisit the Beringia museum, a fabulous display covering the natural history of the Yukon.  A welcome respite after our aborted northern voyage.