Friday July 22

Garden City RV Park 

Skagway, AK

8:30 AM. 59°F. Raining 

We've decided to take a side trip to Atlin, BC just because it's there. When we get to the Canadian border the border guard asks where we're headed: "Atlin", we say. His immediate response is "Why, there's nothing there".🤣

Back in BCfor the day.

The bypass road to Atlin is in Carcross and just before getting there a brown bear with cubs is right on the side of the road. I could get Bob to pose with them so...

There was one brown cub and one black???

We stopped in Carcross ( a First Nation community) for lunch.

Very rustic.

 The drive to Alin was a very quiet drive. We lost XM radio again or still and there is absolutely no other vehicles. This for you military jargon buffs. We passed a campground  called Snafu then a few miles down the road a campground named Tarfu. I kept looking but never found Fubar. Oh well.

There are a few private mines in Atlin and if your into backcountry kayaking this is the place.

The river was moving a little too fast for looking from pebbles . The area had several mines all posted. So we headed back.

On the way back to Skagway we find a place to eat called Six Mile River Resort. Nice place on the banks of you guessed it Six Mile River in Tagish, BC.

it's a Lodge with cabins but the kitchen was open to the public. So we asked what the speciality of the house was: Pizza! 🤣

We sat the bar and watched Mitch (the owner)  make our pie. This was the best pizza we've had on this trip!!!

Bob ate half before I could get my phone out to take the picture. 😉🤣

Mitch and Doug Dupont (owners) are open until September then close and head to their private resort in the jungles of Panama called Panayukana.May have to check this one out some cold winter day.

In talking to Doug we find out that they have RV sites on the property. So we tomorrow will be a short drive day and fishing on Six Mile River.

Thursday July 21

Garden City RV Park

Skagway,AK

9AM  53°F. Overcast 

9,360 miles since leaving NH 

Today we're  playing tourist.

This is Skagway actually this photo was taken last night. Today there are 5 cruise ships in Port and the boat people are everywhere 🙃.

While searching for parking we encountered a mom otter and 2 pups. Somehow mom ended up on one side of the street and the pups on the other. We pulled over to watch the saga as mom tried in vain to get back together with her pups. The pups stayed in the tall grass and hid barking constantly.  Mom tried several time but her timing wasn't good. She eventually seemed to give up. The pups started to head for the street but never got the courage to make the dash. We left to wander around town.

We decided to do a 3 hr train loop on the White Pass and Yukon Route.  The train follows the Trail of 98. This one of the main paths that the men took from the coast to the Klondike at Dawson City. 

while waiting for our departure we wandered around town dodging boat people.

For the winter snow removal they have a special snow thrower. 

You definitely don't want to play on the tracks.

The tracks are on the opposite side of the valley we drove down yesterday and goes along the actual trail they climbed. It's amazing the stamina those gold rushers had. The Canadian government required each person heading into the Klondike to have a full year of provisions to enter Canada. That was approximately 2,000 lbs of food, clothing and equipment. They estimate that on each trip a miner would carry 200 lbs. Requiring 10 trips up and down that grueling trail. Once they finally arrived in Whitehorse they still had to build boats or rafts to travel the Yukon River for 550 miles to Dawson City. (Re watch the movie "White Fang" the Hollywood version or if you read try Jack London's writings). I think I read the clef notes in high school.

Once we returned from our train ride we drove to the other Klondike trail which started a couple of bays to the north in Dyea. This trail was not did not have the backing of Jack London and is there not well known. It actually was a much harder trail and fewer gold rushers took this trail. But it had a river and rocks sooooo...

So for dinner as all good tourists we went to The Skagway Brewing Company. Our waitress was great and put up with us. We told her about the blog and asked how she would like to be referred to. "How about just the cute young waitress at the Skagway Brewing Company ". So there you go Elise! 😁

Wednesday July 20

Haines Crossing, YT

FAS/Gas RV

8AM.MT 54°F partly cloudy 

This DC-3 in advertised as the largest wind vane in the world. Wonder the wind speed required to move it. (Whitehorse, YT)

Today we continue to Whitehorse;  YT and then to Skagway, AK.

The clock is sure to be wrong tomorrow 🙃.  On the way we pass through 3 time zones in 106 miles.! TERRITORY - MOUNTAIN time

British Columbia - Pasific Time

Skagway - Alaska Time

The drive is down hill

As we decend into Skagway the road drops on a 8% grade (8ft/100ft) for the last 10 miles. Which is no big deal except it is dense fog, no guard rails and a river valley to the side. G

The good news is the drop is on other side of the two lanes. It's  interesting that there is no fog in BC but as we move into Alaska and closer to the coast fog appears.

We get the last site at the Garden City RV Park. We spend the the rest of the day doing laundry 🤪

Tuesday July 19

Hart D Lodge and RV

Slana, AK

8:30AM Alaska Time

51°F  Pattly cloudy

On the Tok Cut-off HW. Construction is a constant and they don't trust us to stay on the road. The wait time varies: longest has been 15 minutes. 

Breakfast at Fast Eddy's in Tok and restock groceries. 

Back on the Alcan HW ( the part we bypassed by going up to Dawson City).

Border crossing at Beaver Creek, YT and on the Whitehorse to complete the northern circle of our trip. 

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE...

We're heading to Skagway to check out the starting point of the Klondike Gold Rush.

We spend the night at the Fas/Gas RV Park, Haines Crossing, YT. Dinner at Red Dragon Chinese Diner. The owner moved here from Winnipeg with her boyfriend and then he left her to join the circus😩. After closing she was heading out to spend a few hours on a excavator: digging a foundation hole for a new house. Not a lady to mess with. Hope the circus doesn't  come to town.🤣

Monday July 18

Kenny Lake Alaska 

9AM  55°F. Overcast 

Heading north on the Richardson Hw.

We stop at the Wrangle-St Elias NP Vistors Center. As we're getting out of the truck we hear, "I'm getting back on the bus. I can hear mosquitoes!" 🤣🤣

Watched a movie about the Park geology and took photos of Mt Drum.

We stopped in Copper Center for breakfast at Ernesto's Mobile Diner. This is at the junction of the Glenn and Richardson highways.

Rather than continue toward Fairbanks we that Rt1 ( The Tok Cut-off road).

Stopped at the Indian River Bridge to fish but the water is too high so we pick up a few cool rocks and continue on. 

We stopped Slana at the Hart D Lodge and RV Park. Turns out the place is closed due to spring flooding but there are 2 water and electric sites near the front gate for mosquitoe breeding: we stay.

There is a collection area in our Rockhounding Alaska book, it'd early, so we're  off. We stop at the Slana Ranger Station to just say hi and find out that we can't get there due to high waters. So we head down the only other road in the Wrangle-St Elias NP: Nabesna Rd anyway.

A little exploring and rockhouding and 3 hours later we're getting back to the trailer and the low gas alarm sounds in the truck. There are no gas stations in Slana. The closet gas is 26 mile back towards Copper Center. We pull in to find a line of vehicles waiting. Power's out; has been for an hour but should be back on before long. One of the waters is a couple from South Dakota pulling an Airstream Bambi (Jared sorry I forgot your wife's name. Safe travels). About an hour later power is restored and we gas up...

Enough excitement for today.

Sunday July 17

Kenny Lake Mercantile & RV Park

8:30AM. Temp: 55°F

This area is all part of the largest national park in the States: Wrangell-St Elias NP.

Today we're heading to McCarthy Alaska road the beginning of Is the confluence of the Copper and the Chitna rivers. Please note the road sign!

The road rises quickly to breathtaking vistas but the road quickly turns to rough gravel road of wash outs and potholes. The area appears to be prime for moose country but no moose. At the end of the 60 miles there is a parking lot with a pay station and visitors information. From there there's a footbridge and a mile hike to McCarthy.

There  Is a Courtesy bus from the footbridge to town but if we wait for that bus we'll miss the connecting bus out to the Kennecott mine which is another 5 to 6 miles. Of course with all the rain the road that we have to hike up is muddy muddy so it's just a wonderful walk wonderful walk at least it has stopped raining.

 McCarthy is not the mining town.McCarthy is the entertainment town for the miners. This is where the workers came to party. McCarthy is not a Company town. KENNECOT is the mine. Adry town no family or girl friend were allowed. So McCarthy grew to provide living for family and provide "entertainment" for the miners.

We got to McCarthy just in time to get on the bus to Kennecott. When we got there we signed up for the tour of the operation of the mine and walk through all of the buildings in the processing of the ore. We had just enough time to have lunch at a food truck before the the tour started. Of course we late for the start for the tour and we had to catch up with the tour that had already started. The mine processing/sorting mechanism is a series of buildings that go up about 300' on the side of the mountain so the tour started by us hiking up the side of the mountain. The guide had several stops just for people to be able to catch their breath. At the top we started down through the buildings that were the or came in and went from floor to floor going through crushers and sorting screens to eventually by the bottom have removed all the copper which is what this mine was looking for.

It cost $40M to build this mine and the railroad to get the Copper ore to Valdez.

The mine grossed $200M in its years of operation with a profit of $100M.

The road to McCarthy was the original railroad bed. The Company rail was the only way in or out of the mining area.

Saturday July 16

Starting the day at Mountain View RV park in Palmer Alaska

9AM raining overcast.

 temperatures 55ﾟ F

we've traveled 8,163 miles

Today we're heading south on the Glenn Highway to Glennallen,AK.

😩

We took a long turn coming out of the campsite this morning and ended up traveling one hour in the wrong direction . Once we realize what we were doing we've got turned around and finally headed towards Glennallen .

VA Stopped at Sheep Mountain rest area lunch time and a little rock collecting.

 Restart for the night at Kenny Lake Alaska at Kenny Lake mercantile and RV park that's the only thing in Kenny Lake Alaska.

 The campground is just a parking lot with a place to plug in the trailer. It's been raining all day; once we got settled we turned on the heat for the 1st time in the trip

Tomorrow we head to McCarthy and the Kennecot Mine.