Thursday, August 2nd
We started day three by packing up wet gear thanks to a Dawson morning rain shower. Once we got all of our wet gear stowed away for the trip, we got to once again jump on the ferry for our final water crossing of the Yukon River. The ladies at the Visitor Center directed us to the cheapest gas in town, at an industrial Alberta Fuels cardlock system in a mining part of town. After figuring out how to use the most obscure cardlock system in the world, we were finally zooming out of town on the Klondike Highway. We stopped for lunch at Moose Creek, a nice campground though it was lacking the running water that it had advertised. Without rinsing our dishes we were back on the road again. We continued on to Carmacks for a gas stop, and much more excitingly, a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Mint Chocolate bar that was hiding in the gas station! We stopped to enjoy some morsels of chocolate at Little Fox Lake, the scene of a catastrophic forest fire in 1998. The landscape is still charred and recovering to this day.
A few miles down the road we arrived at Lake Laberge. We were on an overlook, not quite a marge, but it was still appropriate to have a reading of Robert Service's “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” After the dramatic reading, we took a look around to discover we weren’t merely at an overlook, but we had somehow ventured into a Public Use Quarry, complete with three Caterpillar 776Bs with keys in the ignitions! However tempted we were to rally, we settled with a photo shoot. (Who knows how good the steering would be on a vehicle whose tires are taller than the trusty Pilot?!)
A few miles down the road we arrived at Lake Laberge. We were on an overlook, not quite a marge, but it was still appropriate to have a reading of Robert Service's “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” After the dramatic reading, we took a look around to discover we weren’t merely at an overlook, but we had somehow ventured into a Public Use Quarry, complete with three Caterpillar 776Bs with keys in the ignitions! However tempted we were to rally, we settled with a photo shoot. (Who knows how good the steering would be on a vehicle whose tires are taller than the trusty Pilot?!)
Our quarry was quite close to Whitehorse, which features the Yukon Brewery (“Beer Worth Freezin' For”). Unbeknownst to us we had stopped in on International IPA Day, a day we should all be celebrating. After a bit of sampling we decided on a growler of Discovery Honey Ale and bottles of Ice Fog IPA and Midnight Sun Espresso Stout.
Leaving Whitehorse led to our second jaunt of the trip on the Alaska Highway for a few miles until the turn off for the South Klondike Highway to Skagway. For the first time of the trip it was uncharted territory for both of us, but it was a great trip. In addition to the mountains and lakes, we also spotted a fox and a bear on the roadside. Though, in just 35 miles or so between the British Columbia/Yukon border and the BC/Alaska border, conditions changed drastically. After what started as a beautiful trip, we summitted the Pass and descended into Skagway in zero-visibility conditions. The situation quickly improved when we located the Skagway Brewing Company, and improved even further when Freddie got off work just minutes later to join us. Freddie showed us the plush accommodations where he lives with his coworkers, and then we all headed to the Bonanza for a fun-filled Mystery Meat Night at the bar to the sounds of songs that somehow Charla was the only one in the bar to know.
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